We're home. And home is a wonderful place. Wonderful places has been the theme of this trip, I guess. Looking back at it now, there wasn't a bad place we went, nor a bad person we met, nor a bad day we spent. It started in the southeast of West Virginia and Kentucky, two beautiful states I discovered with this beautiful woman:
Mary Frances in the high Appalachians.
Between Lexington and Bowling Green, there's a lot of Lincoln birthplace country, and if you're a huge fan of the Great Emancipator as I am, it is an area well worth visiting:
During the early part of our journey, we spent a lot of lunchtimes at roadside rest areas, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Alas, our frugality didn't last.
Preparing a feast along the road in Tennessee
It was just a second thought to stop at Graceland. Since the Bill Clinton Library & Museum is closed on Sunday mornings, we visited Elvis's digs instead. Sorry, Bill.
Graceland
In Oklahoma City, the Cowboy Museum was the pleasantest of surprises:
End of the Trail, Cowboy Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
We passed, and were passed by, thousands of trucks carrying thousands of products to thousands of places. This recession is certainly not obvious from the road:
I love those trucks carrying goods to market.
Mary Frances knows how to get into the spirit of things:
Mary Frances at the Historic Taos Inn, Taos, New Mexico
Those wonderful National Parks...
Mesa Verde is inspirational. Climbing about in the cities these amazing people created in the rocky cliffs, you can hear their voices about you, feel their fears and their struggles.
Mesa Verde National Park
Our Native American brothers have so little, thanks to our government's incredible inhumanity a century and a half ago, and its incredible blindness since. But the Navajo Nation does have Monument Valley, where their gods live.
A beautiful butte
Dam. In this case, the Lake Powell Dam, which collects water in Glen Canyon, or at least where Glen Canyon used to be.
A picture we took when we thought we were early--but we were late.
A boat ride on Lake Powell is a beautiful way to spend a day.
Would you believe she's put up with me for almost fifty years?
The best person I know by a dam site:
Mary Frances holding back 13,000,000 acre-feet of water at Glen Canyon Dam
Zion National Park. A simply beautiful place. We thought nothing could match it.
Zion National Park is viewed mostly from the bottom.
Between Zion and Bryce Canyon, we ran into a small town that sounded a bit familiar:
Yours truly waiting to be cancelled. Unfortunately, only open for two hours a day.
Mary Frances was fascinated by the ancient trees in the Escalante/Grand Staircase National Monument:
It was near 100 degrees that day. Who would've thought we'd be trudging through snow a few days later.
Our faithful MPV, fording the muddy arroyos on her fourth cross-America adventure.
This has been a wonderful car.
The wonderful hoodoos of Bryce Canyon National Park:
The beauty of Bryce Canyon is impossible to describe.
The vast wonder of Canyonlands:
The Canyonlands are, in a word, vast.
Behind this arch stretches one of the largest, deepest canyons in the world.
The beauty of Arches:
One of hundreds of arches in the national park of that name.
In the top center you can see the Delicate Arch, becoming the state symbol of Utah.
Time for family...
After more than a week in the natural splendor of Utah, a bit of socializing with Mary F's brother and his wife Joanne in Colorado Springs, at the best hotel for the money on earth:
At the Air Force Inn, $48 a night for a magnificent suite.
Mary Frances and Elmer at Garden of the Gods:
Mary Frances and her brother Elmer
The impressive Air Force Academy:
The Air Force Academy is top rank.
After leaving our friends and relations in Colorado Springs, we enjoyed three leisurely days in Denver with our son Arthur. But shortly we were on the road again, northward toward Deadwood, South Dakota. Here we spotted some wildlife--in the snow!--in the Black Hills National Forest:
One of many deer who paid little attention to us in the Black Hills National Forest
From Deadwood, it was eastward again as our travels began to wind down. We enjoyed visiting our dear friends Cathy and Rex Bridgman in Ord, Nebraska, and traveling the beautiful prairie country:
I love to drive across the prairie states. There's a special perspective here...and terrific people.
Goodbye, Columbus...
From there we crossed Iowa to Davenport, and then to our son Dana and bride Wendy's home in Columbus, Ohio, to play with our grandchildren Violet and Victor. After three wonderful days, it was north to Lordstown, Ohio, where another dear friend, Jean Callahan, made us feel at home. Finally, it was on the road again, toward home and the end of a wonderful adventure.
A typical vista ahead.
OK, I confess. This picture was taken before we left. Just before, actually, at the 50th reunion of the Athol High School Class of 1959, on September 12th.
Altogether, we drove 7786 miles in 27 days, visited a dozen National Parks and Monuments. Our little MPV only asked for $813 worth of gas, while we consumed nearly $2000 worth of food. We stopped at five casinos along the way and came out about $1000 ahead. We bought $1700 worth of gifts, mostly for our kids, and spent $1300 on miscellaneous items, about half of that brakes for the MPV in Amarillo. Lodging along the way was a measly $1131, thanks to using our Marriott Rewards points for most of our stays. In total, we spent about $7400, about a third of cruising at sea for the same amount of time would have cost.
Would we do it again? Hell, yes. We're already planning the next adventure, and we'll have a blog for that one, too. But for now, this is the end. Thank you for being our vicarious companions.
Thanks also to FEMA for giving us old folks employment so we can afford this sort of thing, and to the Bridgmans and Jean Callahan for being so hospitable, and to family, Elmer and Joanne Barney, Arthur Hatch and Dana, Wendy, Violet and Victor Hatch for being our Ports of Call.
Hope to see you on the next adventure.
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