September 15, 2009 - Preparation, Packing and Panic

Tomorrow begins a new adventure. Our plan is to drive our faithful (so far) 2005 Mazda MPV about 7500 miles from Athol to Utah and back, visiting National Parks, Presidential museums, and oddball attractions along the way. OK, maybe a couple of casinos, too.

Today we have to pack, which isn't as easy as it sounds. There are a bunch of things in the garage and attic to transport to our son Arthur near Denver, about 4500 miles and three weeks into the trip. We have no idea what weather to dress for, since early autumn in the Rockies can be summery or wintery, depending on the caprice of Mom Nature on a given morning. As senile citizens, we need to pack a month's worth of meds. Since our dispensers hold only a week's worth, I guess there will be a bag with all the pill bottles and those damned Atenolol plastic bubble-pack containers. Wait a minute; I shouldn't be guessing 18 hours before we head down the road.

We shouldn't have any problem getting lost. We have enough Google maps with us to make Rand kiss McNally, and Patti Tripp is riding with us. Patti is our Garmin GPS, and a constant source of amazement to anyone born before the electronic revolution.

We aren't virgins at this; it's our fourth cross country trip since 2005, when we drove to Seattle, cruised to Alaska, choo-chooed to the Grand Canyon and ferried across Lake Michigan, all on the same trip. Here we were in the South Dakota badlands, an arid, eerily beautiful place that makes you admire the tenacity of prairie dogs.

In 2007 we drove to Colorado to visit our son Arthur, and on the way back stopped in Sun City, Texas, to visit dear ex-Massachusetts friends Ronnee and Steve. From there we took in the Gulf Coast area and saw the devastation still remaining two years after Katrina. In 2005 and 2006, Mary Frances worked in New Orleans for FEMA, that organization of selfless souls who took the rap for all the screwups in the executive branch. And, to show our support for the rebuilding effort, we left a little money in a couple of Biloxi's rebuilt casinos.

Last year, another trip to Denver and back on what was our Presidential Museum Tour, where we took in the Lincoln Museum and tomb in Springfield, Illinois; the Truman Museum in Independence, Missouri; the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, Kansas; the Herbert Hoover Museum in West Branch, Iowa; and the Gerald Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We highly recommend them all. Here's Arthur and his mom at the Elephant Bar in Lakewood, Colorado:

Each of our trips either begins or ends with a visit to our older son, Dana, and his family in Columbus, Ohio. That will be the denouement of this trip--let's hope this blog is still going then.

Holy mackerel! I've got to pack!