Heading Home!

This past Monday morning, I woke up at my campsite at Silverwood Lake State Park northeast of Los Angeles. I'd been as far west as I could go. Going north sounded intriguing, but it was still cold in that direction. Besides, I was really missing my family. Driving north on I-15, I came to the cutoff for the beginning of I-40. It starts at Barstow, California, and goes east all the way across the country. A sign at the cutoff says "Wilmington, North Carolina 2,550 miles." I took that sign as a sign.

Six days of hard driving later, I sit here on Saturday night at my campsite in eastern Tennessee in the foothills of the Smokies. Tomorrow I continue over the mountains and on to Charlotte where I'll see my mother, my sister and brother-in-law, and my niece and her new baby, who was born while I was out west. In a few more days, I'll be back in Maryland, very happy to see Tracey. Eric and Malina, too.

Tracey and I have talked on the phone every day, usually three or four times. So in a sense, she's been on the trip with me. She's kept up with my locations and has a map on the wall plotting my course.

It took me nearly six weeks to reach the West Coast, and just six days to get almost back. This is the first time I've essentially crossed the whole country in one swoop. It really lets you appreciate how things "unfold" as you move eastward. The California coast gives way fairly quickly to a series of hefty mountain ranges. Western mountains are for the most part treeless and seem newly-made and "toothy" with their craggy projections. Downright fangy, some of them. Others look just like gigantic rock piles. I don't know how they stay assembled. I thought of the Joad family in "The Grapes of Wrath" and how they spent weeks crossing these mountains in their old truck on their way west from Oklahoma. And here I was just zipping over them in a couple of days. Then you get to Arizona and New Mexico where everything flattens out into desert with distant views of barren mountains. The Texas panhandle is a bleached white expanse of flatness. At the Oklahoma border, things start to green up. Halfway through that state and on in to Arkansas and Tennessee, it just gets greener and greener. The distant western vistas shrink as the foliage encroaches. By eastern Arkansas, trees have essentially blocked the view. But the trees are a welcome sight and I don't begrudge their encroachment. In fact, they are like a cool and soothing balm after weeks in the dry and brown west, not that the desert doesn't have it's many merits.

I have really enjoyed this trip. Amazingly (and here I'm looking for some wood to knock on), there have been no real problems. In fact, all has gone extremely smoothly. GoJoe has performed like a charm and has proven to be an excellent home on wheels. The weather - well, I just can't believe the weather. Aside from a few days of cold and rain in Texas, I've basked in 70 and 80 degree sunny weather the whole time. Of course, in the desert west, the temps drop like a lead balloon at night, but that's OK. That's what cozy RVs are for.

I'm grateful that I was able to travel with no particular itinerary or time limit. I found that I was just fine with whatever materialized each day. Maybe because there were no expectations, there were no disappointments. I particularly liked the long drives that gave the opportunity to look long and hard at the ever-changing scenery. And the people in the campgrounds were invariably enjoyable. Most RVers are curious about where you're from, where you're going. And you're curious about them.

I'll have lots of memories to savor over the coming months and years. Getting used to driving GoJoe and then realizing that I'm now whizzing around like I'm driving a Volkswagen. Living it up at Betty's RV Park in the Cajun country of Louisiana. Seeing how Tabasco Sauce and Taylor guitars and Lazy Daze RVs are made. Walking around LBJ's ranch. Being awestruck and feeling small and away from everything at Big Bend. Enjoying the absence of humidity in the western air. Being dazzled by a zillion stars in the sky. Meeting a man who built a mountain. Scooting over the desert on an off-road four-wheeler. Standing on a bluff watching the Pacific waves crash on the beach below. And best of all seeing and enjoying and spending time with old friends and meeting new ones.

All these things add up to one great experience. I consider myself very lucky to have had it. And the cool thing is -- there'll be more down the road.