About a year or so ago my wife, Saskia, was doing some gardening. No, not the type you do with plants, but the kind she does in my head at times. She was planting seeds in my mind.

“Hey, what do you think about a road trip next summer? We can go visit our daughter in Seattle and check out Yellowstone on the way.” 

I replied with, “Sure, sounds like a great idea.” And to be honest, it did sound like a great idea. But it was a lot like saying, with all sincerity to someone you haven’t seen for a while, “Absolutely, can’t wait, let’s grab coffee sometime soon.” I instinctively placed it in that section of my brain that is filled with great ideas. There are songs not finished, stories not put to print, arts and crafts projects that will never see light, woodworking designs never to be touched by tools, boats unbuilt, plans for inventions the world needs that will make me rich, and well, you get the picture. A dead-end street that I venture down less and less frequently as time passes. I was certain that the “road trip” would end up there.

But my wife is not put off that easily. She is a great paradox for me in so many ways. In many daily things, her impatience actually overwhelms me while with other things she is as low-keyed as a lake surface without a breath of wind. Time would pass and she would come back and water the seeds. During a dinner conversation, I would hear, “One of my coworkers was telling me about a national park in Canada called Banff. He said it is beautiful. There’s a lot of great forest and animals. They had a great time.” I would grunt something like, “Wow, that sounds nice,” and go back to what I was dinner. But each time she would bring it up something would click inside me, a switch that carried current that would light up my past.

As a child, I lived in books. I sailed the world. I herded cattle in the West. I fought pirates. I was a pirate, a detective, an outlaw, a thief, a hero and an adventurer. I lived in different countries and different centuries. I conquered worlds and died a thousand deaths as I worked my way through the school, church and public libraries. I could not get enough. I rarely shared these stories with anyone. I was a loner as a child and tend to be that way as an adult. My real friends lived rich, vibrant and colorful lives on the pages of books.

That would connect to remembrances of a young man not long out of high school. A vagabond, spending several years seeing most of the county a day at a time. Whether it was driving a motorcycle coast-to-coast, hopping a freight train through the Rockies, riding my thumb for hundreds of miles or driving an old rattletrap car down dusty highways, I was always on the move. I met many wonderful people and found the basic goodness in them. The mountains, deserts, oceans, and plains were all my home and each full of beauty in its own way.

A couple of times in the last few months I’ve had someone say to me, about a certain part of the country, “Yep, this is God’s country.” They would say it with a huge smile and an all-knowing look that would truthfully irritate me. I have found it all to be Gods country and have chosen a little spot in the mountains of North Carolina to call home. It is from this spot I am contemplating an excursion to some places new and some visited many years ago.

So as the conversations about the “road trip” continued, they became more about ‘how we are going to do this’ and less about ‘if we are going to do this.’ I believe today that Saskia made my mind up for me the day she planted the seed. The plan grew. What started out as a couple of weeks across the country and back became a trip across Canada and then down to Seattle with a meandering path back home. As summer grew closer we talked about it more and more.

She was full of energy and enthusiasm as I watched the trip grow into a month-long odyssey. She could see only the fun and adventure, me not so much. I saw the opposite side of it. I like the comfort of my home. I like looking out the window and seeing the mountain range. I’m not so young anymore. I have health and physical conditions. I’m not sure I can hold up for thirtyish days and ten thousand miles. What about our house? What about the cats and dogs? It was easy to see why this was not a good idea. And yet, we continued to talk and made plans.

Early in the conversation a lot of thought was given to how we would travel. Would we use the car? How about renting a camper or an RV? She liked the idea of the rental as a solution so we could bring our cats and dogs. For me, the considerations were more pragmatic: cost, convenience, and work involved. Looking at the cost it seemed that it would be as much if not more than staying in hotels. By the time rental and connection fees, insurance, gas, and parking were added the financial aspect made little difference. The bigger question seemed to be about the work involved and the convenience of moving around easily. It seemed that by the end of the day, driving or pulling, parking and maneuvering such a large vehicle would be physically and mentally exhausting. I spoke with a few guys about their experience with campers and after all the fun parts were discussed it came down to being a lot of work. A couple went so far as to say that after a year or two they sold them and returned to traveling in more traditional ways. As for convenience, the one real plus seemed to be that everything would be self-contained, but parking and getting around would be a challenge. So, in the end, we settled on using our SUV which has worked well with past trips, although none have been of the magnitude of this one.

With that resolved, the focus turned to whether to stay in hotels, camp or both. The talk ranged from getting a lot of camping gear to just taking the little we have. There were two primary factors in deciding to stick with what we have. First, we had no agenda and finding camping spots for a tent at the end of a long day driving could be problematic. Secondly, the work involved in setting up and breaking camp on a daily bases would again add a lot of work for us. So hotels became our first choice with camping a second if it worked out.

Time passed and we found the departure date rapidly approaching. Our plan was little more than a sketch, a rough outline of where we wanted to go. Questions like where to enter Canada, where to stay as we crossed Canada, and how to proceed when we left Seattle bounced around in our talks but never seemed to take root. So, we found ourselves, late in June with a July 1st departure date creeping towards us at a rapid pace, and no real plan. We sat at the computer looking at the map trying to determine where to drive and how long to drive each day. We finally admitted defeat. 

When I was younger and traveling, it was simple. I had a map to show me where I was and to use to plan on where I was going. Maps were easy to read and easy to obtain. Service stations had racks with maps and you could select the ones relevant to your travel, and they were free. But also then I had no real plan. I followed the sun or tried to avoid the bad weather This trip would be much different no matter how similar in nature it seemed. Finally, a few days before we were to leave we had an inspiration. The map on the computer was not yielding the answers so we decided to call AAA. We did not have a membership but decided to check it out.

We placed a call and within a few minutes the young man we spoke with had answered our questions and we were members of AAA. He directed our call to Elizabeth, a representative of AAA who was located in an office near us. Finding her was like opening an oyster and finding a pearl. She spent the next hour and a half on the phone with us laying out our trip. She worked in contingency plans and side trips. She was patient and thoughtful and provide great information. By the end of the call, we had a day-by-day travel plan arranged. And, she told us we could come by her office the next morning and pick up and trip-kit. We showed up the next day and picked up our materials.

As we had made plans to take our dogs with us and have our friend Bryce house set and take care of the cats, all that was left to do was pack the car and leave. We even bumped our departure date up a day, to June 30th. 

The time had arrived.

To be continued.