The other DrC takes note of a family milestone that occurred yesterday, with photos. After 51 years of RVing, we’re getting real about the ravages of time and wrapping up that quite large portion of our life together. As teachers with the summers off, we saw North America.
Beginning in 1972, in a series of six RVs - one class C motorhome and five fifth wheel trailers - we drove all over North America. We were wheels on the ground in the 49 continental U.S. states. Ditto for 9 of 10 Canadian provinces, plus one of their three territories - Yukon - as we drove the Alaskan Highway, both ways.
The extremes of our wandering? We’ve been to Key West, FL, San Diego, CA, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Fairbanks, AK, and most points in between. North America is an amazing place, and we do have a standard of comparison, having visited some 120 countries.
We repeatedly drove round trip across the U.S., crossed Canada, and on two occasions drove rental RVs all over both islands of New Zealand. I can’t begin to catalog the wonders we’ve seen through the windshield of an RV. As stoners would say, it has been a trip, but now it is over and I am sad about that.
As a result of all that wandering, do I have a favorite trip I’d recommend? I do. Start at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in AZ, drive north through the national parks of Utah, continue to those of Wyoming, then do Glacier NP, cross the border to Waterton NP in Canada, and continue northward to Banff, Lake Louise, and Jasper - all in Alberta.
To do it justice you’ll need a whole summer - mid-June to mid-September - but you can do parts of it if you don’t have that long. You’ll need reservations to camp in the NPs, and there are excellent RV campgrounds with hookups in the Tetons, Yellowstone, Waterton, Banff, and Jasper. Enjoy.
Afterthought: Yes, I posted this in the middle of the night. We've been home a week and I'm still trying to get adjusted to local time. It turns out jet lag is one of many things that become more difficult with age.
