As spring gets ready to segue into summer, how appropriate that RealClearPolitics brings us not one, but two articles celebrating the great American roadtrip. Each is in its own way rewarding, see them here and here.
Reading these reminds me I haven’t shared with COTTonLINE readers the DrsC’s love of the open road. Both teachers with summers off, we bought our first RV in 1972, a little van-based Class B motorhome. Our trip that summer took us on a loop from central CA up through southern OR to Crater Lake NP and back.
The next three summers we toured most of the US. In 1973 we went across the south, from our home base in northern CA, we saw the Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, Dallas TX, NOLA, MS, AL, FL clear down to Key West, and back west to CA, gone nearly 3 months.
In 1974 we did the middle route CA across UT (Zion and Bryce NPs) AZ (Chaco and Canyon de Chelly NPs), OK, MO, AR, TN, to the Carolinas, north to DC, and home on I-80 via Yellowstone and the Tetons NPs. Another almost 3 months.
In 1975 our trip went north to the east coast, up the coast via Boston, Bar Harbor NP and LL Bean to Cape Breton Island NP in Nova Scotia, and home via eastern Canada till we dropped down to I-90 to run west with another visit to Yellowstone and Grand Teton NPs. Again over 2 months.
At this point we’d seen most of the US, so in 1976 we took leave from our teaching jobs and moved to DC-adjacent MD for 2 years while the other DrC did her PhD work and I was a temporary bureaucrat. While there vacations were somewhat limited but we did a Christmas drive down the Natchez Trace NP and a summer trip back to Maine. We moved back to CA in 1978, stopping by northwestern Wyoming one more time.
Bottom line, we owned a series of 6 RVs for 51 years, drove them all over the US and Canada, including to Alaska. We’ve also RVed in New Zealand twice, and recommend it. We are roadtrip veterans, and we loved all of it.
We sold our last RV 3 years ago when became too hard for old bodies to handle, and we still miss it. We watch RVs go past on the highway and feel a twinge of envy mixed with nostalgia. We have memories you can’t imagine unless you’ve done it.
