When I was a year old (in 1971), my father took a year off of work and we bought a station wagon and 24-foot Coachman trailer. My parents sold the house in Buffalo, NY and Thanksgiving weekend, we (my parents, my two brothers, my sister and I) piled into the station wagon and left for a year-long adventure around the country. From the pictures I can see that it was quite an adventure. My father took over 2,000 slide pictures that year. Above is a picture of us on Cadillac Mountain in Maine.
Since I was only one, I don’t remember any of the trip. Actually, I do have one memory, but it’s one of those things where you wonder if hearing the story so many times makes you imagine the memory or if you actually do remember it. We were taking a walk through the forest, walking single file. My dad had told us that if we were very quiet, we might see some deer. He was in the lead and I was on his back in a backpack. As we were walking, I saw a deer ahead and slightly to the right. I lifted up my arm and pointed. As my dad tells it, the next thing he knew, a small hand was coming out from behind his ear and pointing right at the deer.
The Trip has had an incredible impact on my family. We talk about it alot. We are close in a way we never would have been if we hadn’t taken the trip. Even my younger brother, who wasn’t born at the time, has felt the impact.
So here it is, 30-some odd years later and my husband and I have decided to do the same thing. We have a 6-year-old daughter, I work part time and Bobby is a real estate appraiser. Now is the perfect time to go. My sister was seven when we left and that’s about how old Elise will be. I taught third grade, so homeschooling second grade won’t be a stretch. And it’s easy for Bobby to take a year off from appraising. It’s not a job that has a ladder he needs to be climbing.
We also want to do the trip while we are physically able. Why wait until we retire (and who knows what that will look like), when we might be too old to enjoy the hikes and bike rides? If we wait until then, we won’t be able to go with Elise, and thinking about going on this adventure without her seems almost criminal.
So we are deep in the planning stages. We’re deciding what vehicle to buy, what trailer to buy, how much of our furniture to sell, where to go, when to leave… The list goes on and on. So much to think about. We will leave sometime between July and September of 2007, but it’s never too soon to start thinking…
We met a family last week who is traveling around the country now, just like we want to do next year. They’re the Luhrs and, yes, they have a fine blog of their adventures.
