November 14th, 2022
Eight days ago, marked my 6th month on the road. I think back to March, right after I took delivery of the trailer. I parked it in my driveway on a cold blustery day. I carried out a sleeping bag and slept in it the first weekend. I made sure the WIFI, TV and refrigerator worked. Now that seems like an age ago, but I remember the feeling fondly.
I have covered a lot of ground since then, my log showing 8,658 miles. The map on the side of the trailer shows Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona have been crossed. I am now about 16 miles from California, but I have yet to cross the Colorado River and step foot there. It feels like doing so might throw me to far off “The Yellow Brick Road”. Could I find my way back? I will find out on Tuesday when I make a day trip to Joshua Tree National Park to do some hiking. That will be my 11th National Park or Monument this year (not that seeing them is a goal, the darn things just keep getting in the way).
It is a blur now. Time moves fast when you are this age. I have lots of photographs. There were hi-lights that can’t be forgotten. Looking back now, it seems they mostly involved people. There was saying goodbye to Zach. He had just moved away from home for the first time and now, accepting a lot of responsibility for himself and his “instant” family, I suspect he has grown into a man. I met the sisters, Sai and Alekhya a couple days before I left, unsuccessfully trying to avoid tears as we departed. I met my friends Mark and Phyllis at a remote canpground in Wisconsin, sharing our campsites with a legion of mosquitos. I visited my mother and sister in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. That visit became the dividing line between the familiarity of home and friends, and starting out on the road west, alone.
I became a resident of South Dakota, making it the 4th state driver’s license I have owned. It took a couple of months to remove Michigan from all the wordly data attached to my name.
I visited my son, Tyler in Colorado. Later, before leaving for the fall, we attended a Rockies baseball game. Tyler used to be a pretty good baseball player. Now he has turned to rock climbing, and is some sort of Machine Learning genius type of person.
I have also met a good number of people while camping. I would name them as friends, except I most likely will never see them again. I think of Don, the retired NASA engineer I ran into near Leadville. He drew me maps of places to camp in Arizona. I remember the campground hosts by the Flat Top Wilderness, who suggested good wintering areas. I met a couple of fly fishermen, who invited me to join their campfire after a day of fishing.
In an O-Tire shop in Grand Junction, I talked for over an hour to a black Navy Veteran about the children each of us raised. Why do I mention he was black? Because in the 2 hours we waited there, he was the only person of many, that bothered to say “Hello”.
At the campground in Capital Reef, a retired woman from India, came up behind me with a question. I can’t remember the question, but I remember she had lived in Pakistan and other middle eastern countries, working as an emergency room nurse. We talked so long, her husband came looking for her, as he was hungry because she hadn’t returned to cook dinner. And, on a boat dock at Roosevelt Lake, I spent half an afternoon with a grandmother who had brought her 2 grandkids to fish in the lake. Their mother, her daughter, was her last remaining relative. Her other daughter was killed in an accident with a drunk driver. As she mourned, her health deteriorated, so her husband left her for another woman. She discovered that getting on a glutten free diet, brought her health back, and here she was, fishing with 2 children, and telling a complete stranger her life history. I have no idea why she did this, but it was a little touching, so I just listened.
I had just pulled into a Long Term Visitor Area, here in Arizona, and paused at a water filling area. I asked a man sitting there on a dirt bike, if it was potable water. Now I am camped just across from him, his dogs take turns sitting on my lap. I know he was a meat distributor throughout grocery stores in the area, and he wants me to go to Los Algodones, Mexico with him, to take advantage of the cheap dentistry available there and the excellent Shrimp Tacos.
The places I have been were amazing. The scenery is beautiful and the wildlife awesome. However, nothing can quite describe the friendliness of the people you run into.
After 6 months, what is broken, no longer works, or has been lost? Nothing. Well, at least nothing that isn’t fixed with a little Gorilla Glue or a convenient O-Tire store. My only concern is me. I try hard to maintain that. I get my 8000 – 10000 steps in most everyday. I take my Magnesium, Zinc, and Omega-3 religiously (not much Vitamin D, as I get lots of sun now). I always put drops of MCT oil in my coffee and avoid carbs and sugar. If I am lucky, I can keep doing this for many more months and hopefully, remember all of it.
Haha, lastly, Happy Trails!
Starting All Over 