Where humidity reins supreme

Well, we made it back to Vermont.  What a ride.

After Tuba City and Zion National Park (just the southern tip), I arrived in Ogden to connect with my sister and her family while I enjoyed some do-nothing days of reading, knitting, and...yep, just reading and knitting.  We talked and laughed, enjoyed some television in their media room, and caught up on all the news.  After a few days, it was time to meet Joerg (who had been in Oregon on a business trip) at the Salt Lake City Airport.  For the rest of this journey, we would be together and able to share the driving.

We headed north for Montana by way of the western edge of Wyoming, but before we could make it to Livingston, where we had an Airbnb waiting for us, we would have to contend with one of the challenges of the west...flat tires.  Many of the road we traveled as we looked at property were dirt, rock, or gravel.  Eventually, it was bound to cause trouble as one of those rocks hit just the right angle at just the right pressure to puncture a tire.  And puncture it, it did!  It was such a hole that even with traffic noise nearby we could hear the tell-tale hiss of a tire letting go of all its air.

Joerg filled the tire as much as he could and jumped in the car.  I raced on - at a break-neck speed of about twenty miles per hour - to the nearest Walmart where we replaced all four we-weren't-going-to-use-them-another-season-anyway tires.  That would hold us for the rest of the trip.

We finally made it to Livingston from where we would make our daily rides to visit properties and scout out locations.  Our evening dinner companions would be Dad and Sharon with whom we swapped stories, laughed a lot, and talked strategy about making the move west.  Pam even joined us for a few days.

After one last dinner together, Joerg and I would prepare to continue our journey as we aimed the car eastward scouting out properties along northern Wyoming and northeast South Dakota.

We drove through the Badlands, drove part of the Needles Highway (which us more fun on motorcycle than by car) in the Black Hills, and found a cute little fixer-upper outside of town...perhaps the perfect location for Rocky Ride (motorcycle) Rentals one day.  (Just kidding about that fixer-upper.)

After the Badlands, it was pretty much straight highway driving as we made our way east.  However, this summer road trip with its various family stops along the way would hardly be complete without a layover in Grand Rapids to visit Mom and Marc.  We got a little doggie fix (they have two), enjoyed some good home cookin' (you don't really appreciate home cooking until you spend a month on the road eating fast food and whatever you can store in an Igloo (cooler), and a few nights in the same bed, not to mention the good conversation and relaxing down time.

Back on the road, we set our sights for home where a damaged shelf (an overweight shelf of dishes came down in one of our cabinets) and a broken water heater awaited us.  But a few broken dishes and some cold showers are a far cry from what some Vermont residents are dealing with right now.  Record rain has resulted in catastrophic flooding throughout Vermont and a state of emergency has been declared for the state.  Homes and businesses have been ruined or destroyed, roads washed away, and at least one death that I know of.  My grass is green and the garden is full of weeds, but the house is dry.  River Cove Road is closed at the bottom of the hill (which can happen in the spring as the snow-melt causes the river to rise) but while that means the town is busy monitoring the situation, there aren't any houses down there.  AND, it means there is no traffic going by our house...we like that.

My summer road trip is over.  It took me from my home in Vermont all the way to Phoenix Arizona hauling a trailer full of my son's treasured belongs.  I visited or drove through 18 states, 7 of them twice, and crossed 24 state borders.  24 days away from home, 9 different hotels and 3 houses for overnights.  I saw the flaaaat land of the Midwest and the mountains of the west, experienced crazy Midwestern storms with driving rain and trailer-rocking winds (it was a small light weight trailer with no sway bars) and saw the Amish bringing in the hay with old wooden equipment drawn by two working horses.  I saw lush green fields in prairie lands and desert dryness in the southwest.  I saw temperatures reach 111°F in Arizona and woke up to low 60s in Montana.  I watched as the vegetation changed repeatedly from one side of the country to the other, and the animals changed right along with it.  I left a humid state only to spend a chunk of my time  in desert climates out west (I never saw a cloud in Arizona and only a small wispy one in New Mexico) and then returned to the humidity and overcast weather of Vermont.

I had the car cleaned inside and out, and had my mechanic give it a good look-see when he changed the oil before I left.  Now that I'm back, another oil change is scheduled, and I'll take it in for a good cleaning to get rid of some of that Wyoming clay we picked up.  My trusty car clocked 8,185 miles and received four brand new tires.

For a first empty-nest road trip without any kids along, I think it went pretty well.  From Vermont to Utah I enjoyed cranking up my music and singing at the top of my lungs to the songs of my youth (go 80s!) and listening to podcasts without earbuds and headphones.  I could think out loud without an audience.  And I could sit in total silence.  I could stop when I needed gas and get back on the road without having to count heads first.  After Utah, I could share the driving with my fellow adventurer and personal Sherpa as we talked our way across the country just like we did twenty-four years ago...only this time we didn't have to rent the minivan (I drove clunker cars back then that never would have survived this journey) or set up any tents.  What a privilege and blessing it is to have such a partner in this crazy adventure we call Life.