Beginnings: 2020

Road trips have always been a part of my life. Like many children of the 60s, I have not-so-fond memories of the back seat of a Dodge Dart, later a Chrysler Cordoba, later still a burgundy Cadillac, pushing dozing sisters off my shoulder with an angry shrug, gazing out at 24 hours straight of Northern Ontario scenery, eating tomato sandwiches on Wonderbread at scenic lookouts, swimming off the thin skim of sweat from a day of non-air-conditioned driving at some motel pool by the side of the Trans-Canada.

Later, when Ken and I became a couple, the road trips had a different flavour--Triple A baseball games, second-hand furniture stores, beer and sunflower seeds. A night in New Hampshire spent in the back of Ken's Toyota pick-up truck because we hadn't anticipated the impact of "The Foliage" on accommodation. An attempt to get through Ontario by non-stop driving (thwarted around Dryden when we had to pull over and nap as the sun rose). Tears in upstate New York when we couldn't find any decent food (Travel tip: Finger Lakes fine dining is at the south end of the lakes, not the north).

And luckily for us, our daughter Millie, when she came along, was a good little sport about travelling. As long as the hotel had a pool, and we fed her before she got hungry, she was happy. Many mini-golf courses later, we have travelled across Canada, both east and west, and to eleven different ocean-side states with her, trusty Camry keeping us rolling.

But at some point around 2014, we kind of ... stopped. We travelled further afield--Portugal, Mexico, Scotland, Cuba, France--sometimes not even renting a car. We visited cities like New York and San Francisco, flying in, flying out. We drove the two hours along highway 7 to our little cabin by the lake so many times that there was no adventure left in that expedition. And we had aching backs, troublesome hips, tiny bladders--the onset of middle age dampened our enthusiasm for longer drives.

Still, the desire is always there--to just get in a car and go. We talked yearningly of a great trip to the American west, of seeing the New Mexico of Georgia O'Keefe, the Seattle of When Harry Met Sally, Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, and even--hell, yes--Texas. We would do it when we retired, we vowed. We would do it when Trump was no longer president.

And then, with retirement, came COVID. Even though we liked the shift in president, the border was closed to us--so we pivoted, as everyone did in 2020. We would travel to the west coast, see family and friends, embrace the trees and forests and golden wheat fields one more time. We thought we would leave in fall 2020, but I kept working. Now in August 2021, we're packing up. Another Toyota will be taking us--this time a white Tacoma, drawing a beautiful little t@g teardrop trailer that we begged friends Ian and Su to lend us. We will be dodging disease and natural catastrophes, probably less mini-golf, probably more cycling. Stay tuned for more--departure date is September 12.