Jiggetty Jig!

It’s tempting to skip out on typing up this one last entry, ‘cause our trip is so… two days ago, man, but Carroll says I owe our faithful blog followers some closure, so I’ll give it my best shot. Hopefully this will ease the transition for both of you!

Carroll’s parents will be greatly relieved to learn that all the money they invested in her education at Northland College was NOT wasted after all: on this trip we visited 16 of her schoolmates, and managed to freeload seven nights of lodging and meals! Big thanks to our generous hosts: Jessie Cargas in Rosebud MO,

Donna Engleson and Alex Alvarez in Flagstaff,

Gus Smith and Joy Meeker,

and Steph and Jim Wargin, in Wisconsin,

and Donna Spreitzer and Scott Mabury in Toronto!

And a tip of the hat to our drive-bys, Tom Lund and Magi Malone, Binner Rahn, Tim Doyle, Bentley Brehm, Laura Highland, Linda Rise, and Andy Noyes: it was great to see everyone, even if we couldn’t manage to mooch anything off you!

Speaking of mooching, we also invited ourselves to stay one night with Carroll’s Nantahala Outdoor Center friends, Bob and Charlotte Karls, in Colorado. The two nights we spent with the Grahns don’t really count as mooching. More like Grand Theft Laundry! Anyway, now that we’re home, we’d love to return the favor and have people come mooch off us! And we don’t even mind if you didn’t go to Northland College! Heck, if you’ve read any of this blog, you’ve more than paid your dues! Come stay for a month… that’s the least we can offer in the way of reparations!

The final week of the trip went pretty smoothly and for the most part according to plan; Pictured Rocks

and Sleeping Bear Dunes were beautiful, and our high-speed midnight auto tour of Toronto was exhilarating… (sorry, no pictures due to white knuckle grip on door handles!) By the time we reached Niagara Falls, the weather was sultry enough that we actually found ourselves thinking wistfully of the temperature at Cedar Breaks!

For those of you with inquiring minds, the total trip was 8366 miles, in 43 days. We were able to average just over 21 mpg, so it took 398 gallons of gas, for which we paid an average of $3.94. (HUGE thanks here for the generous grant from The Maxwell Grandchildren’s Travel Foundation, which greatly eased the angst at every fill-up!)

We’re also counting ourselves very fortunate, because the van made it home before the transmission quit altogether. By the last week, it would not shift out of 2^nd unless we put it in neutral, turned off the engine, and restarted it, to re-boot the transmission computer, which we assume must run on a Windows operating system!

The real measure of the trip’s success, though, is that Carroll and I are still married! (Not to each other, but…) And Robin and Sam got enough map-reading experience that we’re confident they’ll be able to find their way home once Customs releases them from quarantine. We told them to take showers, and to stop using their shirts for napkins, but no-o-o-o…

I’ll sign off here, with a thank-you to all the folks who posted comments and/or emailed us, and an apology for not being able to respond directly from the road. We loved hearing from you, but our schedule was so full, and wifi so limited, that we just couldn’t manage two-way communication. It was great to get comments, though, if only to know that someone was reading the blog! So thanks, and I sincerely hope no one ends up with PTSD* from this!

(* ”Post”-Traumatized Senility Disorder)

Your Humble Scribe,

Buzz