Overview of our early itinerary: The long drive west…

Our plans for September and October changed several times as we navigated supply chain delays related to semiconductor chip shortages. We knew that due to the pandemic we’d be lucky to get our hands on an Airstream in anything less than 6 months, and we were overjoyed to hear that ours had left Jackson Center, Ohio and arrived at our dealer in New Jersey by the end of September. Our Ford truck, however, got stuck in Dearborn, Michigan on “chip hold” in September, and we nervously waited for updates (calling our Ford dealer weekly) until we finally received the news that it was headed our way and slated to arrive in mid October. In the space of ten days, we picked up our truck and Airstream, packed what we needed and put the rest of our possessions in storage, and hit the road. With the warm summer camping months largely over for the year, we had to bypass Colorado and some higher-elevation places for now — we’ll circle back this winter for ski season!

After picking up the truck, we celebrated with Arethusa ice cream.

Picking up the Airstream! In taking delivery of a new Airstream, you plan on an overnight at the dealership to learn the systems and hitch etc. It was just about as exciting and exhausting and overwhelming as going to the hospital to deliver a baby.

In mapping out an itinerary, we also had to balance our needs to work, to school the kids, and to rest. Because this is 7 months of our regular lives, and not a vacation, we can’t go at the same pace as we would for a 2-week trip. Also, we wanted to get a chance to really live in the places we’d visit — not just whirl through to check them off. It was hard to miss some of the beautiful spots our drive brought us within striking distance of (Great Sand Dunes National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Canyon de Chelly and other spots in the Navajo Nation, Canyonlands National Park…) but we’ve realized you can spend a lifetime traveling and not see it all. We’ve learned to say with total contentment: “We’ll see it on our next trip!” In fact, there’s some comfort knowing that we aren’t done traveling — there’s always plenty to do and more to wonder about.

While our schedule is flexible, a good chunk of each day is devoted to school and work — it’s not one 7-month vacation. This picture was taken shortly after we arrived in Taos, our first major stop after the long trek west.

So, when we left Philadelphia in late October, as the weather quickly cooled, our goal was to get out West to warmer weather in a short but reasonable timeframe. Our first planned stop was Taos. Along the way, we hoped to show the kids the middle of the country. The drive got long in about Kansas, which is the windiest place we’ve ever been. We occupied our time with school and work and podcasts and music and books. We read the young reader’s version of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, which really made an impression on the kids and helped us understand how agriculture has shaped the Great Plains and affected the fortunes of the farming families who’ve eked out a living there since the late 1800s (and made them more skeptical of the government and of corn). We also read The Grapes of Wrath and Out of the Dust (they hated the latter).

Scenes like this flashed by the windows as we were buffeted by winds through the Great Plains, making an excellent backdrop to read about the U.S. food system and sustainable agriculture.

When we took this picture, we were actually across the street from the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park, which remains on our bucket list to see one day! That’s correct, we did not actually enter the park. We have learned we are (usually) not the “pack everything in” kind of traveler. Whenever possible, we favor a slower pace, more deliberate wandering, with time to soak in the flavors of each place we inhabit rather than just passing through… Sometimes there’s just too much to see and do in a single day, and we are strongly prioritizing rest time too. We’ll be here again one day.

Here’s Emma’s impression of part of that journey:

The long drive west….

The West is very different from the East Coast where we live, and we just read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, by Michael Pollan, so we know a little bit about feedlots, v.s good, moral farms. We saw some of both, feedlots packed perilously with cows; moral farms with rolling rural hills, with miles of wooden fencing, and cows dotted about over the hillsides. The whole way there the sun shone through clumps of trees and cotton plants. There were even tumbleweeds, which Graham and I took the time to spot, chase, collect, spot, chase, collect, until our plastic grocery bag was filled with them. Then they aggregated together, forming a big ball of tumbleweed which would easily blow away if wind blew it. We brought the bag in the airstream for a bit so we could have a chance to examine the tumbleweeds before securing everything, and switching back to the truck to resume our drive to New Mexico.