The Trip of a Lifetime
Trip Start
May 29, 2009
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Trip End
Oct 03, 2009
Chesterfield, Missouri
Saturday, October 3, 2009
The great adventure has come to an end. This has been the trip of a lifetime, and we are not sure how we can possibly top this one – but we are definitely going to try. We drove the motorhome 11,935 miles and the car another 7,050 miles. Many of those miles were on dirt and gravel roads. Relatively few were on interstate highways. We have no idea how many miles we hiked and walked. We flew hundreds of miles in small airplanes, landing on gravel strips, beaches, short runways, and water.
While in Canada we experienced 9 national parks, 12 national historic sites, and 2 provincial capitols. In the United States we visited 13 national parks, 26 other sites run by the national park service (monuments, historic sites, scenic riverways, and preserves), and 6 state capitols. We enjoyed microbreweries, countless museums, 4 major gardens, whitewater rafting, and glaciers galore (walking on, flying over, viewing from boats, trails, and airplanes). We saw bears, caribou, wolves, lynx, musk oxen, moose, several types of bighorn sheep, mountain goats, eagles, numerous kinds of other birds, all of the varieties of salmon, puffins (and many more marine birds whose names we no longer can recall or spell), whales, seals, sea lions, and sea otters. We crossed the Arctic Circle, lived with the midnight sun, drank sourtoe cocktails, and became accustomed to fireweed blooming along the road.
Through it all we lived in less than 400 square feet and avoided killing each other. Our rig performed quite well under difficult conditions.
This trip has whetted our appetite for far more travel and adventures. We will keep you posted when we venture out again.
