Cross Country Ramble

I was reading my old journals the other day and one shot me back in time to twenty years ago, to a trip taken in an effort to heal a troubled soul and mend a broken heart. I was trying to work my way through a life changing and painful time and decided I needed to do something just for me, something that required enough courage to give me a feeling of strength and confidence. I decided to take a two month sabbatical and wander across the country, landing in Tucson, Arizona, where my father and stepmother lived. There I would spend six weeks getting to know if there was hope for a relationship with a man who had been driven from my life at the age of fourteen.

Since this is about the trip, I will tell you here that my father and I found truth and love and were very close until the day he died. And my stepmother, Mom to me since that trip, took the place in my life that was formerly held by a sociopath. As for the broken heart, as everyone knows, it takes more than a few months to recover from one of those, but I was headed in the right direction.

So, I had my car tuned up, collected maps from AAA, packed, grabbed my guitar and headed out across the land.

I headed south through Massachusetts, Connecticut and so on, visiting a sister along the way, then took my time cruising along The Skyline drive in the Blue Ridge Mt's. of Virginia. Beautiful vistas greeted me at every turn and I spotted many deer munching lush green growth as I traveled along. And there were thousands of delicate white butterflies, gathering at pools of water left by a passing storm.

Next, I rambled through the Great Smokies, magnificent, hazy, blue green mountains that seemed to go on forever. It was my first experience driving through small tunnels bored into the sides of mountains as I made my accent, and the views along the way were breathtaking. At the end of the day I headed down out of the mountains on a road that landed me on a strip of road that was wall to wall amusement parks, starting with Dollywood. I drove on to Nashville.

On through Arkansas, across Oklahoma and the panhandle of Texas, which is where I saw my first cattle yards...and smelled them! Next, New Mexico where, for some of the ride, I traveled along not too far from the Rio Grande, a ribbon of water with the only green for miles, along its banks. At every place I stayed I met the most interesting people and we shared stories of life in different parts of the country. A couple of people I met had never heard of Vermont.

After two weeks of meandering, I landed in Tucson. My parent's home is only two miles from the Catalina Mt's. which rise to nine thousand feet. While I was there I packed some food, a gallon of water and followed the above trail into the range for about three miles and climbed three thousand feet up. It was wonderful. The terrain, so different from home, offered many kinds of cacti, flowers and scrubby trees along with a prolific collection of wild life. Roadrunners, wild donkeys, havalina and jack rabbits were easy to spot. There were places where the going was a bit precarious, but what's an adventure with out a little excitement?

The last week of my visit, my daughters flew in to join us and we all went on a road trip together. We traveled north and took in so many incredible sights that I was dizzy from sensory overload. We visited Montezuma's castle, an ancient Indian dwelling carved high in the side of a cliff and drove down through Oak Creek Canyon into Sedona, the most spectacular red rock country anywhere. We went to Flagstaff, Ponderosa Pine country, then on to the Grand Canyon. I have seen the canyon four times in my life and the wonder and beauty of it never ceases to take my breath away!

Back to Tucson, a night's rest, a tearful good by, and my girls and I headed back home by way of Colorado, Kansas (no twisters) an on. It was one of the best times of my life and the memory is sharp and clear.

A few years later my husband and I took a trip across the land...adventurous, fun and romantic, but that's another story...