Some wonderful camping in one of my favorite mountain ranges proved the end cap for a 15-month adventure as Shiz, Fin, & I finally reached Seattle and home. We had lined up an extremely nice, three week house sit for a pair of very sweet dogs, so we have time to relax, unwind, do laundry, and see family and friends.
As this leg of our travels wrapped up, it gave us a chance to reflect back on the trip, try to sell the Knut, and figure out what we’d like for the next van, because we’re not stopping. As many of our friends asked us what our favorite parts were, here’s a short list of things that I really loved:
Montana
Yellowstone
Badlands
Pittsburg
The hills of Eastern Pennsylvania
The lands around Ottawa
Quebec City
Nova Scotia
Philly
The Blue Ridge Mountains
The Swamps of the Southeast
New Orleans
The nature around Western Texas
All of the Southwest
All of the Northwest
This trup drove home to me just how varied the geography of the USA is and all the diversity and wonder that it holds. It also revealed the extraordinary extent of the work of the National Forest Service and the National Parks Service; they do amazing work and deserve nothing but respect.
We only lived in the van full-time for the last 4 months or so, but it certainly taught us what we want in the next van. I like not towing anything and the compactness of the Westfalia, but I have to admit that packing up every time you want to go anywhere can get a bit tiring. We’re not going to start towing anything quite yet, but we will someday. There’s something so nice about leaving a trailer or smaller home that you don’t have to move every time you want to see something close by.
Asked to do it again, it would be an emphatic yes and we really wouldn’t change much of how we did it. That’s all I can really ask for.
As for our plans, we’re heading back to Japan for a couple of months to see family, then we’re spending Thanksgiving in Belize at my mother’s insistence, spending a three weeks in Cuba, then flying back to North Carolina to purchase and build up whatever van becomes the one we use on the next adventure.
Stay tuned!
