2010 in review

I have been inspired (intimidated) by those who have written a summary of their travels in 2010. I finally decided to go ahead and try to come up with a look back at the year. It was a good year, with lots of travel and a chance to visits places that have been on my list for a long time. Places like Yellowstone National Park and Custer’s Last Stand. I realized, as I retraced our route for the year gone by, that we managed to follow one of our original tenets for life on the road. Namely, not to plan too much ahead and go were the mood and weather dictates. We certainly lived up to that plan. When you see our route of travel, it comes to mind that it must have been planned by a demented soul. During this journey we were sometimes just lucky, we avoided tornadoes all around us, we and the motorhome came through without a scratch, while others were not near so fortunate.

Our main keystone planning element was to visit our children at least during important events. So it was that we made it to our Grandson’s birthday, our daughter’s graduation from her master’s program, and saying goodbye before our youngest daughter left for deployment. All three girls and family gathered for Anneke’s big 60 birthday bash and we made a visit to Anneke’s aunt in AL. In between, we visited a number of national parks, surprise small gems in unexpected places. We made new friends and had lots of fun on a Winnebago rally to Springfield and Chicago and the annual gathering of Winnebago owners at the Grand National Rally in Forrest City, IA. We went to small out of the way spots and found what life is like for those living in the same place for many generations.

Our whole plan of travel was altered completely, when we decided to forgo a visit to the Grand Circle of Utah due to the extreme heat during the time period we would be there. So, instead we headed north to Salt Lake City and up into Idaho. Again Mother Nature stuck her thumb in the mix and wild fires prevented our visit to the fossil fields near Hagerman. So we pushed on to the Craters of the Moon National Park, after also abandoning tentative plans to head to Oregon and Washington due concerns about the weather. That opened up the possibility of going to Yellowstone, which proved to be a great stop. It was as amazing as I remembered from our last visit before the great fire.

Finally heading east as far as Ohio to visit old friends and tend to the needs of our motorhome. Then drifting south to visit new and old places before settling into a familiar campground to spend the holidays with family and await the newest addition to our family to make her grand entrance in the near future.

I summary, it was a year of travel, fun, family and discovery. We explored 19 states and covered over 12000 miles with the motorhome and untold miles in the toad. We could hardly have asked for more!