Eight-Week Trip Accomplished Its Several Goals

Home, sweet, home!

After eight weeks on the road -- four for grandson Jesse -- my the car trip to the Pacific Northwest and back has ended, and the list of America's scenic wonders visited reads like a bucket list for anyone who loves this country.

There was Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument, the Columbia Gorge and Oregon Coast, mounts St. Helens and Hood, the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, and Great Meteor Crater and the Tetons.

All along the way, there were relatives to visit, both my own and those of my late wife. They were in Texas, California, Washington state and Missouri. These were not merely polite drop-ins but an opportunity to thank all of those who showed their love to Bette in her final days and to me in trying to help me overcome a loss we all shared.

The trip was meant to be a catharsis, a way of bringing back in the strongest way possible the memories of our courtship, love, travel and marriage. To that end, it was successful.

It may seem strange, but there was a lot of laughter along the way. Some of it was mixed with tears the same way the two go together at an Irish wake, as memories and realization of loss blend into moments of nostalgia; sadness, and, yes, joy.

But home is what it is, and we are back. All those weeks of sleeping in strange beds took a toll on my lower back, and for the final four days of the trip, I walked bent over like an old man every time I got out of the car.

A single night in my own bed proved all the cure needed.

And will someone please tell me why hotels and motels can't come up with a standardized shower fixture to use in their rooms.

Every morning, showering became an adventure of trying to figure out how the plumbing worked and trying to avoid getting either scalded or sent climbing the tile after being hit with an icy-cold spray.

(Yes, there are actually places in the country where the water from the tap comes out cold instead of tepid, as in Florida.)

And speaking of temperatures, when people here were suffering through day after day of drought-induced 90 degree-plus readings, Jesse and I were basking in the coolness of Oregon and the Northwest, where the 60s ruled most days. In fact, we didn't see a temperature reading in the mid-70s until we got to Nebraska and no 80s until Georgia.

Another thing to note is the price of gas.

I left Polk County on a tank I filled at just under $3.80 per gallon. The final tank full came in Leesburg at $3.42.

In between, I paid as much as $4.50 outside of The Grand Canyon and as little as $3.39 in Georgia. Happily, gas prices were edging downward during the return trip, and that helped make up for the high prices I found going from east to west.

There were some fun little moments that wouldn't normally get mentioned, but I will point them out here. For example, the 1915 Ford delivery truck that pulled in behind us as we drove through Yellowstone and stayed there for several miles.

Then there was coming across the Surf Motel in Marysville, Kan., which is about as far away from the surf as you can get.

Or how about stopping to talk with a retired gentlemen in the desert lands of southeastern New Mexico and finding out he was moving from Gainesville to Albuquerque. He had been traveling for more than four months, with the trip taking so long because he was making it on a three-wheeled bicycle.

When I stopped to chat and give him some cold bottles of water from my cooler, he was walking beside the bike, pushing it because of the heavy desert winds.

But those are sidebars to the story of a trip that brought grandfather and grandson closer together, replanted in my mind the scenes and places of happier times and gave me the chance to communicate with a loving wife who may be gone from this home to which I have now returned but who certainly has not left my heart and soul.