As you read this, I am likely sitting in my suburban home, living my sweet suburban life. However, as I write this, I am sitting in a big, blue campervan with my husband and 2 geriatric dogs outside of a laundromat in Austin, Nevada that looks like it has been around since the Pony Express (which is a distinct possibility based on nearby road signage.)
We are 5 weeks and 9,000 miles into our cross-country journey in our van, named The Paddy Wagon. Tomorrow we will visit Nevada's Great Basin National Park, which will be our 15th national park on this trip.
This is not what we had planned. We had intended to drive to Alaska this summer. In fact, my husband spent over a year building a beautiful spreadsheet that planned every mile, camping spot and oil change to get us to and from Alaska. But since both of our dogs, Maya, and Cookie, suffered significant health problems in May, requiring weeks of rest and rehabilitation, we realized in mid-June that we simply didn't have enough time to go all the way to Alaska and be back in time for family events in August.
Since the van was already packed up and ready to go, we decided on the spur of the moment to take off and just GO. But instead of a detailed, organized, daily itinerary, we wake up every day and figure out where we want to go and what we want to do for the next 2 days. Basically, we let the wind blow us where it wants.
In the past 5 weeks, we took a dip in the freezing cold waters of Lake Superior in Minnesota, got stuck in a buffalo jam at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, drove through herds of elk at dawn in the Grand Tetons, and saw a blonde, black bear at Yellowstone.
We have also been attacked by murderous flies and mosquitoes and have obsessed over weather reports to try to keep the dogs away from areas with 100-degree heat. My husband, by the way, is an expert at parking the van, positioning it to maximize shade and cross breezes.
And, like they used to say in the Old West, "cowboys don't take a bath, they just dust off."
It has been a fantastic and unexpected journey, one that will stick with us forever and pave the way for future Paddy Wagon adventures.
Happy Travels!
Ann K. Howley is the author of the award-winning memoir, Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad, and a contributor to the HerStories Project anthology, So Glad They Told Me: Women Get Real About Motherhood. My debut YA novel, The Memory of Cotton, was published in May 2022 by Propertius Press.
She writes for Pittsburgh Parent Magazine including a regular column about STEAM education. Her writing has appeared in magazines nationwide including skirt! Magazine, Bicycle Times Magazine, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and many others. Her articles received the Silver Award presented by the Parenting Media Association in 2017 and 2019 and her essays won the 1st Place Prize for Nonfiction in the 2015, 2016, and 2019 Pennwriters Writing Contests.
Here is a link to view and purchase A Memory of Cotton:
