Farther On

Halfway over the Mackinac Bridge, the ominous clunking returned. I looked at Sue and we both grimaced; definitely that right rear wheel. Oh, great.

I have always been one to venture down back roads, to get off the Interstate, to see what’s around the next corner. Not sure why, maybe it’s the Norwegian part of me, this restless urge for adventure. Or influencers like Mark Twain, with their admonitions to explore, dream, discover.

Whatever the case, after Sue and I had been married a year I could resist the call no longer. If not now, when? My career was picking up speed and we were beginning to think about houses and kids.

We bought a gently used VW Westphalia camper, I put in for a leave of absence, and we got out the Rand McNally road atlas. I looked for the dinkiest little back roads in the middle of nowhere I could find.

We started on a beautiful May morning in South Florida. Destination: Cedar Island, NC, the embarkation point for the ferry to the Outer Banks. Not much interesting to see, our goal was to make the 800-mile leg as fast as possible.

I think it really hit me once we were on the ferry. I was drinking coffee at the railing and we were halfway to Ocracoke. We were out of the sight of land, the engines making a thrum thrum thrum sound. Gulls wheeled and cried, and the wake from the ferry made the water white and foamy. The salt air was brisk, invigorating. My wife was next to me and our van was loaded with most of our possessions.

We were actually doing it. Would I ever be this free again?

We kept journals. My entry for May 9th: Got to our campground on Hatteras Island about 4:00 pm. Nice spot, plenty of trees and space. Pedaled our bikes down to the beach saw the moon coming up. Beautiful.

We stayed there a few nights; it was indescribably chill. We put up a hammock and lost ourselves in novels. We went clamming, saw the light house, rented kayaks and explored Pamlico Sound.

We hugged the eastern seaboard, staying at campgrounds on the beach. In northern Delaware, we caught another ferry across the Delaware Bay to Cape May, NJ, and then through the pine barrens. We got through the traffic of NYC and then entered New England.

Places of interest:

• Mansions built in the late 1800s by tycoons (Newport, CT)
• Block Island in the Long Island Sound
• Acadia National Park (Maine); climbed Cadillac Mountain, the first place you see the rising sun in North America.
• Lobstah dinnah, ayuh, in Boothbay Hahbah.

At this point, our carefully planned itinerary sorta fell apart. We winged it, going only by the Rand McNally atlas and some National Geographic maps I had with places of interest marked.

As the miles rolled along…in the intimacy of our tiny home on wheels…Sue and I talked. About everything, nothing. Dreams. Fears. Child rearing. We got to know each other on a profoundly personal level. My journal entry from May 16th: I was planning how I could build a barn someday. Sue said she’d like to have two horses, so I mentally added two more stalls.

Silly dreams, just starting out, our lives a blank canvas. Ice cream castles in the air, as Joni Mitchell said.

We saw the Presidential Range of New Hampshire and drove up Mount Washington; quite the hairy ordeal, no guard rails, sheer drops, transmission and brakes letting me know their displeasure. We crossed Lake Champlain on another ferry and toured the Adirondacks of New York. Then we headed west out into Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois.

One of my favorite boyhood books was Rascal by Sterling North; he chronicles growing up essentially alone in 1918 Wisconsin with his pet raccoon. We saw his historic house and Lake Koshkonong where he and Rascal had their adventures. We explored the North Woods of Wisconsin, camped in the Apostle Islands and saw the vast Lake Superior.

I recall one road in the upper peninsula of Michigan. It was gravel, the atlas said “inquire locally.” I said ehh. Turns out the atlas was right; 40 miles along a dusty gravel road at 15 mph without seeing a house, another car, another human. We did see a lot of lakes and wildlife, heard loons. If you wanted to get away from it all, this would be your spot.

We hit a particularly deep pothole, I felt something give in the right rear and immediately, a rhythmic clunking sound began. Uh oh. It came and went, but each time it came, it was louder. By the time we were crossing the Straights of Mackinac, I thought the wheel was going to fall off.

We had repairs done in Traverse City, MI. Sue’s Journal entry for June 6th: We took it to a VW dealer and they said it was a bad CV joint, whatever that is. Ugh, major hit to the budget. But we got to see nearby Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which was beautiful.

We leisurely followed the Mississippi south to the Gulf of Mexico; live oaks, Spanish moss, magnolias in bloom everywhere. The Old South, antebellum mansions, mom-and-pop hotels when we wanted a break from the VW. Nobody in a hurry, gotta pace yourself in the heat. Saw the sleepy coastal towns of Mississippi, Alabama, the Florida Panhandle.

By the time we got home two months and 10,087 miles later, we were done….at least for now. My exploration itch had been scratched, but I knew it would come back. It always does. There’s just too much to see.

Jackson Browne, Farther On:

Where they know they will find me
With my maps and my faith in the distance
Moving farther on

Farther on, indeed.

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