T-MINUS 3 WEEKS

COUNTDOWN BEGINS

Exactly 3 weeks from liftoff! Stacy and I both - individually and together - have always wanted to go into vagabond mode and just "wander around". We decided two years ago to do this, and now here we are.

We have found wonderful renters for the house. They have a one-year lease, so there's no turning back. They deliver our PODS next week, we load in all our worldy belongings, and they get picked up on the  27th to go into storage. Then we are on the road!

We've planned the first month in some detail. Beyond that, we only have some general idea of certain places we know we want to visit, and general time frames to be in various parts of the country. That was one of our goals from the start - to not have an agenda, to be free to hang a left to visit the largest ball of twine or other roadside oddity. This probably means we'll spend more than a few nights parked in a Walmart parking lot (they welcome RV'ers) but that's part of the adventure. Luckily we are pulling a nice, spacious home that can be fully self contained if hookups aren't available.

Our first month takes us to Seattle to visit with Stacy's daughter, Evan, for a couple of days. Then we head east through Washington, down into eastern Oregon, through Sun Valley, ID, up into western Montana for some fly fishing and into Glacier Park. After that we go to Great Falls, following Lewis & Clark's trails, across to Opheim, MT (where I was stationed on a remote radar basin the '60s), down to Custer's Battlefield and fishing on the amazing the Big Horn River. Then, after seeing Devil's Tower in Wyoming, we meet up with Stacy's brother and sister-in-law at Mount Rushmore.  Jeff and Kris will be on their way back to California from their own trip around the U.S.

From there, who knows? But major checkpoints include New England in the fall, NYC, Washington DC, Civil War history tour, Florida Keys for New Years. Then we start part II.