Travels with Scout: A Trip of a Lifetime

Fifty-eight years ago (ancient history to you, I’m sure) when I was thirteen, my widowed mother and I went on a road trip from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. We slept on a mattress in the back of her white Valiant station wagon, cooked over campfires, and I had her all to myself for two glorious weeks.

We traveled through the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota into the Grand Tetons of Wyoming and on to the geysers and sulfur hot springs of Yellowstone. In an era of nothing but Western movies and TV shows, I saw mountains and cowboys in person for the first time.

I fell in love with the West

As Mom drove home at the end of our vacation I recounted, breathless, every memory. Wasn’t this fantastic, and that incredible? Oh, and remember that? She kept nodding her head, eyes on the road, smiling. Mom was a great listener.

“You know,” she said at last somewhere in the Badlands, “when you turn 16, you could drop out of school and we could do this full-time.”

I couldn’t believe my ears.

Drop out of school? Was this my mother talking? What parent makes such an amazing suggestion? I’d forgotten that she had dropped out in the tenth grade herself to work, like many other Depression-era teens.

“We could stop and get waitress jobs,” she continued, “when we run out of money.”

“Yes!” I shouted, and spent the rest of the ride home (and the next year) dreaming of the future: Mom and me, driving around having adventures like those guys my favorite TV show (and the only non-Western I could think of): Route 66

But I didn’t understand that she wasn’t serious

She had a business to return to, a small diner called The Cedar Grill on the corner of Cedar Avenue and 38th Street in South Minneapolis. I didn’t know it yet but she would soon scrape up the down payment to buy another restaurant and call it Dotty’s Diner. Our lives would change completely.

My dream was just an idle thought to Mom, a fantasy. She had her own dream and she achieved it. I’m very proud of her now but at the time, not so much.

I hardly saw my mother any more, except when I was required to work at the diner myself, after school and during the summer. I finally realized that my dream of hitting the road with Mom would not happen when she got married a year after our epic vacation,

I became a sullen teenager who would eventually get pregnant, marry, divorce, have a career, marry and divorce again, and have another child. But in the back of my mind, I still held onto the dream. For half a century, I waited for someone to say, “Let’s go.” What I didn’t realize was that there was no need to wait.

I could hit the road all by myself.

Four-and-a-half years ago, I did. I have been living in my van ever since–though not traveling as much as I’d like. The blissful moments in the mountains or by the seashore that I had longed for are not as frequent as I hoped, partly for financial reasons but also because of fear.

I’m not talking about fear for my safety. To be honest, I don’t worry about some “Deliverance”-style nightmare, or whatever it is that people think happens to solo female travelers. I feel safer out here in the wild than I do in the city (except in bear country—I’m a little freaked out about bears.)

No, the fear I’m talking about is more internal, a fear of being alone, of not knowing what to do with myself, of having to face who I am.

You know the saying: “No matter where you go, there you are.” It’s like that

So, after plenty of dithering, I have embarked on a trip—no, a journey; there’s a difference—not running away from anything but running towards—what? I don’t know yet but I’ll tell you when I find out.

I plan to go east and then north, visiting friends and family along the way, and then west, to retrace the trip Mom and I took so long ago. After that, I want to travel through the Canadian Rockies and if I can afford it, join up with a friend for a side trip—past the Arctic Circle! (Yes, I’m excited!)

After that, who knows? It will depend on weather and money.

This is the trip of a lifetime for me, one I have dreamed of for years. I want to see for myself all the natural beauty I can before it’s too late—before I’m too old for the #vanlife and before it’s all gone. I tried an abbreviated version of this trip last year, in fact, but wildfires and health problems got in the way. Fingers crossed they won’t happen again.

I will keep a journal of my travels along with memories that come up along the way, and share the entries in a series of short Kindle books, one per month.

Patreon patrons will get entries as I write them, before they are published on the blog and later on Kindle. Patreon is for you if you want an advance look and want to buy me a gallon of gas now and then. (No, I won’t be taking a waitress job if I run out of money—my feet would never forgive me!)

I want you to know how much I appreciate and value your support–and your company. See? I’m not traveling alone. I’m bringing you! (And my dog, Scout, of course.)

Oh—the title of the series is Travels with Scout. Because I can’t think of anyone better to copy than Steinbeck.

Part One is coming; stay tuned.

April 17, 2018 — on a mountain somewhere in New Mexico