A Cross Country Odyssey - 2003
Last leg home
Our first night stop on the last leg of our trip from Montana to home was in Oregon along the Columbia River where the John Day River flows into it. From there we headed down the next day through central Oregon on US 97 and joined I-5 at Weed, CA., which is located at the base of Mt. Shasta
 A rainbow seen from the camp on the John Day River in Oregon |
 Mt. Shasta as seen from the north |
 Tsukiko at the Mt. Shasta view point |
 Yoshiko at the Mt. Shasta view point |
 Three travelers on their way home |
 Truck and trailer head home to Saratoga |
 Back home we took a walk through the hills near our home. The neighborhood looks the same. Good to be back home. |
 Steve has to get to work right away cutting mattes for Yoshiko's art |
- END OF TRIP -
Thank you for your patience
Retrospective:
We all really enjoyed the four month cross country trip. Never felt homesick
nor tired of travelling. We covered over 15,000 miles at a total cost of
about $15,000 (which included everything). The cats travelled well but were
happy to get back home. Three adults travelled well and seemed to get along
fine in the close quarters for three months.
There were so many hilites on our trip it would be difficult to select just a few. It was great to be able to visit family and friends and to spend some time with them. It was nice to join our fellow Airstream friends periodically at the Airstream rallies. It would have been nice if we could have travelled together more with friends. The only time we really did that was on our first leg caravan from California to Indianapolis. It is nice to travel with one or more fellow travelers.
We had a few breakdowns along the way but they were never really bothersome. These inculde a loss of trailer brakes in Canada, a thrown tire tread in Pennsylvania (bought 4 new tires after that), loose stone guards on the trailer in Nova Scotia. The roads are rough there. But a fellow Airstreamer helped me secure them with some more pop rivets. Our rear trailer window was broken in Wyoming. Plastic and duct tape provided a temporary fix (Still waiting on a replacement window). And a failed bearing tore through the truck differential in Montana and ripped out the gear teeth. Steve lost one of his teeth in Vermont when a sudden toothache required a visit to a dentist. But through it all we were safe and sound and never really delayed in our travels.
Places that were very pleasant surprizes to us include Lancaster County, PA, Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia and the New York City visit. We recommend those to enyone. Places we have enjoyed before and knew we would enjoy again include back home in Indiana, visits with relatives in Indiana and Illinois, and visits with friends in Montana.