Coming Home

June 7-12, 2003


After five and a half months and fifteen thousand miles, we're home. The neighborhood kids formed a welcoming party and we managed to get the Dutch Star under the wires and into the dooryard. The kids look like they doubt if we'll make it; I especially like Katy Swan's reassuring arm on Molly's shoulder.


       South Dakota was our last scheduled stopping place; from there, it was almost due east--diagonally up through Minnesota, across the top of Wisconsin, and on to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. At Sault Ste. Marie, we crossed into Ontario and were on the last leg toward northern New England.

    Here's a beautiful sunset just east of the Sault; the RV park (just to the right of this road) was almost full of what I would call permanent campers--small trailers which stay for the whole summer (and through the winter, too) serving as low-cost summer cottages for folks from all over Ontario.

    It was quite a social place--when darkness fell, campfires sprang up across the park and neighbors gathered for gentle conversation. It was the kind of socializing we had hoped to find all along the trip, but largely missed because the consistently cool weather often kept everyone (including us) inside.

    One of the reasons we took the Canadian route home (the other was to avoid the traffic around Chicago) was to stop for a couple of days at Mary's cabin near Algonquin Park in Ontario. She bought the land in the early 70s ($900 for a lakeside acre) and she and her brothers and assorted friends (I wasn't in the picture then) built this classic northwoods cabin.






    Wonderful spot; we just wish it weren't fourteen hours from Maine.

    One of the neat things about the way they developed the lake is that all the building lots are on the same side--so you have neighbors on either side but the view across the lake is of a pristine lake shore. I've never seen this anywhere else, but it makes a lot of sense, both for the ecology of the lake and the owners.








The kids enjoyed a break from driving (we'd been on the road every day for about a week until we got  to the cabin) and braved the very cold lake water for some good-natured horseplay.


 








    I did a little lifeguarding; no way I was getting in that water except in the case of dire emergency. Ben's learning that paddling an inflatable in a straight line is just about impossible with one oar; he eventually did make it to shore.

    That night, we made a fire, read Agatha Christie, and listened to the rain on the roof; does it get any better?


Another treat was an afternoon visit with Jack Hurley, an old friend of Mary and her brothers who makes the most beautiful canoes you ever saw. Jack came to summer camp in Algonquin Park in the sixties and, for all intents and purposes, never left. Now he's one of a handful (more than a few of whom are in Maine) dedicated to the art of the wood and canvas canoe.

    He and his associate build--completely by hand--about 15 canoes a year, along with maintaining and rebuilding a dozen or so more. In his shop, you feel like you are in a kind of zen space where concepts like art, quality, integrity, and honesty find concrete form. This is really cool, especially to someone (like me) whose career has been  mostly taken up with abstractions like Law or Policy.

At the end of a day, it's a special gift to be able to pick up and hold something of such beauty which your hands have made.
    Back on the RV, Ben plays Star Wars (thanks, George) on two computers at once. Actually, the computer on the left has a broken screen so it's hooked up to the screen on the right. His left hand is running the keyboard and he handles the mouse with his right while focussing on the screen in the middle.

    No wonder these kids make great fighter pilots.







Did you ever wonder what you would do if you were driving through Renfrew, Ontario around noon and everybody wanted to stop for lunch? Answer--just pull up to one side of Main Street, take up four parking spaces, and have a leisurely lunch at a sidewalk cafe. Believe it not, I put quarters in all four parking meters. This turned out to have been a good move--about ten minutes later, so help me, the meter maid came by and dutifully checked each one. Honesty is the best policy.

    Actually, we were really lucky to find most of a city block open to park; usually it's much harder to stop. Several days earlier, we had driven about two hours after the demands for food began before we could find a place big enough to pull off.

Isn't just a perfect Vermont shot? We're on I-91 headed for St. Johnsbury and the final run to Maine. This was a welcome sight after a really awful drive through the construction and generally horrendous traffic around Montreal. We might as well have gone by way of Chicago; at least we could have seen the Cubbies.



    Finally, back into Maine over Route 2 to Bethel, then down 26 to Norway-South Paris and 121 to Auburn. Here we are, headed for the Androscoggin and 196 to Topsham. At this point, the kids asked "how much longer" about every two minutes.

    It did feel good to see so many familiar landmarks. I also had a "former Governor" moment when we hit the Maine border and Route 2 (which had been pretty good through New Hampshire) turned patched and bumpy. I was crestfallen until Mary reminded me that it was no longer my problem. In the old days, I'd have called the DOT and raised hell (just ask 'em).


The Topsham-Brunswick bridge; now we really were five minutes from home.



And here they are--just about all the neighborhood kids. The hardest part of the trip for Ban and Molly was the lack of companionship. Sure, they had each other and us and made some friends along the way, but they still missed their buddies. This was a supremely happy moment.







    This is what we saw as we made the turn into the driveway; pretty neat.













       And this is the scene fifteen minutes later in our backyard. It reminded me of the great children's' book about the guy who sells hats which are stolen by a bunch of monkeys; here they are, all up a tree. This is fun itself.

    The main reason we pushed so hard to be home by mid-June was so the kids could have a few days to rejoin their classmates before school closed for the summer. And sure enough, here we are in Molly's third-grade class, putting the finishing touches on a wonderful map they had made to chart our progress around the country.

   


    Across from me is Molly's teacher, Doug DeCamilla, one of the best educators I've ever run across (and that's saying something--I've had kids in school in one grade or another since 1975).




And so, where's Molly? Well, now she's back in class, sharing her adventures with the rest of the third grade. She was wonderful--with a little, but not much, coaching from Mom (in her Legoland T-shirt).

In a larger sense, though, Molly--along with the rest of our little crew--is still out there, learning, looking, experiencing, and ultimately finding America. And what a great trip it's been.

Thanks so much for taking it with us.




With love and safe travels to all, Ben, Molly, Mary, and Angus.