Because my March RV Life column is titled, “Itchy Wheels,” and ways to travel so that it spreads the cost, this is an example of a loop I made in 1998. It is so heavy on miles, I would these days either take more time or shorten the trip…although come to think of it, what would I cut off! I’m not exactly sure what routes I took that year from the Southwest but I did wind up in Virginia visiting the youngest daughter for a few weeks in early spring, ultimately leaving my tow car behind. The Mercury Lynx, having been born in 1981, was already old when I bought it five years before but it had lived a useful and productive life attached to the active Sprinter MH. A local vocational school in Lynchburg was delighted to acquire it and have a bona fide car for their students to work on. That left me a little freer for the adventure I didn’t know was awaiting me a few weeks later.
I headed to the extreme northeast part of my loop and chatted with the Von Trapps, Robert Frost, and Grandma Moses; revisited the countryside of PEI and New Brunswick; and went lobster fishing in Nova Scotia before landing in Port aux Basque, Newfoundland via the ferry. I hadn’t been there before so a trip across country took me as far east as I could go to St. Johns, then back NW to catch a ferry from Lewisporte through the icebergs that lined the route to Goosebay, Labrador in June. Nobody discouraged me from driving my RV the 679-mile haul road that was the Trans-Labrador Highway to Baie-Comeau, Quebec on the St. Lawrence Seaway. The dirt haul road was being rebuilt and reshaped at that time and I had visions of being stuck there forever, but I persevered and what an adventure.
From there I took the very northernmost roads across Quebec and Ontario and eventually southwest to cross the U. S. border again, this time into Minnesota. I gasped when gasoline was $1.17/gallon. Wouldn’t we love that now? Because I was meeting my kids for a family reunion in Minnesota, I did the Canadian part of that loop in two months. Returning to the Southwest was accomplished in a continuing circuitous route to Arizona with the full trip lasting six months. If I were doing it now, I’d take at least eight. Ah well, God Bless until next week.
Minshall’s RVing Alaska and Canada is available thru Amazon.
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