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-Labra
dor 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.
At 45, Widow Minshall began 20 years of solo full-time RVing throughout Alaska, Mexico, and Canada. Sharlene canoed the Yukon, mushed sled dogs, worked a dude ranch, visited Hudson Bay polar bears, and lived six months on a Mexican beach. She lectured at Life on Wheels, published six RV-related books and wrote a novel, “Winter in the Wilderness.”
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