We are at home in a new strange place called Campbellsville, Kentucky. Kat has a three month gig here with Amazon. Pink and I are looking forward to some still time, and Kat gets to rejoin the rat race if just for a while. But maybe she won’t race. In most jobs there is a carrot out front: perform well and there could be a promotion and better pay. Here, we just enjoy the paycheck, the paid campground, low diesel cost, and in my case, the extra rest.

It has been a long ride. The Red Sled has pulled Kat’s Cradle 7,000 miles since the beginning of April. We have camped in over 60 sites. We saw six National Parks plus Mount Rushmore, the Custer Battlefield, Craters of the Moon National Monument, Pictured Rocks National Seashore, four Great Lakes, Fred’s Lounge, and a dozen or so lovely campgrounds which prosper below radar. We’ve met so many interesting people we can’t remember them all, nor some of what they taught us. We learned many lessons on trailering; some from advice but more often from breaking things.

We’ve had to move because of grizzly bears, because our batteries ran all the way out, or because we had to move to take on water or to dump tanks. More often we moved because we wanted to see so much.

It was too much. We saw so many memorable sights that we have forgotten some, and underappreciated others. We cannot remember some of the towns we shopped in, nor many of the parks. Nonetheless, next year we hope to see Big Bend in late February, get dental work done just across the border in Mexico, see a Spring Training baseball game or two in March, and see everything around Utah that we haven’t. That list includes Joshua Tree, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, and Grand Canyon National Parks. If we are lucky we will land a camp host job in Colorado or Upper Michigan or some other scenic place at high elevation with cool nights.

What have we learned from our travels? I think it’s “Don’t wait for retirement to travel or to live.” We have the rest of our responsible driving lives to do this, but I wonder if ten years will be enough. It’s a huge country and our pace did much of it injustice. I wish I had taken the time to talk to more people in depth, and to write every day. We will slow down, notice the wildflowers, smell the mouse repellent, and give thanks for our extended spring and long, cool summer.

Life is good. Let us enjoy it while we may.