Terri and Peter's RV Adventures

It’s taken me almost a week to sit down and write this final blog post. The last leg of the trip was uneventful, if once again reinforcing that we live in a desert. The yellow, dried out hills and barren landscape free of water save human-made aqueducts made me yearn for green grassy fields, ponds and lakes that were in abundance in the midwest and eastern US and Canada. There are tradeoffs, as in low humidity, no bugs and nights that actually cool off. But I wish I could have it all.

This last leg was only 250 miles but seemed to take forever to get home. Once again we were faced with finding a lunch option that gave shade and cool for the dogs and reasonable food for us. Well, forget “reasonable” as it was my first Carl’s Jr. in I don’t know how long.

Our house welcomed us as a cool, clean respite, thanks to friends who had prepared it for us. The unloading of clothes, food, and overall stuff from the RV was overwhelming as were the endless loads of laundry, grocery shopping and everything else needed to right the ship and get back to our daily rhythms. I must admit, our bed felt great and my body responded almost immediately to a return to my steady diet of beautiful summer fruit and vegetables. It was remarkably challenging staying on a healthy regimen of eating and exercise when on the road. I didn’t gain as much weight as I thought but I still have a goal to achieve.

We’re slowly re-integrating back into our lives with friends and activities and brought in Fiona 2.0 for a shakedown/fix up after this over 14,000 mile roadtrip. Surprisingly, most of the repairs are carpentry (hinges, loose screws, etc) and operator error (bumps and bruises from miscalculating rocks and stop signs). Most of it is under warranty and she’s now safely at the Airstream dealership where they will get her back into shape.

(Above: The best traveling dogs ever. PS. Cali just got a gold star bill of health given her 15 years and two month status. Her doctor is very pleased!)

Here are the stats of our trip: Over three months on the road (103 days), 14,114 miles, 19 states and 6 provinces. We met many, many wonderful people and saw things and experienced nature that struck us with awe, wonder and gratitude. We survived. We thrived. We are happy we did it and we are exhausted. It was a trip of a lifetime.

Thank you for following along. Staying connected with all of you was such an important touchstone. Creating these daily blogs and putting them into a book will allow me and Peter to remember this trip in its gory detail for years to come. (Maybe it will be enough of a reminder when we think about another cross country trip!)

Overall, we are filled with gratitude for family, friends, for Cali and Lily who enriched the trip immeasurably and for the good fortune that kept us safe and relatively healthy on this epic adventure. Who knows where we’ll go next year, but I’ll save that for next year!

Above: Sunset from home.