Our Gap Year Walkabout Tour of North America

Episode One: the East Coast to the Rockies

Rob and Sue Colwell
Aug 27, 2017 · 11 min read

The journey begins!

In the first half of 2017, we retired from our jobs, sold our house, put our stuff in storage PODS, and bought a small trailer. Then we hit the road, intending to see as much of the continent as possible in the next year. Here’s an account of the first leg of our trip: north to Canada, west to chase the total solar eclipse, and then northwest along the old Oregon Trail.

The three storage containers that now contain all our earthly goods.
We sold our 5700-square-foot home and moved into this 84-square-foot trailer.

First Stop: Fort Ticonderoga, NY

After a grueling drive north, we refreshed with a tasty meal and several pints at Druthers Brewpub in downtown Saratoga Springs, then visited Fort Ticonderoga of “Last of the Mohicans” fame the following day. This a particularly well-preserved fortification on a strategic and oft-contested site used by the French, then the British, then the U.S. (winners!). We stayed for a demonstration of sequential musket fire, then fled to the car as heavy rain fell.

Fort Ticonderoga
Cannon tour at Fort Ticonderoga
Re-enactors at Fort Ticonderoga

Vermont

Driving into Vermont, we were impressed by the Green Mountains that give the state its name, and we aim to return sometime in the fall to see the leaves change. We fueled our bodies with a stop at the original Ben and Jerry’s factory, where we took the tour, tried some new flavors, and enjoyed the groovy vibe. We then had dinner at a popular lakefront restaurant in Burlington, watching the sunset over Lake Champlain. Seems like they have it pretty swell in Vermont, though we might have a different impression if we’d visited in winter.

The Ben and Jerry’s Factory in Vermont
Lake Champlain, Burlington, Vermont

Montreal, Canada

After a painless crossing of the border, we enjoyed two nights in Montreal, one in the historic district near the river, the other in the downtown area. We walked the riverfront, pretended we were sophisticated and cosmopolitan in Jacques Cartier Place and the surrounding alleys, and dined well on great seafood and local ale. Montreal is a vibrant city, with terrific cultural heritage, and the French speakers weren’t rude or patronizing when we apologetically repeated that we don’t speak the language, using the phrase “Pardon; je ne parle pas français.”

Notre Dame Cathedral
Waterfront park
Sidewalk cafe in Old Montreal

Quebec

Leaving Montreal, we drove three hours north to Quebec to meet daughter Maddie as she arrived there aboard the Coast Guard tall ship Eagle at the end of her six-week voyage from Norfolk, Virginia. After squeezing our SUV through the narrow streets and the gates of the old walls that surround the city, we settled into a nice condo that we’d rented in the historic portion of Old Quebec. We marched along the fortifications, hiked the steep hill down to the port and back, circumnavigated the famous Chateau Frontenac landmark, dodged a plethora of obliviously rude pedestrians, and watched the impressive pomp and circumstance of the changing of the guard in the hilltop Citadel. Most importantly, we reunited with Cadet Madeline Colwell, and treated her and some shipmates to crepes, poutine, and fresh fish.

The USCG Tall Ship Eagle, berthed in Quebec
Changing of the Guard ceremony at the Quebec Citadel
Chateau Frontenac, Quebec

Cape Cod

We picked up daughter Kate at the Providence, Rhode Island airport, then drove to Coast Guard Beach on Cape Cod, where we’d rented a rare oceanfront vacation cottage from the National Park Service. We enjoyed unobstructed 180 degree views of the ocean without another house in site, and took long walks on the beach, where hundreds of seals gather as a smorgasbord for great white sharks. One day, while watching the lobstermen tend their traps offshore, we noticed an usual feature in the water that we thought might be a whale. It soon attracted the attention of the lobstermen, charter fishermen, and two circling aircraft, and we learned it was indeed a dead humpback whale. With no TV or wifi at the cottage, we completed jigsaw puzzles, read books, and cooked great seafood. We also enjoyed a nice visit with Cousin Linda Cook and her husband Jeff down in South Yarmouth, who treated us to fresh lobster rolls in their terrific home, spoiling us just as they did when we first crashed at their Fairfax home during our move to northern Virginia in 1985.

Coast Guard Beach as seen from our vacation rental
Wading out to commune with the large seal colony at Coast Guard Beach
Sunrise from our vacation cottage

Mystic, Connecticut

After picking up our Aliner trailer and settling on the sale of our house, we headed back north to Connecticut. The traffic was again atrocious, even though we tried a more inland route, and it genuinely sucked to be towing a trailer through northeast traffic. We arrived at the Seaport Resort campground during their 5 p.m. Friday happy hour, and our new neighbors were highly amused by our travails in attempting to back-up and park our trailer for the first time. Our little Aliner was dwarfed by the huge RVs and Fifth Wheel trailers around it, many of whom had established camp there for the whole summer. The S&P Oyster Company restaurant provided a spectacular meal as always, and the lobster, fried clams, and fish and chips on the dock at Captain Scott’s was wonderful as well. We spent three nights in the campground, dropped Maddie at the Coast Guard Academy, and then began our journey west.

Mystic campsite
Brunch at S&P Oyster Company in Mystic
Campfire bonding with Maddie

Pennsylvania

After a long drive west, over bogus toll roads in such disrepair that they should owe us money, we arrived at Shawnee State Park. We enjoyed a nice campsite in the forest, and swam in the warm lake off a nearly deserted beach. This was our first encounter with a firewood vending machine, and we were awestruck by the ability to slide a few bills into the machine’s slot and receive a large bundle of wood in return. We were also impressed by the quality of goods in Fisher’s Country Store in nearby Bedford, where we bought Amish-made pancake mix, sausages, and pickles. Finally, we drove to the Flight 93 Memorial to pay homage to the heroes honored there, and we were both brought to tears at this hallowed ground. The nation owes an incalculable debt to the courage and initiative of those ordinary citizens who refused to cower in the face of terror.

Swimming beach at Shawnee State Park, PA
Employing old fashioned bug repellant at our campsite
Our first encounter with a vending machine for firewood

Ohio

We gratefully pulled into Mary and Greg’s driveway to bond with old friends for a couple of days. Their hospitality in enduring our disruptive invasion during the first day of Grace’s new school year was greatly appreciated. We drank wine, went swimming, did laundry, cranked homemade ice cream, and told stories about Sue and Mary’s experiences as roommates at Santa Barbara and their hitchhiking adventure to Alaska. The one thing we forgot to do was take any pictures!

Indiana

After driving through many tall cornfields, we settled into Indiana’s Lieber State Recreation Area campground. The folks in Indiana treat camping like a party, and most campers decorated their sites with twinkle lights and/or tiki torches. We made the most of our free day there, hiking to an old covered bridge and the delightful Cataract Falls, which has been dubbed by the locals to be “Indiana’s Niagara”, though it’s a modest 20 feet high. We were amused to see corncobs littered along the river banks at the falls after being pilfered from the local farms by raccoons.

Driving through the tall corn in Indiana
Covered Bridge at Cataract Falls
Cataract Falls
Mill Creek, source for Cataract Falls
Enjoying sodas from a country store

Missouri

We motored I-70 across Indiana, Illinois, and most of Missouri to reach Crows Creek Campground north of Kansas City, where we’d reserved a lakefront site to watch the total eclipse. We were joined by throngs of other eclipse seekers, who crammed three or more carloads into most campsites to see the spectacle. It made for a festive atmosphere, and the celestial show didn’t disappoint! Through scattered clouds we were able to view the partial stages of the eclipse, and were initially surprised at how bright the landscape remained at 50, 75, and even 95 percent. But once the last sliver of sun disappeared — and totality began — it became completely dark, and celebratory hoops, hollers and howls went up from the crowds on land and on boats in the lake for the two minutes of total eclipse. We were utterly amazed and how quickly and completely we’d been plunged into darkness.

Shortly after the eclipse ended, a powerful thunderstorm roared in off the lake, and we presumed that would clean most energy from the atmosphere. We were wrong. That night we saw another storm approaching that looked like an ominous combination of the alien invasion from Independence Day and the tsunami from The Day After Tomorrow. We battened down the hatches, putting away our stove and chairs, closing both dormer extensions and all windows, and bracing extra chocks against the tires. We then endured the longest and strongest thunderstorm of our lives….seven straight hours of ceaseless thunder and lightning, somewhere between six to nine inches of driving rain, and strong winds. The trailer was pounded, and we slept very little, but the storm eventually cleared about 4 a.m. and we emerged unscathed, desperately needing to pee!

The tents in sites nearby were not so lucky….most had been trashed by the epic storm, and the occupants forced to take refuge in their vehicles. Later in the day we read that many residents of Kansas City had to be evacuated due to record flooding that followed the storm.

Our lakefront campsite for viewing the total eclipse, on the Missouri/Kansas border
Sunset from our campsite, the night before the eclipse
Morning of the eclipse, with every campsite jam-packed with festive parties
Checking out the eclipse from our lakefront campsite
The approaching tsunami-like wall cloud, an ominous warning of the epic seven-hour thunderstorm that followed

Kansas

The day following the eclipse we drove across the width of Kansas on I-70, and experienced the vast plains, which are largely bereft of stimulation, and didn’t merit any photos. But by detouring off the highway for about 20 miles, the last seven of which were on dirt roads, we came to a remarkable series of spires and arches known as Monument Rocks. These are the last eroded remnants of the ancient seabed that once covered the plains, and they are bizarrely at odds with the flat, arid grassland that surrounds them for hundreds of miles. We hike around these unusual features for an hour or so.

Our personal wagon train in front of Monument Rocks, Kansas
Monument Rocks, KS
Monument Rocks, KS
Beauties that have resisted erosion through time!
Monument Rocks, KS

Nebraska

We occasionally found ourselves able to roughly follow the path of some of the early explorers, and in Nebraska our path intersected the Oregon Trail at Chimney Rock and Scott’s Bluff. We abandoned our car and hiked the local trails, walking through the wild sunflowers and attempting to see these landmarks the way the early settlers did. When in Nebraska, one must also eat big steaks, and we enthusiastically did!

Chimney Rock, a landmark visible from at least 40 miles away
Scott’s Bluff, Nebraska
Climbing Scott’s Bluff
Hiking a section of the old Oregon Trail below Scott’s Bluff
Sunflowers are everywhere in Nebraska, growing wild as well as in large, cultivated fields

South Dakota

We drove for many hours on state highways and county roads to reach our next destination, Badlands National Park. Neither of us had ever been there before, and we were stunned at the park’s diversity. With a name like Badlands, we had of course expected to see deeply eroded gullies and canyons, and we encountered such features in abundance. But we hadn’t expected to spend so much time looking up, at peaks and cliffs and spires and weirdly balanced mushroom rocks.

The geologic diversity was amazing; amidst layers and layers of horizontal strata we’d occasionally see a vertical seam of different rock running perpendicular to the rest. And in the middle of miles and miles of clay and bentonite we found shotput-sized chunks of black granite and huge blocks of rose quartz. Weird stuff. And of course we saw hundreds of prairie dogs, as well as chipmunks, deer, antelope, and bighorn sheep.

Lastly, we visited a museum at a destroyed Minuteman II ICBM silo, a reminder of the Cold War that we grew up with. We took several hikes in the area to celebrate our 33rd wedding anniversary, including a nine-mile hike through the scorching gullies of the park and a 40-meter stroll at 2 a.m. to the campground restrooms. The Badlands surely showed us a good time!

The Badlands experience we expected…looking down at severely eroded gullies
The Badlands experience that surprised us….looking UP at majestic peaks
More reasons to look UP in the Badlands
A nine-mile hike through awesome scenery on a hot, cloudless morning
Badlands moonscape
Our lasting impression of the Badlands: many spectacular sights in every direction

That’s it for leg one! Stay tuned for the next installment of our adventures as we hit the northern Rockies from Jasper south to Denver. We would love to hear from you, and we look forward to posting more pictures and stories soon.

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Rob and Sue Colwell

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Pursuing subsistence farming on a country property below the Blue Ridge

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