Daily writing prompt

Think back on your most memorable road trip.

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I have to go with the bus trip from MA to NM in 1968, when I was 14, with a group of fellow Boy Scouts and adult leaders, to Philmont Scout Ranch.

We were gone for almost a month. Along the way, we stayed at military facilities– Carlisle Barracks, Air Force bases in Ohio, Texas, and South Dakota, maybe a couple more; YMCAs in St. Louis, MO, Cheyenne, WY and Chicago, IL, and a hotel on the Canadian side at Niagara Falls, with supper overlooking the Falls in one of those high rise restaurants.

I look back on this every now and then and think how amazing it was, that we got to see so much of the country while probably not fully appreciating the opportunity or giving it sufficient thought at the time.

It included my first visit to Gettysburg, a place a quarter century later where we’d be living for four years. It included visits to the top of the Gateway Arch, the Truman Library, a ride on the cog railway to the summit of PIkes Peak; Mt. Rushmore, Wall Drug, various other places and landmarks along the way, and lots of hours on a Wilson Bus Lines bus traveling through various topographies and locales and getting a sense for how big and varied the American landscape was.

And of course the hiking in the southern Rockies for eight or ten days– can’t remember exactly how long we were on the trail, anymore.