The Mission

The Covid-19 Pandemic, which began in early 2019, has caused a multitude of disruptions. Our family has managed to avoid any illness during this period, but many people have suffered. Travel is one area that has been severely disrupted. Early on, travelling any where by plane was problematic. Even travelling by car was difficult with many hotels and facilities closed.

Now, in September of 2021, most things have opened up, but with precautions like vaccinations, masking, social distancing, although too many people are not following the rules.  The virus is moving around the country. Right now, Idaho is one of the worst, with Covid cases overwhelming our hospitals. 

We have been planning this trip for some time. We haven't seen Jake and boys since the summer of 2019 when we all met at Yellowstone to celebrate our 50th. We have spoken to them via Zoom, buts its just not the same! The likelihood that they'd fly out to Idaho - well, its just not gonna happen.

So, there's that. Then, recall that back in 2019 we achieved our goal of visiting all 50 of the National Parks in the lower 48. Well, this year Congress approved a new park - New River Gorge in West Virginia. End of discussion, we'll plan a road trip to visit New York and see this new park. Along the way we'll also plan a few other things: visit Steve and Mary in Nashville, spend some time in our old favorite haunt the Blue Ridge Parkway, Asheville, in Michigan the Henry Ford Museum, Mackinac Island. Branson, Medora and more. This will be our 4th cross country road trip so we've seen a lot if already. Total distance will be about 6000 miles and we'll take a leisurely month to do it.

Originally, our trip was to include driving the length of the Natchez Trace, from Natchez, MS to Nashville. But as we were planning, there was just so much Covid in the "deep south" that we thought it best to eliminate that from our itinerary. We'll save it for another time.

An added wrinkle: in the 30 days from mid July to mid-August, BOTH of us had heart attacks! Linda, while we were vacationing with the kids on the Oregon Coast on July 15th and me, right in our kitchen, on August 11th! We both made it to the ER in time and we both ended up with a stent. We're feeling great, like it never happened, and our respective cardiologists gave us the go ahead to make this trip.

Our first day will take us to Park City, Utah. We'll have dinner with John McGrath, our long time financial advisor. Then, off to Colorado.