Our Road Trip - Part Two

Our Road Trip -Part Two

 

My last column chronicled the first part of our Great American Road Trip towards the East coast with family. When that column was submitted, we were still in Kitty Hawk, NC on the Outer Banks.

 

We finished our stay there by driving south on Hatteras Island and marveled at the wetlands that buffer the North Carolina coast from Atlantic hurricane storm surges. We saw inlets that welcomed the pirates and provided refuge from storms at sea. More seafood beckoned at seaside joints that offered views of brave para-surfers flying across the bay. The next day, we headed West stopping at Fort Raleigh and the Lost Colony that was home to some of the first European immigrants until they vanished. 

 

Then it was onward further West to Greensboro, NC and a visit with my older brother who retired there after serving in law enforcement in California, working for our father in the family business and raising his family. He returned to the area where he met his wife while serving in the 82^nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. It was good to connect with him and share family stories from our early California childhood.

 

We next trekked further west to Knoxville, TN where we reconnected with our youngest and her family and we all met up with our second youngest granddaughter and her new husband, Kevin. The interesting connection here is that Kevin now works at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory which is where our youngest daughter’s husband worked after receiving his PhD. While there we went to the Museum of Science and Energy which traces the history of Oak Ridge in the development of the atomic bomb and nuclear energy during World War II and after. Current work at the lab continues to provide solutions for our energy needs and the decommissioning of nuclear weapons from around the world. 

 

After Knoxville, we went to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. It is truly a mammoth cave and the park on top of it is spectacular. Our daughter and her family took the extended tour below ground that descends over 600 vertical steps. My wife and I took the less strenuous, old geezer, tour which only went down and back up about 100 steps. The history of the place is fascinating. The cave has been in use for thousands of years by native inhabitants of the area and then later European immigrants who settled there. It has been a tourist attraction since the early 1800s. Now a National Park, the various aspects of the cave and surroundings are being preserved for future generations. 

 

After Mammoth Cave, it was time for us to head back home. Three weeks on the road and over 3,000 miles driven is enough. 

 

We saw America on the move as we travelled. The more parks and historical sites we visited, the more families we encountered. We kept track of the license plates we saw and counted all but Wyoming and Vermont on the cars and trucks we saw on the road. We also encountered staffing shortages in restaurants and park facilities due to pandemic furloughs. Many could not fill available tables or spaces due to lack of staff. 

 

The other major issue that struck us was the condition of the highways and back roads we traveled. We went through Michigan, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois on our venture. We were struck with the quality of the roads we took. All of them, in every state we were in, had better highways and secondary roads than we find in our home state of Wisconsin. It did not seem to matter whether the states were controlled by Republicans or Democrats, they all appeared to invest in building and maintaining good roads for travelers. Instead of visiting bogus election audits in Arizona, our legislators should just get in their cars and take a road trip to see what we are missing.

 

All in all, we had a great trip. It was wonderful to reconnect with family and hug our kids. We loved visiting places where history was made and learning about the feats of everyday Americans that built this country. We have been privileged to see much of our country’s parks and monuments and hope to continue the journeys as America recovers from COVID.-