TO ALL
If any of you are harboring any fleeting thoughts that I, Nancy Strohm, might be a normal, sane person, DO NOT read this Travelogue. It will definitely dispel any such thoughts.
I just got back from about 40 days in the
Leg 1: Ramstein, Germany to Dover, DE via military Space-A (Space-available)
This was a non-event. I got out on the first try and everything went smoothly. My friend Mary Tallent picked me up in
Leg 2:
I met Mike in Phoenix and we spend a day with our friends Mary and Louie Trout in their home in Wickenburg, Arizona. Arizona has had an unusual amount of rain this spring and the desert was absolutely gorgeous. The saguaro were all in bloom and the ocotillo were covered with green leaves and orange tips. Louie put Mike right to work "harvesting rocks." He is "landscaping" his house using rocks from the "gully" below his house. He has rigged a sling from a tire chain to get the rocks into a wheel barrow and then he uses a rope to push/pull the wheel barrow up the hill. He had some big rocks earmarked for "when I have able-bodied company." After a few runs Mike was panting and sweating and Louie was laughing. I'm threatening to tell Mike's army boss that he let a 72 year old man out work him!
Leg 3: Phoenix to LA via rent car. We met my dad at the Ontario airport and spent the weekend doing the proud parent/grandparent thing at various graduation events. Also meeting friends and professors. Alan graduated with high distinction. Also received an award from Pomona College for all his orchestra work.
Leg 4: LA to Tacoma via Alan's green Nissan, loaded with stuff. (This was Monday, May 16th - Mike drove back to Phoenix at this point and flew back to Germany). On the way north Alan got a phone call from someone at Google saying "Oh, by the way did we tell you that we are sending you to San Jose for your first week? Oh and . . . . . can you fly out on Sunday?"
We had planned to stop at Travis AFB (San Francisco) for the night, but got on a roll and drove straight through except for a few hours at a rest stop about midnight. Killed time at Starbucks, looking over the Seattle Times apartment ads, and then showed up at the Tucker's doorstep about 8:00AM. The red Nissan (Amy's car which has been parked in Tacoma for the last 5 months) passed the emission control the first time and by 11:00 it was legally drivable again and Alan and I were headed for Kirkland to look at apartments. We left the green Nissan in the shop for various things to be done so that Amy could take it to New York for the summer.
Alan signed for an apartment on the second day of looking -- 2 miles from Google, washer/dryer in the apartment, a fireplace, lots of onsite parking including one covered parking space, great landscaping, a lap pool, etc, etc.
Amy arrived on Friday and had a few days to spend with friends before leaving for the Catskills the following Wednesday evening. I had to be at Alan's apartment on Wednesday to accept delivery of some stuff we left in storage when we went to Germany - bed, couch, dishes, etc. and then do another last minute repair on the car, so it was evening before we got out of Tacoma.
I was in Tacoma about a week total - too short and too busy, but . . . . oh, well.
Leg 5: Tacoma to Albany, NY via Yellowstone, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Niagara Falls ---- in the green Nissan, very loaded down again and this time with a bicycle on the back. Amy was determined to go through Yellowstone and I was determined to go through Canada so we managed to make a 2800 mile trip into a 3500 mile trip with only 6+ days to do it in. We camped along the way. The car behaved perfectly except for some bolt that fell out of the brake housing before we even got out of Seattle. We rattled our way all the way to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho before I concluded that something had to be done. Mike (in Germany) located a Midas in Coeur d'Alene and called and got directions for me from the interstate. They fixed it in a matter of minutes and didn't charge me a thing. The rest of the trip was MUCH quieter.
Yellowstone was really pretty. We wanted to drive over the Beartooth Parkway again (Lisa Stallone and Ana take note) as we left, but it was only open half way. The alternate route was less spectacular, but still quite scenic. Canada was also very pretty - especially around the Lake of the Woods area just north of International Falls, Minnesota. That whole area is about equal parts of land and water - lots and lots and of lakes - irregularly shaped lakes with fingers going every-which-way, none of them even remotely round, but always with islands in them. At one particularly picturesque camping site we were treated to what we think was a loon calling sporadically throughout the evening. One day we were debating how far to go before we stopped for the night. We were a little behind my projected schedule. We had been seeing lots of signs about watching for moose on the road at night. Amy suggested that we drive until dark and maybe we would see a moose. We did and sure enough we did.
Leg 6: Albany to Quebec, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island via a rent car. This is the really crazy part of my trip. Sometime before I left Germany it occurred to me that when I got to Albany with Amy I was going to be faced with an unusual set of circumstances that I could perhaps capitalize on -- (1) no need to fly back to Germany on a set date, (2) no real responsibilities in Germany when I got there, (3) a part of Canada relatively close at hand that I had never seen before, (4) a tent and sleeping bag at my disposal, and (5) a daughter who wanted to show up in the Catskills "on her own" but was willing to take me back to Baltimore on her first weekend off. Sooooo I rented a car in Albany and went exploring on my own. I spent more than I had intended to -- gas was expensive in Canada and so were campgrounds -- but so far I am unrepentant. It was a fun week. I sort of enjoyed being alone and having a rent car meant that I didn't have to worry a moment about car trouble.
I didn't get very far the first 2 days, because I needed to do laundry, pay bills, etc plus I was tired of being in the car. But by the end of the third day I was almost to the tip of the Gaspe peninsula and it was absolutely gorgeous. Tourist season had just barely started in Canada, but the weather was unseasonable nice. The coast of the St Lawrence seaway becomes more and more rugged the farther east you go. Sometimes the road is right by the ocean. There are even warning signs about surf on the road. Other times the road is on the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean.
Quebec (pronounced kay-BECK, I think) is definitely French. Most people do speak some English, but the road signs are in French only. Apparently there was a referendum in Quebec about 10 years ago for Quebec to become a separate country.
60% voted against it. According to the one English radio station I was able to get in the car, polls indicate that the sentiment is now up to 52% in favor.
In Perce, Quebec, I spent a couple of nights in a hostel - really cheap and nice. There is a giant rock "island" off the coast of Perce that is really spectacular. Also another island called Bonaventure that has a nesting area for gannets. I took a boat tour to and around the island. There are walkways out to the gannet nesting area and you can watch the gannets quite close up - thousands of 
them in a fairly small area on the top of a cliff which drops off into the 
ocean. The noise was incredible. It was fun to watch them mate, fend off other suitors, build their nests, protect their eggs, etc, etc.
From Quebec I went through New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island - the home of Anne of Green Gables (for you men, Anne is the hero of a popular girls novel series by Lucy Maud Montgomery). The town of Avonlea (in the book) is modeled after Cavendish on P.E.I. The house - Green Gables - has been preserved and furnished appropriately. The area around it is HIGHLY commercialized, but the house itself is still tasteful - at least in the off-season. Green Gables is definitely P.E.I.'s claim to fame. Some car tags say "Prince Edward Island - home of Anne of Green Gables." The island is every bit as pretty as Montgomery leads you to believe it is. Farming is
still the main occupation. The whole island is a patchwork of farms with fingers of the ocean poking in at various places. Also lots of lobster and oyster harvesting
and some nice beaches. From P.E.I. I headed back to Albany via the coast of Maine, and Massachusetts, etc.
In all my years of camping, I have never pitched a tent totally by myself and I was a little apprehensive about that, but it went fine. The last 2 nights I managed to pitch it well enough to survive a big wind storm. I did get a little tired of the strange looks I got when I drove into a campground asking for a tent site. They always wanted to know "for how many people?" And my answer was clearly not what they expected. Somehow women my age aren't supposed to camp alone.
Leg 7: Albany to Baltimore with Amy in the green Nissan. We had a fun but all too short weekend with Mary and Ron and Luke Tallent. Amy took the Metro into D.C. for the day on Saturday and did the sights. I took her car and went shopping. On Sunday we went to Luke's Greek Orthodox church.
Leg 8: Baltimore to Frankfurt via military Space-A -- again, except this time it was actually a
commercial plane chartered by the military to shuttle soldiers back and forth from Iraq. It took off from Baltimore Washington International airport. I showed up for a 7:30 PM roll call thinking there were 14-20 seats available plus that many again at another roll call at 10:00PM. There were a ton of people around and none of them looked like retirees - meaning ALL of them would get seats before I would - when I travel without Mike I am in a lower category of priority. But, somehow the first plane ended up with about 60 seats available and everyone wanting space got on. So once again I got out on the first try.
It is good to be home again. I came home to a "shortage of organists." So I've been trying to recover my lost organ skills this past week. This morning I played for an Episcopal service and a Lutheran service, back to back. My heart is truly not into the organ, but I survived. I may be doing the Episcopal service for the rest of the summer - at least when I happen to be in town. I met a couple this morning that had just returned from camping in Croatia - just wanted you all to know that there are people out there who are even more adventuresome than the Strohms! They said that the food was cheap in Croatia and the national parks were incredibly beautiful.
A couple of notes about kids before I close. Amy seems to be enjoying the Catskills so far. She has a cabin all to herself. She and a partner are surveying the roadways and waterways for invasive plants. So she is doing a lot of "hiking." It has been really hot in NY, but so far not terribly buggy.
We seem to have some confusion about whether Deanna's plans for next year are public knowledge. She is planning to go back to Tacoma for her senior year and graduate from Covenant High School. As one of my friends has put it: "she went abroad for her junior year." She has survived a year at Heidelberg High School, but isn't really thriving and it seems reasonable to let her go back to Tacoma to finish high school. She will be living either with the Imhof's or the Kliewer's depending on the Imhof's housing situation when the time comes. We had been trying to keep this quiet initially until we got the housing situation worked out just so that Deanna didn't get a ton of e-mail from people and get her hopes up that it would work out and then have it fall through. I thought we were ready to be public about it but apparently Deanna has requested otherwise in an e-mail to the Kleiwers. Hence the confusion at Hannah Yau's open house. Neva, I know you are wondering why everyone else seemed to know about this except you. That's the story. I'm sorry for the confusion. I guess at this point I feel like the circle of knowledge is too wide to ask people to keep it under their hat. Deanna's concern is that she feels like it could be a long summer of anticipation if she gets a barrage of e-mails. So I guess I would say that it IS public knowledge at this point, just maybe don't barrage Deanna with e-mail. A big thanks to all of you who have given your support to this idea - by offering housing, etc. It has been very affirming.
Alan seems to like his job at Google so far. He is part of a team that is re-formatting Google for mobile devices. He is attending a PCA church in Queen Anne that he went to last summer when he worked for Expedia and liked very much.
The big news about Mike is that he was notified in late May that he had been selected for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel. Yeahhhhhh!!!! It probably won't happen until sometime next spring, but it's good to at least have it decided. We are at 16 years, so I guess this means we are pretty definitely in for 20 or more - depending what onerous assignments they dream up after we pass 20!
Deanna is headed for Bootcamp at Precept Ministries in another 10 days of so. She will be gone over the 4th of July so Mike are planning a camping-in-the-back-of-our-van trip for that 4 day weekend. We haven't yet decided exactly where we are going - we've covered alot of ground the past 9 months, but there are still a TON of places we haven't been.
Until after the next adventure,
Nancy
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