We were hiking the Matthews Head trail near Fundy, New Brunswick, Canada, when the sign informed us we were on the Trans Canada Trail, the longest trail in the world. If we kept going, we could end up on the Arctic Ocean coastline. Or the Pacific Coast.
But we would need more than hiking shoes. Skis, snowshoes, kayaks, bicycles, and even horses could help us complete the 16,700 miles from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia.
Filmmaker Dianna Whelan, her effort spread over six years, was the first to complete the trail.
For now, Sue and I will stick to slightly shorter pursuits.
In spring 2022, we summited two of the Northeast’s most famous mountains, one by foot and one on wheels. Sue sits atop Acadia National Park’s Cadillac Mountain, the USA’s tallest peak along the East Coast. We are proud that we hiked to Cadillac’s apex.
Wheels lifted us to the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, the tallest peak in the Northeast at 6,288 feet. There was a cold breeze when we posed with the sign, but nothing near the record 231 miles per hour recorded there in 1934.
The mountains offered challenges, but to qualify as my number three retirement adventure, there has to be more to the trip. Right?
Yep. Two reasons. First, aboard Lead Foot, our Ford F-150 named after its color, we pulled Minnie 2 on a 13,000-mile journey to more states than I can list here, but a few of the most memorable: Minnesota, Michigan, Arizona, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Our hiking shoes found miles and miles of trails and our bikes carried us on rail trails in several states.
Now for reason number two. Minnie 2, a 25-foot Winnebago travel trailer on its second cross-country voyage, did not return home with us. Why not? It’s not that she quit, nor did she get in an accident. We left her in Virginia—on purpose. We rushed home in Lead Foot in five days because our realtor had put our Ashland, Oregon home up for sale.
Why?
Sue and I had fallen for Williamsburg, Virginia during a week there and, on the spot, we decided to move there. And it almost worked. After months of enduring sky-rocketing interest rates that scared away potential buyers, we finally had our Ashland townhome sold, but on the last day of due diligence, the buyer backed out. Maybe our move was not meant to be.
But Lead Foot missed Minnie 2, so in January 2023, he took us to Virginia to bring her home. We took the slow way back, cruising through the southern states in two months, piling up even more memorable day hikes and drives.
Oxford says adventure is “an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous experience or activity.” It says nothing about happy endings. We didn’t get to move to Virginia, but adventure stories number two and number one are coming soon!
Books and my backpack 