Pan-American Road Trip: Introduction

 

Roots in jar, Mobile, Alabama, 2021. Credit: Mzuriana.

When I began my rootless life more than a decade ago, I decided that when I turned a certain age, I'd re-plant my roots. 

That age comes this year. I've decided where I will put down my roots. 

But I have a couple of loose ends I want to tie up, one being a visit to the Arctic Circle that my daughter and I forewent back when she was 16 and the two of us took a road trip from Missouri to Alaska. The other was the romantic idea, that when I turned another (earlier than now) milestone age, I would quit my job and walk from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego. Am I grandiose? 

I kiboshed the walking plan IMMEDIATELY after I read this account in one of those online long-walk journals that prevailed before the advent of youtubity ubiquity: 

[Paraphrased by me] "I was driving north along the Alaska Highway and I spied a young man, wearing a backpack and carrying a hiking stick, walking south. I slowed so that I could speak to him. I said, 'Have you looked behind you recently?' The man said, 'No.' I said, 'There is a mountain lion following behind you.'"

Or maybe it was a bear, but I'm pretty certain it was a mountain lion. Either way. That one story did it for me. And, hell, even if the story were apocryphal, it could be true despite my not wanting it to be true. (And today's post offers a fabulous excuse to link again to this hilarious story of a woman taking a solo hike in the Tetons.)

Thus the plan for this capstone road trip: The Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego. 

My journey to the Arctic Circle commenced on November 16, 2024. I traveled from Missouri, through Oklahoma, Texas, California, Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, Yukon, and Alaska. 

As I write this, I'm in North Pole, Alaska.  

So I've got blanks to fill in, eh? 

I'll move hither and thither in the chronology of telling the tale, as per my whim.