Millers in France

DSC01140DSC01502DSC01921Wow! What fun to spend a week on Ile de Re, the west coast of France island best viewed by bicycling. We had a wonderful time with our good friends, David & Patrice Newman & Emmanuel & Natalie Rodes & their children. Victoria & Shelby met us in Paris where we rented a car to drive to the island. We departed for Paris Saturday where we were met by Victoria’s husband, Colin, and our German exchange student “adopted” daughter, Janina. It was a magical July 2013!!! Beth & I were fortunate to live in Paris in the 1980’s as a young couple during my fellowship training!!!  m&b

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” –Ernest Hemingway

Day 59, Homeward Bound, Fayetteville, NC, Final Day, June 1st

202.7 RV miles today, 10,107 total

Homeward Bound. We left Lynchburg after a fun morning at the downtown Farmer’s Market, celebrating 230 years founded in 1783, “Old as Dirt.” Purchased a BBQ grill for Victoria & Colin at the consignment store for a whopping $10.50. From the hills of Virginia through the piedmont of NC to the sandhills of Fayetteville we traveled. It was surreal pulling back onto our Longleaf Drive & home. It’s hard to imagine we have been gone over 2 months on this fascinating journey across America. We arrived late afternoon Saturday to find a baby opossum in our bedroom closet. After catching it in Toby’s crate, we freed it into the wild of our great country!?!

We have seen many things, experienced many places, smelled many aromas, visited many friends & family, & gotten to know our great country even more over these last 10,000+ miles. What a blessing! Epilogue to follow…Welcome Home Millers! From Longleaf Drive in Fayetteville, North Carolina, m, b & t

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.” –Douglas Adams

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” – Lin Yutang

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Leonardo da Vinci

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Day 58, Lynchurg, VA, May 31st

31.3 RV miles today, 9,904.3 total 

We spent the day helping Victoria pack up her school room to check out. We also took the time to refill our DEF (Diesal Exhaust Fluid), which is an aqueous urea solution (basically, processed cow urine?!?) required ~ every 3,500 miles in the newer diesal engine cars/trucks for cleaner exhaust (inconvenient rightly considered adventure). We had dinner at Benjamin’s in Forest, Virginia before heading to stay with Victoria & Colin at their duplex. From Lynchburg, VA, m, b & t

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be useful to the town of Lynchburg. I consider it to be the most interesting spot in the state.”-Thomas Jefferson –3rd President of the United States of America (1743-1826)

“An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.” — G.K. Chestecton — British Writer (1874-1936)

“Seize from every moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys.” — Andre Gide–French critic, essayist, & novelist (1869 -1951)

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Day 57, Lynchburg, Virginia, Our Campbells, May 30th

 421 RV miles today, 9,873 total         

We are now complete having seen all of our children on this tour & all the Newman kids to complete the NewMillerman saga.                      

“Everywhere is walking distance, if you have the time.” –Stephen Wright

“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”–Ralph Waldo Emerson

                                                                                                                                                              “The privelege of a lifetime is being who you are.” –Joseph Campbell (1904 – 1987)

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Day 56, Cincinnati, Ohio, The Schofields, May 29th

 259 RV miles today, 9,452 total

We left Illinois through Indiana for Cincinnati to stay with Beth’s brother, John’s family. Our neice, Jillian just got her Masters so we took their family out for dinner to clelebrate. We then went by Jungle Jim’s International Market. It resembles a theme park due to the unusual displays throughout the store. The main store is visited by approximately 82,000 shoppers each week! It has over 180,000 items, about 60,000 which are international items, and over 300,000 square feet (6½ acres) of floorspace. Reminded me of Wall’s Drugs in South Dakota, only bigger. From Cincinnati, m, b & t

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but having new eyes.” — Marcel Proust

History of Cincinnati: In 1790, Arthur St. Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory, changed the name of the settlement to “Cincinnati” in honor of the Society of the Cincinnati, of which he was president. The society gets its name from Cincinnatus, the Roman general and dictator, who saved the city of Rome from destruction and then quietly retired to his farm. Founded in 1783 with George Washington as it’s 1st President, it was comprised of the officers of the American Revolution. The society honored the ideal of return to civilian life by military officers following the Revolution rather than imposing military rule. My great…grandfather, Cornet Larkin Dorsey, qualified me as a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. Hereditary membership is generally passed to the eldest son according to the rule of primogeniture. Only one male descendant may represent an eligible officer at any time.

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Day 55, South Dakota to Illinois, 583 Miles, May 28th

 583 RV miles today, 9,193 total

We left North Sioux City, South Dakota into Sioux City, Iowa then South Sioux City, Nebraska in this  Tri-State city. Kind of reminded me of our visit to Four Corners in the Southwest where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico & Utah join together. A marathon drive today with the blustery mid-west central winds gusting up against Thumper as he barreled down the sometimes potholed highway. After dinner at The Ribeye (reminded us of Chris’ Steakhouse back home, Greg…& check out that tomato presentation), headed back to our home away from home, the D & W Lake Camping & RV Park in Champaign, Illinois. Heading to Cincinnati tomorrow to visit Beth’s brother John’s family. From midwest “Silicon Priarie,” m, b & t

“Stop worrying about the potholes in the road…celebrate the journey.”–Fitzhugh Mullen

“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” –Susan Sontag

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Day 54, The Badlands of South Dakota, Wall Drugs, Minuteman Missiles, May 27th

 478.6 RV miles today, 8,610 total

After a pancake breakfast at Rafter J’s, we headed past Hill City to the famous Wall’s Drugstore since 1931. Then onto the Badlands National Park, with its peaks, gullies, butts & prairies. Then onto the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site (where I sat in one of the red commander chairs) & bison hot dogs for lunch. We saw this huge prairie dog & thought of you, Claire. Then we took the long drive across southern South Dakota stopping at the famous world outlet, Cabela’s, to buy some socks.  After dinner at Sugar Daddy’s Bar & Casino, we camped at the KOA in North Sioux Falls at the border with Iowa & Nebraska.

“Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.”– Benjamin Disraeli

 “I’ve been about the world alot, & pretty much over our own country, but I was totally unprepared for that revelation called the Dakota Bad Lands…What I saw gave me an indescribable sense of mysterious elsewhere–a distant architecture, ethereal…, an endless supernatureal world more spiritual than earth but created out of it.” –Frank Lloyd Wright (1935)

 “Ace in the Hole.”–John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States (referring to the Minuteman weapons system during the Cuban missile crisis. Over the next two years, hundreds of Minuteman Missile silos and support structures would be constructed across the Great Plains landscape, including the state of South Dakota)

“Driving across South Dakota on Interstate 90, you will see billboard after billboard advertising everything from an 80 foot dinosaur to a shooting gallery to free ice water – all of which are located at a drug store in a tiny prairie town called Wall. With a population less than 1,000 people, Wall Drug can have over 20,000 visitors on a busy summer day. The Wall Drug Store got its start during the Depression years by offering Free Ice Water to thirsty travelers & is now an international icon. Over the years, many visitors of Wall Drug have erected signs throughout the world announcing the miles to Wall Drug from famous locations such as Antartica, Capetown, South Africa, the Great Wall of China, World War II Europe, etc.”

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Day 53, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Monuments, May 26th

 72.3 RV miles today, 8,131.4 total

 We went back to Mt. Rushmore in the daylight & to hike the Presidential Trail. After a lunch of bison burger & bison chili, we visited the Crazy Horse Monument. We relaxed in the afternoon going into Hill City & then went back to Crazy Horse Memorial for the laser light show at dusk. From the Black Hills of South Dakota, m, b & t

“A wise man travels to discover himself.” James Russell Lowell

 “A very great vision is needed and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky.” – Crazy Horse, Sioux Chief (1840-1877)

“Oh, Great Spirit who dwells in the sky, lead us to the ;path of peach and understanding, let all of us live together as brothers and sisters.  Our life is short here, walking upon our mother earth’s surface.  Let our eyes be opened to all of the blessings you have given us.  Oh, please hear our prayer, Great Spirit.”–Indian Prayer for Peace

“One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk.” –Crazy Horse (as quoted in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, 1970 by Dee Brown, Ch. 12

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Posted early by mistake. Pictures to follow, m

Day 52, Estes Park, CO to Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota via Wyoming, May 25th

402.3 RV miles today, 8,059.1 total

Drove to Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park to visit where we had taken our kids ~17 years ago. Then traveled up through Wyoming with Toby riding “shotgun” over to South Dakota to our Rafter J Bar Ranch RV campsite. After dinner, drove the short distance to Mt. Rushmore for the amazing light show of the 4 Presidents carved in the granite: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln & Teddy Roosevelt. About 90% of the carving at the mountain was done by dynamite. Those blasts removed about 450,000 tons of fine-grained granite from the mountain. From the Black Hills of South Dakota, m, b & t

“A monument’s dimensions should be determined by the importance to civilization of the events commemorated…Let us place there, carved high, as close to heaven as we can, the words of our leaders, their faces, to show posterity what manner of men they were.  Then breathe a prayer that these records will endure until the wind and the rain alone shall wear them away.” –Gutzon Borglum (Mt. Rushmore sculptor who labored from 1927 through 1941)

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Day 51, Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, May 24nd

98 RV miles today, 7,656.3 total

Camped in Rocky Mountain National Park. Took the high road just opened up to the Alpine Center at 12,150 feet elevation. Amazing driving through 15 foot snow drifts. Temperature dropped from 74 degrees at campsite to 44 degrees at Alpine Center!?!?  Ended up at another local favorite restaurant/tavern for dinner. 

“Chasing angels or fleeing demons, go to the mountains.” –Jeffrey Rasley, Bringing Progress to Paradise: What I Got from Giving to a Mountain Village in Nepal

“Mountains are not Stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.” –Anatoli Boukreev (1958-1997, Russian mountaineer)

“A snowdrift is a beautiful thing – if it doesn’t lie across the path you have to shovel or block the road that leads to your destination.”–Hal Borland

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“Long, blue, spiky-edged shadows crept out across the snow-fields, while a rosy glow, at first scarce discernible, gradually deepened and suffused every mountain-top, flushing the glaciers and the harsh crags above them. This was the alpenglow, to me the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed like devout worshippers waiting to be blessed.” ― John Muir, The Wild Muir: Twenty-Two of John Muir’s Greatest Adventures