Chapter 22: TRAVELS WITH DAFFY (October 1982)

Previously on Twenty-five Addresses:

On September 30^th I finished packing my truck, and early on the morning of October 1^st Daffy and I embarked on our three week, 6000 mile (we took the long way) cross country journey to San Francisco.  Peacedale adieu! 

Nope, not so fast.  That looks good on paper, but it‘s not exactly how things went.  One last thing to do that morning was a trip to Jerusalem to store more things in the garage, with plans to return in a year to deal with all of that stuff and decide what to do with the cottage.  While driving there I realized that, although I had managed to squeeze everything into the truck, I had not taken weight into consideration.  It was so overloaded that I could barely steer.  With visions of going over Niagara Falls, or off the side of a mountain somewhere in the Rockies, I drove back to Sweet Fern Lane and started offloading.

Then I made the hard decisions.  Just about all of the books got booted, as well as every other nonessential that fell into the heavy category.  After a few hours of unpacking and repacking, it was another trip to the cottage and more things left in the garage.  Daffy and I finally got on our way mid-afternoon, and by early evening we checked into a motel in Albany, New York.  (Prophetic in a way.  Little did I know then that this tri-city capital district [Albany, Schenectady, Troy] would become an important part of my life in the not too distant future.) 

Although Albany was far short of our original goal, it‘s not the plan, but the planning process that is important.  Despite the delay, without losing a whole day, it was still fair to say … New England adieu!  So we had a good night’s sleep, and the next morning we got an early start.  Traveled I-90 to Syracuse, and then wove our way to the southern shore of Lake Ontario, which we followed through Rochester and on to Niagara Falls. 

Having enjoyed camping for so many years, I had bought a new tent and the plan was that we would pitch it every night.  I had a long list of all of the “camp grounds” on our route, so once at Niagara Falls I proceeded to the one there.  My expectation of a “camp ground” was something akin to the one on Somes Sound in Maine, a lovely wooded enclave where one could find a private little nook amongst a stand of trees … not a vast macadam parking lot. 

The image of Daffy and me in our little two-man dome tent, flanked by gargantuan RVs, didn’t really work for me.  Although there was no Plan B, one quickly evolved.  I found a reasonably priced motel south of the Falls that allowed a dog, had dinner, then went to check out that famous attraction.  The falls were so impressive at night, probably even more dramatic as a result of the lighting, that I scratched the plan to return in the morning for a daytime view.  I’d seen enough.  Been there, done that … didn’t need the T-shirt.

The next morning we traveled down to Buffalo, the eastern tip of Lake Erie, and then along its southern shore through Hamburg and Dunkirk, to New York‘s western boundary.  That is where Pennsylvania’s northern border does an abrupt 90° turn north to the lake, 36 miles shy of its western border, thus stealing 43 miles of Lake Erie’s shore from New York.  (Not unlike the way that the southeast tip of Thailand’s border, steals a long sliver of Cambodia’s coast on the Gulf of Thailand.)  Onward we rolled through the city of Erie and into Ohio.  Ashtabula, Painesville, Mentor, and passed a highway sign that sent a chill up my spine … Kent State University.  We stopped for lunch in Cleveland, and then moved on towards Toledo where we had planned to spend the night.

Ray and Mal had given me the contact information for a friend of theirs who lived there, but I have never been big on looking up perfect strangers who are the friends of friends, so I doubt I would have done so even if had spent the night.  Instead I got very lost trying to find a service station that had diesel.  By the time I did find one, sucking on empty, it was adjacent to an entrance to the interstate.  So I kissed Toledo goodbye and moved on, despite the fact that the sun was just about setting.

It was rather eerie viewing the unfamiliar Midwest countryside as silhouettes against the early evening sky, and two hours later I pulled off of the highway at South Bend, Indiana.  Needless to say I wasn’t looking for a camp ground at that hour, and it was there that I discovered Motel 6.  At $14.95 a night that put an end to my delusions of camping my way across country.  (For two decades that brand new tent would never see the light of day, and then I sold it for fifty dollars.)

At this point I needed some entertainment.  Although Toledo had a lot more of a ‘gay’ scene to offer, surprisingly South Bend had two ‘gay’ bars listed in whatever ’gay’ guide I was using.  After dinner I found my way to one, and it was the strangest bar I had ever been to.  Sort of a gay/lesbian/leather/cowboy/transvestite bar all wrapped up into one, with a fantastic drag show.  So there I sat, drinking a beer and shaking my head.  Six months earlier, if anyone had told me that I’d ever be in South Bend, Indiana, let alone that in October I’d be sitting in a bar there watching a drag show … I’d have thought they were nuts.  Little did I imagine then, all that the future held for this little boy from Rhode Island.

When we had passed through Erie, Pennsylvania the day before, I had treated Daffy to a rendition of that famous song from “The Music Man” that went, “Erie, Pennsylvania, Erie, Pennsylvania, Erie, Pennsylvania ….“  Then on the South Bend to Chicago leg of the trip we passed through Gary, Indiana, and I thought … Oops!  The correct version of that “Music Man” song, of course, goes like this: 

   Gary, Indiana!  What a wonderful name, Named for Elbert Gary of judiciary fame.

   Gary, Indiana, as a Shakespeare would say, Trips along softly on the tongue this way--
   Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Let me say it once again.
   Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, That's the town that "knew me when."
   If you'd like to have a logical explanation, How I happened on this elegant syncopation,
   I will say without a moment of hesitation, There is just one place, That can light my face.
   Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Not Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome, but--
   Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, My home sweet home.

Nonetheless, despite being ‘gay’ I don’t know all of the words from all of the musicals, so my version simply consisted of singing Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, over and over again at the top of my lungs, while Daffy stared at me apprehensively.

It was only a couple of hours to Chicago, and we blew into the Windy City shortly after noon.  Checked into a motel north of the city center, and then walked that area a bit.  Primarily I was looking for a mini-mart to buy milk for my cereal in the morning, but I covered a good radius from the motel and found nothing.  Quite unlike San Francisco, where I had remembered that there was at least one mini-mart on just about every corner.  In the end I had to buy a couple of cups of milk to go, at the adjacent diner. 

The plan was to stay three nights, giving me two full days in Chicago, and full days they were.  The first was a walking tour of just about everywhere, as I walked from one end of the city to the other … including the Loop district where at Chase Tower Plaza I was completely overwhelmed by Marc Chagall’s mosaic The Four Seasons.  Fantastic!  Much of my time was spent in the parks that hug the western shore of Lake Michigan, and the lake itself I found fascinating.  No waves to speak of.  No salt.  Just all of that water and it still wasn’t an ocean, how peculiar.  I completed my tour with visits to the Alder Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, and The Art Institute of Chicago.

My first two evenings in town I checked out a few of the ‘gay’ venues, including the infamous Bijou Theater, yet all of it I found to be a tad underwhelming.  So on the morning of my last full day in Chicago, I checked out of the motel, gave my legs a break, and did a bit of a driving tour, which included a stop at the Louis Comfort Tiffany exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry.  Art glass and Tiffany lamps, be still my heart.   

Gradually I turned my exploration north, and by late afternoon I had arrived in the affluent town of Evanston, one of Chicago’s “North Shore” suburbs, and home of Northwestern University.  It was there that I rendezvoused with Bob, a very nice fellow that I had met while in San Francisco that summer.  We went out for dinner, and then Daffy and I spent our last night in Illinois at his place, a lovely double story colonial.   

The next morning after breakfast, Bob was off to work and Daffy and I were off to Omaha.  We fought our way through the maze and morning traffic, and finally landed on I-88 westward bound.  A little more than halfway to Iowa, I made a pit stop in Dixon, Illinois.  A fellow that I had been friendly with in Ogunquit that summer was manager of a florist shop there, but at the time of my visit he was on vacation.  So I drove by the house (not yet memorialized) where Ronald Reagan and his family lived, from the time he was nine years old through high school.  Never a Reagan fan, I really wouldn’t have crossed a street to see him or anything about him, but it was on my way back to the highway, so at least I acknowledged it.  Needless to say, I made no attempt to visit the Reagan birthplace museum in Tampico, a few exits farther on.

We entered Iowa at Davenport, where I-88 ended at I-80, which would take us all of the way through Iowa to Omaha, but first I wanted to visit the Amana Colonies.  Shortly after Iowa City I followed the signs and took what I thought was the correct exit, but we ended up on a gravel road (a very good gravel road, but gravel nonetheless), completely surrounded by corn.  I’m talking corn!!!  Lots of corn!  Very tall corn!  Corn as far as my eyes could see in every direction.  As I peered down the road until it peaked into the horizon, it was just one narrow line in the endless, impenetrable fields of corn.  Then the sky started to darken.

It got darker and darker and started to rain.  Totally lost in the middle of all the corn, I had no alternative but to forge ahead.  And so I forged.  The radio reception was staticky, but I wanted a weather report, and paid close attention when an alert told of a high probability of tornados in the vicinity of the Amana Colonies.  Despite that having been my destination, I had no idea whether or not I was even close, or where in hell I was for that matter.  With my anxiety peaking, I continued to drive straight through the corn like a bat out of hell, hoping that an escape route would soon appear.  Finally it did.  I landed on a road that was actually paved and shortly thereafter I saw a sign for the Interstate, which I happily followed, leaving any thoughts of the Amana Colonies and tornados far behind. 

Except for the Leer jet jaunt to the Herman Miller Headquarters in Zeeland, Michigan, a few years earlier, I had never been farther west than western Virginia at age ten, so the Midwest was quite a unique experience for me, and somewhat fascinating … well, as fascinating as vast flat emptiness and needle straight highways can be.  Brooklyn, Grinnell, Newton, Colfax, finally Des Moines … was there no end to Iowa?  De Soto, Dexter, Stuart, Casey, Adair, Walnut, Avoca … guess not!  At last I-80 dipped southwest into Council Bluffs and Omaha … I never imagined that I would ever be so happy to see Nebraska.

Checked into a motel in Council Bluffs.  Relaxed for a while, took Daffy for a walk, then had dinner.  As I recall, there were only a couple of ‘gay’ bars in Omaha, so later I popped over the Missouri River to the one that seemed easiest to find.  Early on a week night in Omaha, not exactly swinging.  Didn’t have to be.  One of the three other patrons was quite a good looking fellow, and before long he followed me back over the river.  Didn’t get much sleep that night, but fortunately what’s-his-name left early in the morning, which gave me the chance to get a couple more hours of shuteye before leaving.

Got on the road a little later than planned, but still early enough to grab breakfast on the run … two Egg McMuffins.  I finished one and when I reached for the other one, all I found was the empty paper and Daffy licking her chops.  Bad dog!  So we were back on I-80 heading west, for the long drive through Nebraska.  On the way I stopped at the Bailey Railroad Yard and Golden Spike Tower in North Platte, the Front Street and Cowboy Museum in Ogallala, as well as Nebraska’s Boot Hill Cemetery.  After those obligatory tourist stops, just before Julesburg, Colorado, we left I-80 and traveled west-southwest on I-76 into Denver.  This was to be the major pit stop of the journey, as my new Datsun was ready for its first check-up and maintenance.

After getting settled at a motel, I found the local Datsun service center, and made an appointment for the next day.  That evening I went out in pursuit of Denver’s ‘gay’ scene.  It wasn’t hard to find.  At a club that I thought was along the lines of the Club Baths chain, I found myself in a facility that I could not quite figure out, so I went back to the fellow at reception, Eric, for some insight.  He explained things, but in the end I spent more time chatting with him than partaking of the club, and when I left he invited me to dinner at his place the next evening.  I accepted.

The next day I brought the Datsun in, and fortunately it was adjacent to a shopping mall, so while it was being serviced I went shopping.  Moving to California, naturally I forsook all of my cold weather clothes, and in Denver mid-October it was pretty nippy.  So I bought a warm jacket, and a pair of warm hiking boots.  That evening I found my way to Eric’s, a nice bungalow owned by his roommate, Doug Black.  It was a nice get together, but not that late when I left, so I was heading in the direction of a bar when it dawned on me … I’d much rather hang out with Doug than at a bar, so I called him and went back.

Two more days in Denver gave me time to do many of the touristy things, and spend more time with Eric and Doug.  Eric was interested in my travel plans after Denver, so I showed him my itinerary … I-25 south through Colorado Springs and Pueblo, then into New Mexico, Santa Fe and a sojourn in Albuquerque.  Lionel had spent a week in Albuquerque a few years earlier, and raved about the place, so I wanted to check it out before heading to Phoenix.  But Eric said, “No, no, no, that won’t do.“  Then he mapped out my route from Denver to Phoenix. 

When Daffy and I got on our way the next morning, Eric was driving my Datsun, as we followed Doug west on the winding I-70 up into the Rockies.  Around one curve we discovered that we had just missed a rock slide, or the rock slide had just missed us, apparently only by seconds as the dust was still settling.  There were three humungous boulders in the middle of the highway, ranging in size from a dishwasher to a side-by-side refrigerator.  Those rock slide signs were talking serious rocks!

We rendezvoused in Vail and had lunch, after which Eric reviewed my directions once again, and then the two of them returned to Denver, as Daffy and I continued on I-70 to Glenwood Springs.  No doubt Vail )at an altitude of 8380 feet) was more civilization than I had expected to find way up in those mountains, and for that reason Glenwood Springs was a shock, for no other reason than … it was there.  Having spent most of my life at about zero to five feet above sea level, I never imagined that there would be anything like a little city, just like any other little city I had ever been in, way the hell up there at 5761 feet.  Completely forgetting, of course, that Denver’s highest point is 5280 feet—The Mile High City!  Clearly   Daffy and I were higher than we had ever been … so far.

There was no Motel 6 in Glenwood Springs, so we checked into a Super 8, and I used the same subterfuge that I had when checking in to all other motels.  Daffy was a very well behaved dog, and very quiet, except when she was left alone in the car.  Then she would rant and rave and carry on, not actually barking but continually shrieking and wailing at the top of her lungs like a banshee.  So at every motel, I’d park as far from the office as I could and then go in and ask if they allowed a small “quiet” older dog.

All dogs have a gaming instinct, and I have read accounts by game wardens in Maine, telling of dogs as small as a toy French Poodle chasing deer, until the deer drop dead from exhaustion.  Daffy was no exception.  When we lived on Wood Street a couple of families nearby kept horses, and on the weekends they would go riding, often down the dirt road in front of our house.  Little Daffy would be frantic; chasing those horses so fast from the inside of the fence, that when she reached the end she would go straight up the fence about four feet.  Once while camping in northern Maine, some horses with riders came out of the woods.  Daffy went after them, snapping at their feet, and the horses reared up.  I thought sure she would get trampled to death, or I would as I tried to grab her.

Back to the Rockies.  We spent the night in Glenwood Springs, and the next morning I drove the Datsun through a carwash before we got on our way.  We did not get back on the interstate, however, but followed Eric’s directions and left heading south on C-82 (C = county road), then right at the fork in Carbondale onto C-133.  Carbondale would be the last sign of civilization for about the next sixty miles.  There we were traveling on this two lane road up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, when all of a sudden we came upon a herd of cattle.  A big herd of cattle, cows as far as I could see.  Not unlike the corn!

So I stopped as the cattle enveloped the Datsun, and then a cowgirl sidled up to my window on her horse.  I rolled it down and asked, “They’re not going to stampede are they?”  That didn’t even get a smirk.  She said that I should just stay put while they passed, and that’s what I did.  Up to this point Daffy had been sleeping, but then she woke up, and when she saw that we were drowning in a sea of cattle, she went absolutely crazy.  She barked and jumped around and barked and barked, trying to claw through the glass.  About a half hour after the cows were gone, Daffy finally settled.  We continued on C-133 through Somerset and Paonia (both about two building towns), then C-92 west at Hotchkiss, and south on S-50 (S = state road) at Delta.  We passed through Olathe and rode on to Montrose, where S-50 veered to the east, and we followed S-550 south. 

The closer we got to Montrose the higher the mountains rose on all three sides, and I could see that a blizzard was raging at the higher altitudes (mind you, we were already at 5775 feet).  It looked as though Montrose was in a canyon, but I figured there must be a pass, because the map showed that the road went through there, although I didn’t pay much attention to how squiggly it was. Ultimately I conceded that we were in a canyon, but I lumbered on knowing that there must at least be a tunnel.

At the southern end of town the highway began to climb, although I still hadn’t given up on a tunnel.  Next it went from four lanes to two, then two very narrow lanes.  We were still climbing and it was still snowing at the higher altitudes.  Then all of a sudden we met up with the snow, but with no shoulder and no turnouts there was absolutely no possibility of turning back.  So we climbed and climbed in the middle of a raging blizzard, on this narrow switchback road, frequently right on the edge of a slippery rocky ledge, a sheer drop to instant death below.  We only saw two vehicles going the other way, and they both had chains!  I didn’t even have snow tires.  What for?  I was going to California!

We peaked at over 13,000 feet, and the slow descent began; neither before nor since I have ever been so terrified while driving a car.  Gradually the snow subsided, and by the time we arrived in Silverton (at 9305 feet above sea level, one of the highest towns in the United States) it was not much more than a flurry.  I stopped at the side of the road just to regroup, while Daffy did her best to pry my fingers off of the steering wheel.  There was a ghost town near Silverton that I had wanted to check out, but with the snow I just gave it a pass.  These two sea-level Rhode Islanders (AKA Swamp Yankees) had had enough altitude for the day.

Another hour and fifty miles landed us in Durango, Colorado, dropping about another 3000 feet in the process; a little more down to earth.  We walked around Durango for an hour or so, it’s quite touristy, and then traveled more or less west on S-160 to Cortez, where we stayed the night.  The next morning I spent at nearby Mesa Verde National Park.  “Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table, offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300. Today, the park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States.”  Older than New England.  Cool.

From there we continued southwest towards the famous “four corners” where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet at a perfect 90° angles.  I could have gone directly from Towaoc to Teec Nos Pos, which would have had me going from Colorado to Arizona exactly at the point where they meet cattycorner, but instead I veered south to Shiprock, New Mexico, and then back to Teec Nos Pos.  Being that Eric’s directions had me missing New Mexico altogether, this way I could say that I had been there, albeit just a few miles into its northwest corner.  (Little did I imagine, of course, that one day would I not only visit New Mexico, but actually have a house there.)

I had this idea that I would go through Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and on to Bryce Canyon National Park, so from Teec Nos Pos I traveled west on S-160 to the intersection of S-163 at Kayenta, Arizona, which I then followed north through Monument Valley and Mexican Hat, Utah, and on to C-261 north to C-95 (“Trail of the Ancients”) north-northwest.  This territory was the most desolate place that I had ever been, and I imagined that I could as easily have been on the surface of the moon.  At that time, it was the most alone that I had ever felt in my life.  (It would be eleven years before I felt that alone again, when I was in the midst of well over a hundred thousand of people.)

C-95 was a good road, and my plan looked good on paper, but after a while it appeared that C-95 was headed to a dead end at a mesa aka butte.  Undaunted, I continued on, figuring that there must be a pass, or a tunnel.  Have you hear this before?  After all, my map showed that C-95 continued on through the northeast section of the Glen Canyon area, yet I failed to question why the line got very squiggly as it did.  Again with the squiggly!  As we got closer to the mesa I noticed a curious irregular line that seemed carved into the face of the cliff, rising as it went from the base at the west end to east at the top.

Before I finished puzzling over that line, C-95 became a narrow gravel road, then a narrower dirt road.  Next I found myself taking a sharp right turn onto a single lane, a very rough lane not much more than two ruts, at the base of the butte.  From there I could then see that the curious ascending the face of the cliff was the now two rut C-95.  Oh no!  No, no, no!  Not going to happen.  Carefully backing around, we backtracked almost a hundred miles to Kayenta, Arizona, and onto S-160 which we followed to C-98, then west-southwest to Page, Arizona, where we arrived well after dark.

Page was fascinating to me, because it had been created in this middle of nowhere in 1957, to house workers and their families during the construction of nearby Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River.  Being a New Englander, I’d never heard of, or even imagined the existence of, a town only twenty-five years old.  After the completion of the dam in the 1960s, the town grew steadily to population of about 6000.  Because of the new roads and bridge built for use during construction, it had become the gateway to the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Lake Powell, attracting more than three million visitors per year; a lot of information for such a little town, which in 1982 seemed like not much more than a rustic outpost to me.

The next day would turn out to be the longest one of the whole trip, and the first destination was Bryce Canyon National Park.  We were on the road early and immediately into Utah, passing Glen Canyon and Lake Powell at their southwest end on the state line.  From there it was S-89 in a multitude of different directions, until heading north and then east on C-12 to Bryce Canyon.  Once there we traveled up along the rim, stopping at all of the vistas for the spectacular views, and going all the way to the top at about 9000 feet above sea level.  Although we had been higher in the blizzard two days before, we never got out of the car; here at Bryce Daffy and I were both suffering from the altitude as we walked about.

Having seen all of Bryce, or at least all that I needed to see, we were westward bound once again and on our way to Zion Canyon National Park.  We took a roundabout way of getting there, first traveling north for a ways and then west to I-15, which we took south-southwest traveling through the Utah towns of Paragonah, Parowan, Summit, Enoch, and Cedar City.  Just after Kanarraville I-15 briefly skirts the northwest edge of Zion, before traveling the whole length south, until we exited at C-9, which took us right through the southern end of the Park.  While one sees Bryce from above the canyon, Zion is seen from the bottom (like Yosemite).  The drive through the east side of the park weaves its way through some very large and unique rock formations.

It was just about dark when we drove through Kanab, Utah, and Fredonia, Arizona, but I figured what the heck, I’d drive the next fifty miles to the Grand Canyon, and spend the night at the Grand Canyon Lodge on the north rim.  It had seemed like a good plan, but the lodge had no vacancies, so we backtracked the fifty miles to Fredonia and spent the night there.  The next morning we drove down east of the park, and then checked out the Grand Canyon from all of the vistas on the South Rim.  Considering all of the rock and canyon I had seen the day before, this was a little underwhelming … I remember thinking, Oh, another rocky hole in the ground.

We continued south to Flagstaff where we hooked onto I-17 south to Phoenix.  Spent two or three days there, and did some of the touristy things like the Desert Botanical Gardens, Arizona Science Center, Japanese Friendship Garden, Rawhide Western Town, and the Phoenix Zoo.  Didn’t have any trouble finding the ‘gay’ scene in Phoenix, and a wild and crazy scene it was but … what happens in Phoenix, stays in Phoenix.  Soon we were on the road once again.

Our next destination was San Diego, and I-10 south to I-8 brought us into California along the Mexican border.  As we drove through the “Colorado Desert” (that’s the name, it’s not in Colorado) I was quite thrilled when we got to the Algodones Dunes.  Despite having spent the past few days in the desert, I had continued to look for it.  My expectation of a desert was what I had seen in “Lawrence of Arabia” … an “erg” desert of sand dunes, not the scruffy “reg” desert, the rocky moonlike landscape of America’s southwest.  The Algodones Dunes lived up to my expectations.

Daffy had always loved the beach, and when I’d say, “You want to go to Papa Jesse’s?” she would get very excited, knowing that we’d be visiting my father in Jerusalem and going to the beach.  When driving there, as soon as we turned off of the highway onto Succotash Road, she’d smell the ocean and get excited all over again.  She was quite funny on the beach too.  She loved running at the edge of the surf, but was never too crazy about going into the water, unless I went swimming.  At first she would wait for me on the beach, but if I was in too long she’d start to come out after me, her snub nose just at the surface, sputtering away as the water splashed her little Pekinese face.

On this trip we had been at higher altitudes and farther from the ocean than we had ever been in our lives, for longer than we had ever been, and now Daffy was sleeping as we crested the Laguna Mountains.  As we started to descend the western slope down to San Diego, all of a sudden Daffy’s nose started twitching, and then she woke up and took a few deep breaths.  She smelled the sea air, and her excitement was boundless.  She didn’t settle down as we followed I-80 all the way down to the end right at the mighty Pacific Ocean.  We jumped out, dug our feet into the sand, and took a walk.  Back down at sea level on an ocean beach, it didn’t matter which ocean, it didn’t matter which beach, after seventeen days and about 5500 miles, these two Swamp Yankees were home once again … almost.