If you have been paying attention, you already know that I am cutting my summer in New England short by a month and am using those 30 days to travel to Wisconsin, south along the Mississippi River (more or less), then east and south to Ft Myers. I still plan to arrive in Ft Myers before the middle of October. Because this trip will be 60 days and will take a rather meandering route, it will be the third-longest trip I have made with the RV. And it will be a major test for my 17-year-old GMC truck.
As currently planned (and these plans are still pretty fluid), the trip will be 60 nights over 24 hops and 4,510 tow miles. The major highlights are Madison WI (to visit old friends and family in the town where I was born and raised) and Vicksburg MS (where I can see a Civil War battlefield that has eluded me for so long). The route will go through southern Ohio, which I have barely touched in my prior travels, and south along the Mississippi River (with a detour to Omaha which is, inexplicably, one of my favorite cities in the US). It is a route picked mostly to see parts of the country that I have not seen much, without any particular plan (so far) as to what I will see when I get there. It may be more seat-of-the-pants than some of my previous trips, but that is more acceptable now, as a solo traveler, than when Jett was with me.
So, without a lot of further explanation, here is the TS7 route:
I guess I should say something about the bizarre, serpentine route of the first segment. That is due to (1) my commitment to attend the Escapees Chapter 3 rally in Bangor ME and (2) my commitment to play as many games of softball as possible. So the TS7 will begin with a trip to Bangor to attend the rally, followed by a few more days in Maine to visit some cemeteries to see if I can track down some of Jett’s ancestors, then 3 days in Swanzey NH, just a few miles north of my starting point in Orange MA. That location allows me to make one last, very long, trip to a softball game – 2 hours each way! Now THAT, my friends, is commitment!
The TS7 will be preceded by a quick, 4-day trip to Florida with my granddaughter to see her father for the first time in over 2 years and to visit Universal Studios. I am looking forward to accompanying her on her first airplane trip ever(!) and seeing Universal through the eyes of a 15-year-old. But that week is going to be simply crazy. More on this trip later.