The Healing Journey
In June, 1980, I asked for two additional month’s leave from Head Start which meant hiring a substitute Executive Director through October. The Washington County Head Start program was in good shape, with three centers and an excellent staff. It was important work - helping families have healthy children, children learning how to play together and learn both at the Center and at home. Parents learned to speak up for their children when they were not being treated well and not to believe that the teacher was ALWAYS right. It was good work, powerful work - however, for me, after five intense years, it had become exhausting and my body was yelling at me to stop.
That trip, with my traveling partner, Brian, was designed to build my strength back to normal or better. We had set up a 1966 Dodge Van for travel. It had both back and side doors for ease of entry with storage and a sleeping area and room in the middle if we needed to cook inside. Brian’s dog, Julie, a Golden Retriever, and Yama, a smallish German Shepherd, who had also been on the Canada trip, were both good travelers. They would hang out on the dog-proofed sleeping area and would mirror one another - sitting face forward in pay attention mode or sideways in nap mode.
On July 1st we headed northeast from Vernonia to Portland to I-84 and Idaho. We were looking for hot springs and relaxation. We each had a cupcake with lunch to celebrate Brian’s July 2nd birthday the next day and we found hot springs in Idaho and in northern British Columbia. We stopped in Calgary for the rodeo. Heading East we visited Brian’s friends in the Cree Community, attended a Pow Wow and were allowed to take part in a series of healing sweat lodge ceremonies. Blessedly it was the right time of my month to be able to participate. After a few days on the Reserve we continued east into Manitoba, Northern Ontario and then into Quebec. Up until then, we had been very fortunate to easily find places to settle in for the night, walk the dogs, eat and sleep.
There was a lake north of Montreal that we were sure we could find a camping spot near. We were wrong; it was a highly populated lake front and it was getting darker and we were getting more concerned when we came upon a field that we could drive on to so we did. We were only there a short time when a small group of Catholic Nuns came to us. One of them spoke English and we asked for permission to stay. They said they would ask for us and return with the answer. We assured them that we didn’t let the dogs run loose. In a short time they came back, gave us permission to stay the night and, gratefully, we prepared supper and peacefully slept.
I know I kept a journal during this trip, however, I have not been able to locate it so the details are more sketchy then I would like. From Quebec, we headed south and moved rapidly through all of the northeastern states and into North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. It was beautiful there. (I think this is where we started thinking about getting a larger vehicle to travel in which became the remodeled 1956 GMC former school bus and having ten months allotted for the trip.) There was so much country and we could not take the time to visit and appreciate near enough of it.
We visited Brian’s family in Georgia and a friend in Alabama and headed west. We were camped in a location that overlooked Albuquerque and we were delighted to wake up to one of the first hot air balloon meets that were and still are hosted there! What an incredible sight that was!!
Our intention was to end the trip with a hike down the south side of the Grand Canyon on the tougher, shorter Rim Trail, an overnight stay at the bottom and then hike up on the Bright Angel Trail. This involved getting the dogs into a shelter early in the morning for overnight and getting down and back up in 36 hours to pick them up by 6PM.
At this point, we were running out of money and could not afford two nights for the dogs, but were determined to make this trek! This is a story in itself so I am stopping here and will share this adventure and the rest of the trip next week!!