Epilog

The overall statistics on Wanderung 8 were almost 8 weeks of traveling 8,750 miles from coast to coast. This great expedition cost us about $3,700, which isn't really that bad when you consider two people traveling for that amount of time. Driving that distance required 658 gallons of gasoline. We had an overall mileage of 13.3, but that average combined an average of about 12 mpg when towing the trailer with our normal mileage of about 17-18 when we were driving only the truck. When towing the trailer, our mileage depended mostly on the wind direction; headwinds dropped our mileage to about 10 whereas on stretches with a strong tailwind it increased to almost 13 mpg.

Breaking down the total casts, gasoline was $1,116, food was $845, lodging was $886, entertainment was $343, and miscellaneous was $521. Per day, gasoline was around $20.67, food cost $15.65, and lodging cost $16.41. Gasoline, obviously, was playing a big role in our expenses and the recent increase to around $2 a gallon certainly didn't help. Food was a bit cheaper than on previous comparable trips with a tent such as Wanderung 3 because we were preparing more meals in the trailer than we used to do while tent camping. Lodging was also cheaper on the average than for Wanderung 6, but that might be misleading. Other folks taking a trip like this would be likely to spend a bit more than us on lodging for two reasons. First, with our Golden Age Pass we can get a 50% discount at some National Parks, Forests, and Army Corps of Engineers campgrounds. Second, we visited our relatives at several points along the way and sometimes just had the rig parked on the street, which also held down our average lodging costs.

What were the lessons learned from this trip? Well, for one thing, it is very convenient to have friends and relatives scattered across the southern section of this great country, particularly if you are traveling there for the winter months. We had a wonderful time seeing everyone from Alabama to California and in most of the states in between. Family is, as my Mom used to say, the most important thing and staying in contact with our far-flung family and friends is just priceless.

There is also, of course, a lot of scenery in the states we traversed. Some of it, like the Grand Canyon or White Sands, was so magnificent as to defy verbal description and if I hadn't had a camera capable of panoramic shots, it would also have defied photographical description! Much of the rest of the scenery in the Southwest was the American Desert, but we learned that it came in several different ecological types that had really different plants and animals. It looked pretty lush during our visit, but I think that we were there during an atypically wet winter season.

The desert does not, however, support a very large population. Much of the area we drove through was quite deserted. The economic disparities that increasing mark different economic strata in the United States were quite apparent on this trip as they were on Wanderung 6. I was surprised to see the old, run-down trailers housing so many families in the hinterlands, and particularly surprised to see poor communities in the oil field areas of west Texas that have generated so much wealth over the decades.

Most of the places we visited on Wanderung 8 were beautiful and pristine. However, litter was also present in many areas, and in some it became downright embarrassing. Driving across the western side of New Mexico to reach Albuquerque we saw several miles of very thick roadside litter, and I couldn't quite understand where all that trash was coming from given the low population. It was almost as if some areas had a "if in doubt, toss it out" social norm, but in this case out the car window!

One downside to traveling is that we seem to get out of touch with national and international news. While we were gone on Wanderung 8, for example, Iraq held a national election. The Shiite party won, and selected their new prime minister who promptly said that he wanted to eliminate the last vestiges of the British legal system so that Iraq could shift to a court system based on Islam. So it looks like Iraq will follow the lead of the U.S. in getting rid of pesky provisions of British common law like the principle of Habeas Corpus, the right to legal due process and a speedy trail, the right to a trial by a jury of one's peers, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments. That should make it far easier for the thugs with guns to rule Iraq, only now they can be Shiite thugs.

I heard rumors that President Bush was divinely inspired in conducting the Iraq war, but the rumors weren't very specific about which divine was doing the inspiration, and I think that makes a difference given our country's investment of thousands of soldiers killed and wounded and many billions of dollars flushed down the drain. I suppose most folks don't have the temerity to interrupt a divinity when he's inspiring them and ask for some form of definitive I.D. I mean take a look at Noah when God pops up and tells him to build the ark. Did he ask for a picture I.D.? No, he started marking off cubits on ship timber and gathering animals. Most people apparently don't second-guess those little voices in their heads that tell them to build an ark, attack the English army occupying France, or take a gun and start shooting folks on the evening commuter train. But I think the rest of us are entitled to at least consider which divinity, if any, is really calling the shots, so to speak.

When I asked Monika, she opined that the Iraq war looked more like Odin's work, but he is clearly passé in the divinity contests so I think we can rule him out. The three divinities I see bandied about most frequently nowadays are Christ, Jehovah, and Allah. Christ seems to have been mainly a pacifist, so he would not seem to be a likely inspiration for a pre-emptive war. Now Jehovah, on the contrary, was a big hand for smiting Philistines, Amalakites, Hittites, and pretty much any tribe that wasn't Jewish, so he could plausibly be a war sponsor. But given the likely outcome of a Shiite-dominated Islamic state, Jehovah just doesn't seem to be the best fit. Allah, though, seems to have the pro-war bias and a vested self-interest in the establishment of an Islamic Iraq, so if I were a betting man, I would have to place my bets on Allah.

Other events that we missed while traveling were the Super Bowl, where millions of dollars were spent to see a football team win a sporting contest, and the Presidential inauguration, where millions of dollars were spent on lavish parties. Congress, while spending billions of dollars to fund its own incredibly generous retirement system, was considering reducing retirement benefits or raising the retirement age for all other Americans. The Supreme Court decided not to have the government execute murderers under the age of 18 and had agreed to take up the issue of when and where the 10 Commandments could be displayed on government property (see Jehovah, above). So it was clear to me that all 3 branches of the U.S. Government had been busy, if not exactly hard at work, while we were gone. Looking at the track record, on the whole I didn't think we had really missed too much by being out of touch.

On a more positive note, the wood chocks and blocks that I had constructed for our trailer all worked as planned with the exception of the ramp I splintered when towing the trailer out of the driveway! During this trip we found that our time limit for camping with no water or electricity seemed to be about 4 days, but we think that could be extended with extra fresh-water tanks and a solar battery charger. I think we have the rig pretty well set for our planned future trips to Canada, Alaska, and maybe Mexico, so stay tuned for whatever comes next to Wanderungs.com.