The Trip - Introduction | The Madison Andersons

In the summer of 1973 I was unemployed. Kathy was working at University Hospital so we had money to pay the rent. After some thought (not a lot because we were only 25), we decided that we would not renew the lease on our apartment. We also decided that Kathy would quit her job. If you don’t owe rent, you don’t need a job to pay for it! We stored most of our few possessions at my Dad’s house, and on August 29 we packed our clothes, camping gear, and my guitar into Monnie (our Mercury Montego), had our mail forwarded to my sister Pat, and headed west to see what we could see. Our plans were to go through the Badlands and Black Hills to Yellowstone National Park. After that we would just go where a whim or a weather forecast dictated.

I thought it would be fun to post a series of blogs telling a few things about that trip and showing a few old pictures. My original plan was to start on August 29, 2013, the 40th anniversary of the day we left, and quote things from the 5 volumes of journals that I wrote during that trip. Unfortunately, I cannot find those journals. Time and moves have obviously relegated them to a well-hidden and long-forgotten box. So, after a bit of frustration, I finally decided to rely on my memory and my photo log book to recall this trip, which, after all these years we still call “The Trip.”

Here are the posts that summarize “The Trip.”

Part 1: We hit the Road to the Badlands and Black Hills

Part 2: We make our way to Yellowstone National Park

Part 3: We head down to the Tetons

Part 4: Colored poodles, cows in the campground and Rocky Mountain National Park

Part 5: The snow drives us indoors and we reach Colorado National Monument

Part 6: Into the land of slick rock and canyons

Part 7: The grandest canyon of them all

Part 8: On the road to Thanksgiving

Part 9: Into the desert

Part 10: Off to California

Part 11: L.A.