Mama Caravan Tour #2 ~ Through the Southwest, Into the East and Up, in the time of Covid

We arrived in Sedona, Arizona on my 44th birthday. What a way to celebrate by spending our time camping and enjoying the natural water ways that dot that desert landscape. In Sedona, we met up with new Mama Aurora and her family who then invited us to visit them at their home in Flagstaff. Our second time experiencing an early dusting of snow (the first time was when we were camping on the Nez Perce land outside of Missoula, Montana) after sleeping in the van. With a cold front on the horizon we kept heading east, towards Tucson where we spent a quiet week camped out near Saguaro National Park. It was our first time meeting a roadschooling family in a nearly empty campground. It was Halloween 2020 when the counds of coyotes pierced the clear sky nights and a full moon illuminated the odd shaped mountains and Saguaro trees. The seed dream of The Mama Caravan the book was born on this land at this time. We decided to head east with our new friends, camping off grid with them at the climbing meccah known as Cochise Stronghold. After a few days, it was time to keep heading east but first we stopped for ice cream and sight seeing in Tombstone. New Mexico was closed due to Covid so we drove through, only stopping to sleep in a random neighborhood. In Texas, we camped in a dispersed camping area on public land but I was uncomfortable with being so exposed while simultaneously so alone. We headed to a campground outside of Austin on Lake Travis to relax for a few days before continuing our journey. We camped out front a community house in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans from where we could ride our bikes into the French Quarter. There was some outdoor music playing but Covid continued to keep the public at bay and our usually busy community spaces quiet. From New Orleans, we followed the NASA path of rocket building and flight testing into Missippi where we were able to visit with Uncle Zap outside of Biloxi. In Alabama, we camped along the Tennessee River outside of Huntsville in a private, dispersed site. Fall was in the air and the change in temperature was welcomed as well as remained comfortable for our southern California sensibilities. In Nashville, we visited the home of another Mama sister friend from San Diego who has a son Cee's age. The boys enjoyed playing with each other as Cee and I rode our bikes on the Music Byway into Music City. Outside of Asheville, North Carolina, we stayed at the home and farm of Dance Church founder, Patrick de Luz and his angel of a wife, Kelly. In Maryland, we met up with two families we had met at Anahata in Mexico's Yucatan the year before. Mamas Liz & Amy had become fast friends and were then living together while raising their boys in the house during that confounding time. And, finally, we were arriving at my mother in laws home in New Jersey but not without a lot of fear and hesitation on my part. The news was blasting reports screaming "Don't Kill Grandma!" that holiday season and to instead stay home and skip seeing family. But I couldn't listen to their fear mongering when we needed to commemorate the loss of Burt together - no matter what anyone said. "I've made it this far," my mother in law stated when I shared my fears with her. "So many things could have taken me out before. I've made it this far..." She was 81 years old and counting. New Jersey was the end of a line. It was where I had spent many summers visiting my grandparents and the abundance of family that makes up the majority of my mother's side. Like Burt, she too was from Jersey. I brought Cee to my grandparent's house but with a new owner who is renting both sides of the bottom floor, it was just the empty bones holding nostaliga and memories. We had the time with Cee's grandmother and her sister and brother in law we needed. As well, we made a few memories with my mother's sister. With December's arrival, the one year anniversary of Burt's death was soon on its heels and I knew I wanted us to be in the land where we took his final breaths to celebrate that marker.