Olly Olly in Free

"Olly Olly in Free." A phrase, or a variant of the words known to children playing hide-and-seek. While the seeker counts, the runners hide. As the seeker seeks, the runners either stay hidden－hoping their hiding place is a good one－or take the risky move of slipping out of hiding and sneaking to home base without being caught. Upon arrival, they call out "Olly olly in free!" to announce having pulled one over on the seeker. Or at least that's how I played it.

I slipped home yesterday, after traveling 3,985 miles across 12 states over 15 days in my 1998 Honda CRV (CuRVy)－which now boasts over 210,000 miles on the odometer－and with my 12-year-old diabetic cat, Smudge. We were helped along the way by Phoebe, our GPS navigator－and by friends and family in five states who gave me a bed and more; and by those who walked with us in spirit via FaceBook and text messages. Olly olly in free!

When Phoebe Goodell Judson, my ancestor introduced to readers in a previous blog post, traveled by covered wagon from Ohio to nearly the same spot I am occupying today, she faced outrageous perils: not enough food, illness and even death, broken wagon wheels, Indian attacks, wild animals, bad roads over mountain passes and through the North American desert (was there a "road"?) with no navigation system. The risks really boggle the mind. Smudge and I faced car trouble (with unneeded AAA back-up), full hotels, brush fires, wrong turns or missed ones (with Phoebe for help), unavailable cell phone signal here and there, dead computer, hotel cat-hiding places, a fall. Adventure is perilous; there is no doubt about it; but, for me, the risk is worth it.

I made a home (several of them) in three states in the southeast, but I never completely lost the feeling of being misplaced. Thirty-six years later I have returned to my soul home in the Pacific Northwest. Phoebe, following her parents and siblings from Ohio; my parents, who treked from Michigan and Tennessee; one sister, who returned home after a lengthy stay in Maryland; my niece and nephew from Virginia; my daughter from North Carolina; and now me...by wagon, automobile, and jetliner we have all made the pilgrimage to the state in the corner in search of home.

Traveling across this amazing country by car, off-interstate as much as I had time for－and given the restrictions of a traveling cat and an elderly car－has provided me with a snapshot of America. I was blessed by gift cards for gas, that couldn't be swiped at the pump, in addition to a credit card with swiping issues. Both resulted in the need to meet the locals working in gas stations. Reactions to my magnetic-strip-impaired card ranged from "I'm not supposed to punch in the number"; to having to guess at how much I needed, which they temporarily charged to my card; to "You have to leave me the card and your ID while you pump the gas"; to "Do you mind leaving the card while you pump?". Regardless of their rules and regs, I met friendly people everywhere from fancy city stations to truck stops in the tiny bergs in no-where America. Just because I can't imagine making home there, doesn't mean they haven't.

I found gardens everywhere. In the beauty of the stark white windmills rising in singles and random groupings on the hills above wind-swept deserts, their blades languidly turning around and around. In the big sky across the prairies, dotted with puffy clouds. In the sweeping grandeur of mountain passes in Wyoming, and the boxed-in-lushness of those in Colorado and Washington. In the gap-toothed smiles of the nations' working poor. In the skeletons of dead cottonwood trees flanking dry river beds and the hollow shell of a windowless farmhouse where even the low-tech windmill is stilled. In the public art of laughable grafitti-painted Cadillacs in a dusty Texas field to sober empty copper chairs by a reflecting pool in Oklahoma City.

I followed bits of the historic Trail of Tears, the Oregon Trail, and Route 66; and the newly designated Purple Heart Trail, named for America's many victims of wars across the oceans. I crossed the 45th Parallel on the open prairie and the Continental Divide in a mountain tunnel.

Yesterday, on the last day of my journey before the first day of the next part, I wept many tears as my wheels rolled over the mountainous terrain of the Blue Mountains, across the Yakima Valley and climbed again into the Cascades. On we rolled, my cat－oddly alert for the first time in days－and I. Finally, it was all familiar. We no longer had need of Phoebe as we traveled scenic highway 12.

Through the mixed conifer forests of fir, spruce, larch, and cedar as the eastern pine became more and more scarce in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. White Pass, where I skied until an accident in junior high stilled my downhill aspirations. Mt. Rainier; my mountain. The small towns of Packwood, Morton, and Mossyrock; the blueberry farm, Jackson Prairie, Mary's Corner. The connecting road between the Twin Cities of Chehalis and Centralia. Seminary Hill Road; the three-family driveway. And then the "you" "are" "here" signs my family put Burma Shave style on the fence posts to welcome me. At last we rounded the final curve to their happy faces and open arms, waiting at the end of the driveway.

And now to the beginning. I will make my new home, for a time, on the side of the hill where I spent my childhood. As Annie Dillard said, "I [have] found home, family, and the dinner table once again" (An American Childhood). Olly olly in free.