There Was a Full Moon Over Memphis

In 1999, the world was going to end at midnight December 31st. Saint Aardvark and I, who were in between romantic relationships at the time, (both with each other and with other people) decided to drive across North America and back. We left Vancouver on July 1st and returned in late August, having eaten all the Taco Bell in America and showered maybe 6 or 7 times. We smelled so fantastic.

I mention this today for two reasons:

1. On January 30th we finally said goodbye to the van in which we travelled, MURR!! (who has since been languishing in a parking lot for 6+ years, waiting for us to love her enough to let her go) and I have been meaning to write a fitting tribute but have been too busy &

2. The other day I pulled a pair of knickers from my knicker drawer and realized that I wore them on our trip as the bottom half of a bathing suit. (I still have the tank top I wore as a top half, too.) I stared incredulously at them as I reflected that the very knickers I intended to wear under my trousers on an ordinary Tuesday have seen more sights than most knickers. They have seen the Pacific Ocean and many small lakes. Unfortunately, the tag is long gone so I cannot share with you their brand. But I can keep wearing them just a little while longer, until my bountiful belly takes over making that sort of decision for me. (ETA on that: 5 days)
Where MURR!! Took Us

• Washington (too much like BC to be very interesting. also, damn cold)
• Oregon (my favourite state. big trees, huge ocean, sand dunes and friendly hippies)
• California (coked-up BMW drivers chasing us up narrow switchbacks while the one of us who wasn’t driving tried not to look over the edge at the pounding, blue ocean)
• New Mexico (where we realized how far we weren’t going to get & how much money we were spending)
• Arizona (Grand Canyon, rainstorms, mosquitoes and our first trip to WalMart. All Hail Air Conditioning!)
• Oaklahoma (nice lakes & friendly locals)
• Texas, (giant spiders, the tallest cross in the western hemisphere and the second largest canyon in America: Palo Duro, home of “TEXAS! The Musical” which we did not see because I was too scared to leave the van on account of the giant spiders. I saw one pulling a dead rat across the road, I kid you not.)
• Arkansas, (birthplace of Bill Clinton! also, the best highway tourist stops with the tastiest coffee and most knowledgeable staff)
• Alabama (er. mosquitoes? and a campsite with laundry, as I recall)
• Mississippi (Worst. State. Ever.)
• Louisiana (with bilingual road signs! and New Orleans! and a nice Motel 6 where we ended up after trying to camp in Mississippi. All Hail Air Conditioning!)
• Georgia (“We hope you have a Peach of a time!” no liquor on Sundays and a hellish freeway roundabout over Atlanta)
• Tennessee (hilly. foggy. oh! and GRACELAND!!)
• Kentucky (our friends Tim & Amelie! and the first 24-hour WalMart we had ever seen.)
• Indiana (flat with corn and Industrial WasteLake state park, where the poop in the lake might be goose or, you know, might not.)
• Ohio (uh, was that Ohio?)
• Illinois (holy crap I love Chicago more than I love ducks made of cheese)
• Wisconsin (Speaking of cheese! And my buddy Melissa! And the heat wave broke. And we drank a lot of beer that was made in Wisconsin. And went to yard sales.)
• Michigan (got a ding in the windshield in Detroit. also got off the highway to find gas then couldn’t find the highway again. found the scary part of town instead. never going back to Detroit.)
• Minnesota (land of lakes. it got cold again here) and
• North Dakota (home of Rugby: Geographical Center of North America!)
• Oh, plus Ontario: London, Ottawa & Sault Ste. Marie, (family gave us food! we ate so much food! and showered over and over and over again)
• Saskatchewan (where we got our only speeding ticket. OK I got the speeding ticket. But it was Canada, so the mountie apologized for ruining my vacation. And I was all, like, hey! I never got a speeding ticket before! Thanks Officer!) and
• Alberta (where we experienced Lake Louise.)

I also made a brief foray into Quebec on my own. Quebec is nice. You can buy alcohol at the corner store.

A Brief History of MURR!!

MURR!! (so named for the stencil letters that decorated her rear) was an 18 foot Dodge van with shag carpet on the floor and wall, a fridge & toilet we didn’t use, a couch that pulled out into a bed and brown plush captain’s chairs for the pilot & co-pilot. She swallowed $40 of gas a day ($50 if we turned on the air conditioning) and we had to replace her turn signal light in Georgia but other than that, we all got along great.

In one of MURR!!’s cupboards we found a giant orange mug which we named Ken. We used Ken for scale in many of America’s largest, most impressive locations. The amount of coffee you could drink if you filled Ken with coffee would make your liver explode.

We started out the trip with some half-assed ideas about finding secluded streets in the cities we were visiting and sleeping in the van every night. After the first night on a street in Seattle, peeing at the 7-11 around the corner and panicking when the rain hit the roof, we slept in National Forest campsites instead. Except for that one park in New Mexico where we were the only campers and the wind got real loud and we scared ourselves silly by listening to right wing talk radio (“So these young men lose their baseball on this guy’s property and he pulls out his 12-gauge, just to scare them a little. Next thing you know, HIS ass is in jail and the juvenile delinquents are running free! And you call this a JUST COUNTRY??”) the national forest campsites were very nice and only cost about $10 US a night.

Lessons from MURR!!

I learned that the back of the hand actually can sweat, I think it was in Alabama. There was this heat wave, you see, and we were in our hot tin can on the highway for most of it. I also learned that people in the South have that drawl because it’s too hot to talk quickly. Kind of like me trying to walk up a hill at my pre-pregnancy speed. It’s impossible.

When you cover 800 miles in a day, the day is too long and too much has changed for you to stay pissed off at your travelling companion for the stupid thing he said 800 miles ago.

See also: Trust your travelling companion implicitly. He’s all you’ve got.

It may appear that your 18 foot van is going to drive off the edge of California but you have to hold on, take lots of pictures and have faith that today is not your day to die.

See also: Don’t drink beer when you’re dehydrated, stay up all night in New Orleans and then drive across a really long bridge in a thunderstorm.

America is HUGE! Bigger than Donald Trump, even!

There is a very good reason someone invented air conditioning. You will never know what this very good reason is if you live your whole life in Vancouver.

No red wine is too cheap when you’re living in a van.

a sampling of photos

Farewell, sweet MURR!! You were our Armageddon; you carried us home.