departure

September 2007
Most of you know, some do not, that our first grandchild, Jane Aubrey Aune, was born to Nathan and Cailyn on Sunday, August 26. She is a beautiful darling and Barb and I have been able to see her every day since her arrival. Barb is spending the night with Nathan and Cailyn, and especially Janie tonight, as Barb (and I) make the most of every opportunity to be with our granddaughter. Alas, the time approaches when I whisk Barb away on a RV trip that, if all goes well, will bring us back to Janie, er our home, around April 1. This is a trip that I have been planning for four years and really is the reason that Barb and I bought the RV in the first place. The RV will allow us to visit the back roads and the little towns that make up the varied culture of rural America, to visit the sites of historic America, and to visit the friends that are spread out over this wonderful land. We plan to leave Tuesday morning. Our first 3 destinations, in North Dakota and Minnesota, will be farms and towns where my grandparents and great grandparents lived as they immigrated from Norway, finally settling in my home town, Lacrosse, Washington. I hope to visit the grave of my uncle in Ryder, North Dakota, who, when he was 12 years old in 1917, was hooking up a team of horses to a wagon with my father who was 15. The horses spooked and both my uncle Gilbert and my dad were run over by the wagon. My uncle was killed. My father was hurt but obviously survived. I am not sure how many years it has been since any of my family has been able to visit his grave as the Aunes left for Washington the next year. I feel driven to do so. Also, I plan to visit the town where my Aune grandparents and father (my father was 2 years old) settled on arriving from Norway (Marietta, MN) in 1904, and also plan attend a church in Kasson, Minnesota where my Grandmother Wigen (mother's side) was baptized and confirmed in a Lutheran church that her grandfather helped build in the mid 1800's. After visiting my family's historical sites, we plan to visit many of the sites that I taught about for 18 years but have never visited. We plan to meet up with two other couples in Acadia National Park in Maine on October 1, God willing, then slowly make our way down the Eastern Coast. We will visit the big cities, as well as meet up with friends and relatives along the way. We look forward to renewing friendships and revisiting old times. We hope to visit with Ben and Penny near Atlanta around Thanksgiving and plan to spend the holidays in that area. Then we plan to see Florida, the Gulf Coast, and come home via stops in Texas and Arizona, perhaps Missouri. I do not plan to email you with boring tidbits of this trip. I do plan to journal regularly on a blog site and, if you are interested in catching up on where we are or what we are doing, you can access the site at http://nbaune.blogspot.com./ I am completely naive regarding blogging, but this appears to be the way to go and I hear that voice that tells me, "To stay young, you must try new things." So, a blogger I will be. East coasters, it looks like we will be in New York and PA in mid October, the D.C. area in late October and in North Carolina early November. I will contact each of you regarding specific dates as we get closer to your area. Please wish us well on this venture. Tallyho!!! "All who wander are not lost." J. R. Tolkien