The National Parks Service and America's railroads began engaging in a "See America First" campaign since at least 1872. The Soo Line created the name in a 1910 brochure which said, "See Europe if you will, but see America first." I was born just before WWII began and by the time I was old enough to think, the war was over, Europe was a mess, and the campaign was in full swing again. So, I bought the notion. As I entered my teen years, but before I could drive, the Interstate Highway system was begun and black & white TV with three networks were all there were. There was a singer named Dinah Shore on one of them. Her variety show was sponsored by the then largest automobile company in the world, General Motors - more specifically the Chevrolet Division. Every show ended with her belting out "See the USA in your Chevrolet, America is asking you to call...." (If you're one of the many too young to have heard it, here's a clip from 1953.)

Now I was completely sold! See America First in my Chevrolet!

Thus my first car was a 1955 Chevy. Before I traded it in, it had 65,000 miles on it and had been to or at least through 15 states and one Canadian Province. After a series of bad experiences with both new and used cars, we bought a new 1965 VW which, needless to say, was a mite cramped for a family of four. Although we could ill afford it, we kept the VW for my wife to tool around town and got a brand-spanking new candy-apple red 1967 Ford convertible to take us all to the World's Fair in Montreal and began to seriously "see America first." We got some tents, a dining-fly, Coleman stove, etc, etc, etc. It was the last of the "etc.s" that caused us to get a utility trailer to haul all the gear. Then we got a bigger utility trailer!

In 1981, the kids were no longer going with us and the aches and pains of middle age were making the setting up, taking down, sleeping on low cots, and all the rest of it entirely too inconvenient. So we got a 17' Starcraft travel trailer and began taking longer trips with shorter stays.

We had also become interested in birding and began planning our trips to add to our life-lists. We killed the trailer on our first trip to Alaska in 1989 - the Alcan Highway was still almost completely unpaved and large sections were under construction. (Later we learned that the plan was to have the road completely paved by its 50th Anniversary in 1992.) We took the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry back to Vancouver Island.

The next travel trailer was a 1989 20' Starcraft. It made only one trip - to Whitefish Point, Michigan - and was destroyed, along with the Ramcharger tow-car, on the return trip home. I doubt the little white car which demolished us even knew of the trail of destruction he left behind after cutting me off. But the phrase "Watch out - little white car!" remains with us yet. So we shopped for a new RV and took our trips by car-motel until we settled on a 1992 Airstream van conversion.

Next came a 1995 Winnebago Brave class A and, in 1999, another trip to Alaska (both ways on the newly paved Alcan Hightway) which, as expected because most other "highways" in Alaska are not paved, finished it off. Then came a 2000 Monaco Dynasty diesel-pusher Class A. By 2008, the Dynasty was showing its age, we had been in all 50 states and all of the Canadian Provinces and Territories (Well, not Nunavut; there are no roads.), we had retired and started wintering in the South and my life list of birds had gone over 750. In 2008, we sold the Dynasty and plan to continue wintering in warmer climes, although not necessarily in the US. After all, we have fulfilled our yourthful dream to "see America first" and have visited only a half-dozen European nations and nowhere on any other continent.

You can see where our current travels are taking us by visiting Our Location page.