A Tale of Airport Hopping Across the USA from Reno to our little home on wheels on the East Coast

After reunions with relatives in Fresno, and then in Reno, it was time to zip from the West Coast to the East Coast, for more reunions. So we said goodbye to Kimberly’s parents as they dropped us at Reno-Tahoe International Airport, one of the smallest major airports we’ve used. Just as Reno is the Biggest Little City in the World, its airport might be the Biggest Little Airport in the Country, with a compact facility that’s easy to get around in, and yet is served by many major airlines and flights– though often, as in our case, it requires connections rather than direct trips.

There was a rather long line at check-in for our flight, a line that snaked around several roped guidelines, and we dutifully got into it. But we began to wonder if we first needed to go the ticket counter. As it turns out we did, so we had to abandon our position in the queue, But that didn’t take too long, and then we were back in line, which meanwhile had diminished a bit. So the gods were smiling upon us in Reno.

In Salt Lake City, where we changed planes, our fortunes were looking more doubtful. Because there were reports that snowstorms might cause our flight to Boston to be cancelled. It was looking so much like a real possibility that we even contacted some friends in the area and asked about staying with them if need be. But it turns out that the weather didn’t cooperate — that is , it didn’t cooperate for a reunion with friends. It did cooperate for our flight taking off more or less as scheduled.

And so, after a few hours of zooming over scenic snow-capped mountains, we touched down at Logan Airport in Boston at around midnight. Our son Zephyr picked us up; he’s never too happy about driving in Boston, but he’s more willing to do so at such an hour when there’s much less traffic — being a night owl, he doesn’t object to the timing.

So it was back to his house in Providence, where we finally got to bed on a convertible sofa in his living room at around 2:00 a.m. But seeing as how we’d been hopping across time zones left and right, we never would have known the difference without a clock in sight.

It still seems a bit odd to us that our son actually owns a house. The kid grew up on wheels, touring with us all over the country between the ages of 2 and 18. So for him to settle in one place — and actually buy a house, no less — instead of being eternal nomads like his parents, might almost be construed as an act of youthful rebellion.

Anyway, we love his house and its location. It’s a grand old three-story classic that he co-own and shares with several housemates, with enough space to add the homey touches of several cats and a bearded dragon. (Another way in which he diverges from us — we’re not pet creatures at all.)

After a couple of days of reunion with our son, we headed up to New Hampshire (we’d return to Providence later) for another reunion: with some old friends, and our RV, which we’ left in their care.

Catching a train to Boston, we then boarded a bus to Concord, where our friends Jeanne and her daughter Kiaya picked us up and drove us to their house in a rural area a few miles away.

Their house sits on some rather spacious property, so there was plenty of room to stash the RV and the trailer attached to it. Originally, we’d planned to leave it with them for 9 months while we trotted the globe. And then those 9 months stretched on to 15 before we finally made it back. And they still graciously tended to it.

And now, here it was, our beloved home on wheels reunited with us at last. But as happy as we were to see it and be inside it again, we knew that it would not be long-lived. The time had come to begin readying the RV and the trailer to sell so we could return to being global nomads.

4/5-7/2023