Back in July of 2001 when we moved from Vermont to Montana, E and I managed to incorporate visits to five new state highpoints (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and South Dakota) along the way. On that trip, we generally followed Interstate 90 across the country, and caught the highpoints that were relatively close to our route. Since I-90 doesn't quite hit the northern border of the United States, there were still several northern state highpoints that we couldn't attain on that trip (North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan) because they were WAY off our route. Check out the map below to see the status of our state highpoint visits as of July 23rd, 2006 before we made our return trip to Vermont.

When we made our initial trip out to Montana, we weren't sure how long we'd be out there, but we'd always thought it would be neat if we followed the more northerly route (roughly I-94) on our return trip and finished off the northern highpoints. As it turns out, although I-94 did make up a big part of our return trip as we'd thought, only North Dakota's and Wisconsin's highpoints are really anywhere near I-94. Minnesota's and Michigan's highpoints aren't near ANY major interstates. They're at the far northern reaches of the contiguous 48 states, in somewhat remote places that you're not likely to visit if you don't live in the region (see the individual state maps below for the highpoint locations).

Minnesota's highpoint is DEEP into the arrowhead of the state (see above), surrounded by littler more than Canada and gigantic Lake Superior, while Michigan's highpoint is in the remote northern part of the Upper Peninsula (see above). These highpoints are in places that many people in Minnesota and Michigan themselves rarely if ever visit, partly because they are far from the major population centers, but the enormity of the Great Lakes just makes it hard to get around the region as well. Getting to the Minnesota and Michigan highpoints would mean some major deviations from the interstate on our cross-country trip. It would also mean adding a couple of extra travel days to the whole affair, but we knew we'd get to see some obscure and interesting parts of the country that we otherwise wouldn't. That's a big part of why we visit state highpoints anyway. So, once we found out that we were moving back to Vermont, we immediately devised a route that would incorporate visits to the four north-central highpoints that we'd yet to experience.

Our situation had changed a lot between our first cross-country trip in July of 2001 and our second one in July of 2006. Ty and Dylan were obvious additions that could make the return trip a bit more challenging, although it's hard to even think what a trip would be like without them at this point. Also, during our five years in Montana, we seemed to accumulate a lot more... stuff. When we moved out to Montana, we simply pulled a small U-Haul trailer (I believe it was a 5' x 8' trailer that provided ~208 cubic feet) behind the Subaru. For the move back to Vermont, we definitely needed a real moving truck. We also knew that we wanted to get both our cars back to Vermont, so we'd need to tow one of them. We ended up choosing a 17' truck (855 cubic feet) which was recommended for 2-3 bedrooms. I was a bit concerned that the 17' truck wouldn't be quite big enough for us with all our outdoor things like kayaks, skis, bikes, etc., but unfortunately the next step up in U-Haul truck size was a big 24' model. I needed to keep our vehicle footprint as small as possible because we'd be parking at campsites during the trip. With the U-Haul auto transport we'd added to tow the Subaru, our truck and trailer combination was already 40' in length. The longer our vehicle got, the more trouble it would be to maneuver in general, and the more limited we'd be in campsite choices.

We designed our travel route using MapQuest, and tried to break the trip into segments with roughly eight hours of combined driving and/or hiking per day. With two young boys in the trip, we wanted to avoid having any marathon 16-hour driving days. On days in which we visited highpoints, the driving distances were substantially reduced to keep those days as short as the pure travel days whenever possible. The most unusual day on the schedule was probably travel day 4, where we planned to visit the Minnesota highpoint. Since Minnesota's highpoint is so deep in the arrowhead region of the state as I mentioned above, it was essentially a "dead-end" as far as our eastward travel was concerned. Therefore, we planned to stay at a campground in Duluth (right at the base of the arrowhead) for two nights. We'd take a day trip out to the highpoint with only the car (the Mazda), avoiding all those out and back miles on the big U-Haul truck. It was a bit disconcerting to know that even with roughly six hours of driving, we would end up right back where we'd started that day, but we were hoping it would be a nice break from the interstate driving and dealing with the big truck. According to the initial master schedule, our moving trip was to take eight days, with 2,645 miles put on the U-Haul truck, and 3,027 miles put on the Mazda. The initial trip schedule is posted below for those that would like to get a sense of what the planned days were like, and there's also a map of the initial planned route below that.


Vermont moving & highpoint trip outline

Sunday, July 23rd
Day 1:Loading Day

Monday, July 24th - Departure
Day 2:Hamilton, MT (1125 South 6th Street) to Miles City, MT (Miles City KOA, 1 Palmer St, Miles City, MT 59301-2914)
Anticipated truck miles: 535.31 miles
Driving distance: 535.31 miles
Estimated driving time (MapQuest): 7 hours, 44 minutes

Tuesday, July 25th
Day 3:Miles City, MT (Miles City KOA at 1 Palmer St, Miles City, MT 59301-2914) to Bismarck, ND (Bismarck KOA, 3720 Centennial Road, Bismarck, ND 58501-8001)
Miles City KOA campground to center of Amidon (via 12 & 85): 150.92 miles, 3 hours 11 minutes
Round trip drive to highpoint hike from center of Amidon: 16 miles, 32 minutes
Center of Amidon to Bismarck KOA: 154.43 miles, 2 hours 30 minutes
Anticipated truck miles: 305.35 miles
Total distance (including round trip highpoint drive): 321.35 miles
Estimated driving and hiking time (MapQuest + Highpoint Guide): 8 hours, 13 minutes
White Butte (elevation 3,506 feet) North Dakota highpoint en route
Hike Distance (round trip): 2.0 miles
Hike elevation gain: 400 feet
Estimated hiking time (round trip) 2 hours

Wednesday, July 26th
Day 4:Bismarck, ND (Bismarck KOA, 3720 Centennial Road, Bismarck, ND 58501-8001) to Cloquet, MN (Cloquet Duluth KOA, 1479 Old Carlton Road, Cloquet, MN 55720)
Anticipated truck miles: 490.75 miles
Driving distance: 490.75 miles
Estimated time (MapQuest): 7 hours, 43 minutes

Thursday, July 27th
Day 5:Eagle Mountain (elevation 2,301 feet) Minnesota highpoint day trip.
Drive distance (round trip): 300.30 miles
Drive time (round trip): 6 hours, 46 minutes
Hike Distance (round trip): 7.0 miles
Hike elevation gain: 600 feet
Estimated hiking time (round trip): 4 hours
Estimated driving and hiking time (MapQuest + Highpoint Guide): 10 hours, 46 minutes

Friday, July 28th
Day 6:Cloquet, MN (Cloquet Duluth KOA, 1479 Old Carlton Road, Cloquet, MN 55720) to Baraga, MI (Baraga State Park, 1300 US 41 South, Baraga, MI 49908-9635)
Duluth KOA to Ogema, WI: 181.19 miles, 4 hours, 8 minutes
Round trip drive to highpoint from start of county road C: 3.6 miles, 7.2 minutes
Ogema, WI to Tomahawk, WI: 29.97 miles, 54 minutes
Tomahawk, WI to Baraga State Park, MI: 153.14 miles, 3 hours, 26 minutes
Anticipated truck miles: 364.30 miles
Total distance (including round trip highpoint drive): 367.90 miles
Estimated driving and hiking time (MapQuest + Highpoint Guide): 8 hours, 56 minutes
Timm's Hill (elevation 1,951 feet) Wisconsin highpoint en route
Hike Distance (round trip): 0.4 miles
Hike elevation gain: 130 feet
Estimated hiking time (round trip) 20 minutes

Saturday, July 29th
Day 7:Baraga, MI (Baraga State Park, 1300 US 41 South, Baraga, MI 49908-9635) to Sault Saint Marie, MI (Soo Locks Campground, 1001 East Portage Avenue, Sault Saint Marie 49783-2445)
Round trip drive to highpoint from Baraga State Park: 61.26 miles, 1 hour, 58 minutes
Baraga State Park to Soo Locks Campground: 236.35 miles, 4 hours, 33 minutes
Anticipated truck miles: 236.35 miles
Total distance (including round trip highpoint drive): 297.61 miles
Estimated driving and hiking time (MapQuest + Highpoint Guide): 8 hours, 31 minutes
Mount Arvon (elevation 1,975 feet) Michigan highpoint en route
Hike Distance (round trip): 2.0 miles
Hike elevation gain: 300 feet
Estimated hiking time (round trip) 2 hours

Sunday, July 30th
Day 8:Sault Saint Marie, MI (Soo Locks Campground, 1001 East Portage Avenue, Sault Saint Marie 49783-2445) to Stonecliffe, ON (Driftwood Provincial Park, Stonecliffe, ON K0J 2K0)
Anticipated truck miles: 354.00 miles
Driving distance: 354.00 miles
Estimated time (MapQuest): 7 hours, 52 minutes

Monday, July 31st – Arrival Day
Day 9:Stonecliffe, ON (Driftwood Provincial Park, Stonecliffe, ON K0J 2K0) to South Burlington, VT
Anticipated truck miles: 359.42 miles
Driving distance: 359.42 miles
Estimated time (MapQuest): 6 hours, 42 minutes

Tuesday, August 1st
Day 10: Unloading Day

Total anticipated truck miles: 2645.48 miles
Total anticipated Mazda miles: 3026.64 miles

On the map below, our initial planned route is indicated in purple, and the four highpoints are indicated in red.

As soon as we found out in May that we would be moving back to Vermont, I visited the local U-Haul center and reserved the appropriate truck and trailer. As our departure day approached, Dan from U-Haul called us up and asked us if we'd be willing to take the truck early. We weren't departing until Monday, July 24th, but he gave us the truck on Tuesday, July 18th (6 days early)! He also gave us some extra mileage to get us to 2,800 free miles. Dan had just received a nice new 17' U-Haul truck that he wanted us to have, and he was also hoping to take care of the transfer to us so he could head off for a fishing vacation with his boys for the rest of the week. We were psyched to have the truck for six days, as it would hopefully allow us some flexibility in our packing. At the U-Haul center, Dan ran us through the usual pre-flight check on the equipment, with the most instruction involved in hooking up and maintaining the trailer and hitch. We got to test the setup as we drove the short (~1 mile) trip back to our house.

Since we had a whole week to pack, we were able to label our boxes really well so that storage and unpacking would be that much easier. We knew that most of our belongings were going to be in storage for several weeks as we looked for a house in Vermont, and it was going to be important to have access to things if we needed them. I had spent the past several weeks accumulating boxes and packing materials from the laboratory, so we looked to be in good shape on that end. I also had time to visit the local supermarkets and appliance stores to get some specific-sized boxes for certain items.

Our packing week was a very interesting experience, one that I'll never forget. While I've moved many times before, they were either local moves (i.e. moving from Pine Street in Hamilton to Sixth Street in Hamilton), and/or we had a lot less stuff (i.e. moving from Vermont to Montana); none of them were as all-encompassing as this move from Montana back to Vermont. Although we had a week to pack, and almost as much time to do our loading of the truck, virtually every day from sunup to sundown was focused on the move. While Ty and Dylan were generally well-behaved during the week, they still needed to be monitored unless they were napping, and that cut into packing and cleaning time. It also felt like we HAD to go all out on packing and loading or we weren't going to make it in time for our planned departure. There was also a sense of finality with this move that couldn't be shaken. There were no family members to store things with if we didn't have space in the truck. We couldn't come back for a second trip to pick up extra items. We weren't likely to be moving back here in a few years to pick up where we left off. This move was it. I hadn't noticed how engrossed we were in the whole process until at some point later in the week, I had to run out to the grocery store to get some food. While I was in the midst of my hurried trip to get groceries, I was suddenly aware of the scene that surrounded me. People were heading here and there, doing their usual shopping and just generally getting on with the chores of everyday life. It was just then that I realized I'd forgotten what life had been like just a couple weeks before without such a huge deadline looming so close. The days upon days of total commitment to disassembling our lives was having an affect. I was ready to be done with it.

As with everything else around us, it seemed that it was business as usual for Mother Nature as well. As is typical for July in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, our packing week was pretty much cloudless and HOT. The temperatures generally reached the mid 90s F each day, and the final two days topped out at around 101 F! That's the actual air temperature by the way, not any sort of heat index measurement. The humidity was even a little higher than it usually was for the area, but fortunately it still wasn't very as humid as it can be in many parts of the country.

Our friend Nancy came over on Friday to help us pack, and then on our final day, Dave, Maureen, Nancy, Gerry, and Patty all helped out at various times. Even with all our time, we were still packing the truck late into the night on Sunday, and when the truck ran out of room, we packed the remaining items into the Subaru and the Mazda. I even had to pack items like Ty's bicycle and a large stroller behind the seats in the cab of the truck! It was certainly nip and tuck all the way, and we never really knew if everything was going to fit until we were just about done. No matter how many things we packed, it always felt like there was something else to take care of. You'd walk back into the house and be greeted with yet another big project. I guess that's the way it often feels when one is packing; you forget about all the little everyday things that have become entrenched in your house and a part of your life. Gerry and Nancy stayed late that final night helping us pack, until we were finally down to just a few things like sleeping bags and the kayaks that we would (somehow) attach to the trailer the next morning after we put the Subaru on it. Gerry even stuffed all our unused boxes and packing supplies, as well as Andy's moving dolly (thanks for letting us use that Andy) into his pickup truck at the last minute to save us that hassle in the morning.

With the boys asleep, we hung out with Gerry for a bit near the truck before he went home. We were all tired, but also wired with that late night feeling of reaching a milestone in our long task. We talked about our plans to head through Canada from Sault Saint Marie, and Gerry being Canadian, gave us his input. When I had initially checked with Dan to make sure it was OK to take the truck into Canada, he said it was no problem, but he cautioned me that the vehicle might be searched. Gerry strongly agreed that we might get searched based on his experience, and now with the knowledge that our truck was packed to the point of bursting and would probably require a full day to repack as efficiently as we'd done, there was no way I wanted to risk having to open it. So, it was slightly disheartening to think we'd have to rearrange our plans for our final couple days of the trip, but the possibility of having to take everything out of the truck and not be able to fit it back in (at one or possibly both border crossings) was absolutely not an option. Going south around the Great Lakes to stay in the U.S. would mean and extra 400-500 miles of driving, and possibly a couple of extremely long driving days, but the alternative of potentially unpacking and repacking the truck was far worse. After we said our last goodbye to Gerry, E and I quickly sat down to take a look at what our new route would have to be for the final days. We didn't even have all the proper maps to get a detailed idea of how we'd get through the lower peninsula of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Vermont; the maps had been packed somewhere deep in the truck. We didn't even have internet access to look the mileage up on line. We generally knew the New York and Vermont part of the route, but we planned to stop at AAA in Missoula that next morning to get the additional maps. Of course, that meant one more thing that would slow our departure. Finally we decided we just had to get to bed and get a few hours of sleep before the upcoming big day.

At some point I finally fell asleep, but not before I'd taken a quick walk around the empty house in the quiet wee-hours of the morning. I picked up a few scattered items and took some photos of our cleaning accomplishments thus far. It was actually nice to be able to see some rooms that really were complete, and to spend a little time reminiscing about the house we'd been in for the past two years. Big kudos go out to all the friends that helped us finish the packing and labeling; it really made a difference.