Booking a new life journey
‘I didn’t know a thing about RVs before we went on this trip,” said NBC Today show correspondent Mike Leonard from his home in Winnetka, Ill.
Leonard was reminiscing earlier this week before taking off on a 20-city book tour (including two stops in the Seattle area) for his recently released personal memoir, “Ride of Our Lives: Roadside Lessons of an American Family.”
“We weren’t a camping family,” he continued. “We grew up in East Paterson, New Jersey, and just never did that.”
In early 2005 all that changed.
Leonard, 58, took a sabbatical from his NBC duties, piled his parents, three of his grown children and a daughter-in-law into a pair of rented recreational vehicles and hit the road for a month.
Over the next four weeks three generations of Leonards traveled almost 8,000 miles through 18 states, arriving back in Chicago in time for the birth of Leonard’s first grandchild.
In the beginning, said Leonard, all he wanted was to give his parents, both in their 80s, “the ultimate family reunion.”
What resulted was something different.
“It changed all our lives in a profound way,” reflected Leonard.
The RV trip became the perfect metaphor for both the book and the setting for sharing experiences that “you don’t get to share when you are speeding through life,” he said.
“The Ride of Our Lives” swings back and forth between RV travel moments and stories from more than 100 years of Leonard family history.
The RV trip began in Winnetka on a cold, minus-12 degree January morning when a rented class C Winnebago Mini Winnie pulled out of the driveway with five Leonards aboard and headed southwest to pick up Jack and Marge Leonard in Phoenix.
Four days later the expedition added the second RV, a 37-foot Holiday Rambler Neptune, gathered up the elder Leonards and pointed their high beams east.
Jack, 87 at the time, and Marge, five years younger, both have Irish roots and make each other laugh.
“Jack and Marge, the package of opposites,” writes Leonard in his book, “the plus and minus charges still holding enough juice to light each other up after more than 60 years of married life.”
The sparks between Jack, the “pathological optimist,” and Marge, the eternal pessimist, provide for many rich moments in the book.
Each evening the Leonard clan would collect in the Holiday Rambler for dinner and talk.
“The reason all these emotions and stories came out was because we were all together in the RV,” said Leonard.
“You know how it is when everyone gravitates to their favorite seat in the living room,” he said. “Being together in a comfortable environment was the reason why we all got to know each other better.”
Costs
The entire trip – including a $3,000 repair bill resulting from a small mishap involving the Mini Winnie and a cement island at a convenience store – ran about $15,000. That covered RV rental costs, fuel, food, campground fees, and a couple of nights lodging in hotel for seven adults.
Additional information
“ Mike Leonard’s Web sites are www.mike-leonard.com, www.pictureshowfilms.com and www.campjinx.com.
“ “Ride of Our Lives: Roadside Lessons of an American Family,” (Ballantine Books, $24.95 hardback); also available from Random House Audio and in a Random House Large Print edition. Movie rights have been sold to Offspring Entertainment and Disney Studio.
A DVD with the book features four Today show segments about the trip, which aired in July 2005. It also includes a background segment produced by Brendan Leonard and a series of candid still photographs taken along the journey.
“ If you happen to be in the Puget Sound area this coming week, Leonard will be in Lake Forest Park at the Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way, on Tuesday at 7 p.m.; and in Bellevue at the University Bookstore, 990 102nd Ave. N.E., on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
No Eastern Washington or Idaho appearances are scheduled.
Wheel question
In the past week two e-mails have arrived inquiring about public dump stations in the greater Spokane area.
“Finding a place to dump your holding tank can be a real problem, particularly in early spring,” writes Jerry McBride. “I used to dump at Johnson RV off of Fancher, but they have closed their dump and cannot say when it will be reopened.”
Carol and Ron Gifford also tried Johnson RV and found it closed.
“I made several phones calls to try to locate other RV dumps,” writes Carol Gifford, “from what I could gather, the only public dump in Spokane County is now Riverside State Park.”
If you know of other public dump stations please pass along that information by calling (509) 459-5435 or e-mail juliannec@spokesman.com.