My cousin Dick and his wife Cheryl headed off to Ennis, Montana this morning after spending the weekend visiting us from Ventura, California.  Each year they drive cross country for a couple of months in their 5th wheel RV named Trigger.  The name comes from a beer-drinking encounter Dick had in his youth with Roy Rogers.  Roy kept walking into the kitchen to refresh Dick’s beer because he was wearing his Marine uniform.

Dick joined the Marines, the Reserves at least, at the tender age of 15.  He wound up driving a tank at the end of the Korean War, something he wishes he could still do.  The RV is a modern substitute.  He’s retired after a career leading America’s clean air regulatory agency, although one never really retires after a career like that.  He’s now working with a consortium of concerned scientists as part of the Trump Resistance.  I helped him with his latest PowerPoint.  Cheryl is a reservist with FEMA.  There’s a good chance she will be called up to respond to Hurricane Harvey in Houston, cutting their road trip short.

Trigger is now headed north, likely camping somewhere south of Yellowstone.  Trigger’s ultimate Montana destination is Teddy Roosevelt National Park.  Trigger will then wind its way down to visit three of my sisters in the Quad Cities before trekking back home through Missouri to research a graveyard in Dowling.  And who knows, I might catch Trigger again on the trail back homeward to Ventura.