THE DEVIL'S highway used to be its name, but the Munday family didn’t know this as they looked down at their map to a winding Route 191.
They wanted to take the scenic route to California’s coast, something through the mountains like the ones they’d left behind in Terrace months before. So mom Kelly, father Terry and their then 10-year-old son Michael packed into the family’s 23-foot 1992 motor home and hit the road.
A white knuckled Terry was behind the wheel. The family West Highland terrier, Sampson, looked over his shoulder at hairpin turns which begged a speed no more than 16 km per hour due to the narrowness of the road and at points, 2,743 metre drops just off the shoulder.
This portion of the highway is infamous for it’s steep grades, and was nothing like the mountain highways through northern B.C. the Mundays remembered.
But then again, nothing was like life back home when the family’s great adventure began May 31, 2010, after Kelly took leave from her job and Terry was off work due to an injury. Their 20-year-old daughter Jennifer was on her way to university in PEI, and the family wanted quality time with her and their younger son.
“We thought, what better time to do it than now?” recalled Kelly of her and Terry’s decision to leave Terrace. “We took a year break from our life and the rat race, rented out our house, pulled our son out of school and took off.”
The Munday parents decided to drive Jennifer to her new home away from home. On the way to PEI, they toured B.C. visiting family and friends. They drove from Vancouver Island to Prince Edward Island where they stayed for six weeks before saying goodbye to their daughter and exploring more of the Maritimes. They traced the borders of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, seeing the Bay of Fundy National Park and majestic waves of Peggy’s Cove.
But a wind named Earl came knocking on the family’s RV one early morning.
“The worst part of the trip was getting caught in Hurricane Earl in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia in September,” wrote Kelly in memoirs after the trip. Luckily, Earl’s force slowed from 4 to 1 before reaching the coast where the family slept.
Shortly after, the Mundays crossed Canada’s border to the south. They travelled through Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and to the Adirondacks in New York for three weeks.
“As Canadians we are only allowed to be in the United States for 182 days at a time so we went back to Canada for one month and stayed with family in Quebec before heading back into the United States for six months early November,” wrote Kelly.
Their goal was avoiding winter, so they travelled to the United States’ most southern tip to do just that.
“We drove down to Florida staying two and a half months at a beautiful RV park at Lake Rousseau.”
During their trip, the Mundays stayed mostly in RV parks, the lifestyle of many retirees who, like migrating birds in winter, flock to warmer climates and travel as a permanent lifestyle.
Unlike many of their travelling peers, the Mundays are not retired. This is especially true of Michael, who is still years shy of high school.
So while the family had much time to bond during their travels, they couldn’t help but wonder how their son was coping in these mostly adult atmospheres.
Michael did spend many hours entertaining himself, said his parents.
Besides his home schooling, homework and family activities, he spent hours playing magic cards in his semi-private curtained bed above the RV’s cab. He memorized each one. He also write his first book during the trip, titled Whisp, a 42-page novella about a family’s adventures into space.
Kelly’s smile widened as she recalled a moment of relief from concerns about her son’s social life. It was a New Year’s potluck and dance with fellow RVers in Florida. Senior women waved to her and stopped to introduce themselves.
“‘It’s Mrs. Michael,’ they’d say,” Kelly recalled.
After an evening of watching their son dance with their temporary neighbours, Kelly and Terry found themselves relieved. Michael did make friends, just not the kind one might guess a 10-year-old would. According to him, he had a blast.
From Florida, the family followed the Gulf of Mexico through Alabama, Mississippi and the bayous of Louisiana to Texas’ Rio Grand Valley where they stayed for six weeks.
“We witnessed the devastation that Hurricane Katrina had on the Gulf coast,” wrote Kelly.
They travelled to the Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico and visited caves in the Guadalupe Mountains which the family agrees they will never forget. A winding path led them deep into the caves.
As a photographer, Kelly revelled in the pictures she captured. And Terry, a wildlife enthusiast who journaled about different species he discovered during his travels, remembered the bats. “It looked like smoke was rising up out of the cave,” he said.
The family stayed in the Chihuahuan desert in New Mexico and went to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. The family then took route 191 before reaching Las Vegas in Nevada.
“We followed Hwy1 up the Californian coast before arriving home on April 30, 2011, eleven months after we departed Terrace,” Kelly wrote. “We travelled through nine provinces and through 22 states for a duration of 33,000 km.
“Some of the many highlights of our trip were seeing the beauty of PEI, the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton Island, going underground 800 ft in the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, the train trip to Grand Canyon in Arizona, Disney World in Florida and the Redwoods in California.”
The family budgeted $800 a month for fuel and $800 a month for RV and campsites. For short commutes, they relied on bicycles to get around.
“It was quite a bit cheaper for us to live and travel in the RV than to maintain our household at home. We had no mechanical problems with our RV and only had one flat tire all year,” wrote Kelly. “Our year away from home was an eye opener for us, we were so excited to leave Terrace and set off on a journey of unknown destinations but we were also so very excited to arrive back to B.C. and especially Terrace, the most beautiful place on earth! We got to do what hardly no other families get to do in a lifetime; travelling for a year, spending one year with our son...every day...while he is still a child seeing new things through his eyes, and no telephone calls and no bills!”
Story written with contributed material from Kelly Munday.