Parakeets, goldfish, stuffed animals - everything my family owned that had even a hint of personality had a name, even our cars. But we never named the bus. It was always just "the bus." A boxy, slightly down at the heels, 28 foot Dodge motor home. Sofa, dinette, kitchen, bathroom. Sleeps six. Just like home. Willful, unpredictable, and occasionally eccentric. Just like family.

We thought it was a terrible idea when Dad bought the bus. Mom complained that it cost too much. This was her standard complaint for everything Dad brought home. And, she protested, "I'll end up doing all the cooking and cleaning." Dad pointed out this was highly unlikely since she already didn't do any cooking and cleaning. That's what the children were for. My brothers and sister and I simply groaned. We were teenagers. We groaned at anything our parents wanted us to do, regardless of its merits, and particularly if it hinted at "family togetherness." But we were all wrong. It was a wonderful idea.

Every summer, right after school let out, we loaded up the bus and went somewhere. There might be six or seven of us – my parents, my brothers, my sister, and Laredo, our lugubrious howling basset hound. Sometimes there were only two or three. In later years, we added spouses and grandchildren. Most often we headed for the West, sometimes, in the summer, we went "up north," like good Minnesotans. We might be gone for weeks or months, or just the weekend.

Getting ready to leave was a multi-day event. First we had to clean the bus – wash, vacuum, polish, scrub, wax. Then the great parade. Out the front door, down the sidewalk, into the bus. House to bus, house to bus, load after load. Clothes, cereal, towels, fry pans, flashlights, maps, badminton set, pinochle cards. Everything had to be stowed in its proper place. This was vitally important. Six adults, a 28 by 8 foot bus. You do the math. To minimize hostilities, we each had our own assigned personal space. Woe to the sibling who trespassed. The penalty if I found my sister's moccasins in the space under the bunk where my camera belonged? It wasn't pretty. We often ran out of space before we ran out of stuff, so near the end of the loading-up parade the direction reversed. Bus to house; bus to house. No room for a kite. Forget the hat. "Let's leave Lance," I would suggest. Lance was my youngest brother. Finally, Dad and Jim would lift Suzy up onto her rack above the front bumper (Suzy was our little red Suzuki motorcycle for around-town transportation) and we were off.

The first few days on the road we were usually in a hurry to cover the vast, empty distance between Minnesota and our destination in the West. The flat, treeless miles of the Plains states held no attraction for us. We woke in the predawn hours to the smell of coffee and the sound of Dad disconnecting the various pipes, hoses, and cords of our campground hookups. No morning showers on those days. Dad started driving while we were still in bed. Sometimes he didn't stop until late at night and we wouldn't find out until morning what kind of place we were in. We were often surprised. There was a well-worn Woodall's Campground Directory in the front window near the driver's seat, but Dad's choice of campgrounds did not suggest that he was actually using it. Proximity to the freeway off-ramp carried the most weight. A charming setting, recreational opportunities, spacious parking sites, these attributes had little value during our flight west. One morning I pulled aside the yellow curtain on the window of my bunk and looked out onto the town dump of Clovis, New Mexico. In Rapid City, we discovered railroad tracks running through a ravine six feet behind the bus. No wonder the trains had sounded so alarmingly close.

Once we reached interesting terrain (any place in the Mountain Time Zone), we spent less time driving and more time being tourists. We traveled from one national park or monument or historic site to the next one down the road, Zion to Bryce, Arches to Canyonlands, the Tetons to Yellowstone. I was the navigator and tour guide. Engrossed in the Mobil and AAA travel books, I campaigned for diversions from our scheduled path. No battle site was too obscure, no canyon too small, no ruin too far. "Let's have lunch at the Goosenecks of the San Juan River." Small detail: it was a long detour over a hilly road curving around the mesas of southern Utah. "Let's take the Apache Trail to Tucson instead of the interstate." Again, full disclosure was required. About half of the Trail was graded dirt road. "I know it's a 28-foot motor home but you've driven it down worse roads." This was going to be a tough sell. I hastened to add that the Trail went past Roosevelt Dam (Dad liked looking at dams) and it would be beautiful desert country (he liked looking at the desert). I was a persuasive child. We ate lunch at the Goosenecks, and we drove the Apache Trail.

We were all enthusiastic tourists. Caverns, monuments, parks. Forts, museums, churches. We wanted to see everything. One day a serendipitous side trip gave new focus to our wanderings. It happened just after a disappointing visit to Jerome, Arizona. Jerome was Dad's idea, not mine. He had read that Jerome was a picturesque old mining town that is gradually sliding downhill. A must-see. We found an old mining town, that much was true, with many empty, ramshackle buildings. We stood in the street hoping to observe downhill movement, but noted none. (Jerome has since been renovated, but I expect its descent is still imperceptible to the casual visitor.) Disillusioned, heading for Phoenix, we noticed the familiar outlines of a National Park Service sign. It pointed left and announced "Tuzigoot." We dived into the Mobil Guide; this had to be good. We turned, backtracked, and discovered a heavily restored Sinagua Indian pueblo magnificently sited on a desert hilltop. It was our first Indian ruin. It was fascinating, beautiful, romantic. Tuzigoot started our quest, our passion, for ruins – pueblos and cliff dwellings, kivas and ball courts. Montezuma's Castle, Tonto National Monument, Casa Grande, Mesa Verde, Nankoweap, Wupatki, Betatakin, Canyon de Chelly, Keet Seel. Restored or unrestored, easy to reach or a challenge, we were addicted. We walked around the Arizona desert in 105° heat to see every last one of the Wupatki ruins. To reach Betatakin, we hiked the long, steep trail into and out of the lovely Tsegi Canyon. To visit Keet Seel, we spent a full day on ornery Navaho ponies accompanied by an uncommunicative young Navaho guide. (Her entire day's discourse: "Here it is.") We took a trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon to reach Nankoweap. (Well, OK, there were other reasons.) Our fascination with the ancient Indian cultures of the Southwest ran deep, eventually leading me to a degree in anthropology.

Of course after we had been tourists for awhile we needed to catch up on the ordinary chores of domestic life – cleaning, laundry, groceries, ironing. Grocery stores and laundries reveal much about local culture. My first experience of English as a foreign language came at the checkout counter of a grocery store in El Paso. The clerk looked up from the cash register and spoke to me, only a few words, but totally incomprehensible. I shook my head, not understanding. The next person in line helped me out. "He wants to know if you have change." This was the drawled cowboy English of west Texas, nothing like any English I had ever heard spoken in the Midwest. Laundromats were even more educational. Warm, neighborly feelings seem to arise among strangers in a laundromat, perhaps because of the intimacy created by having to fold our pajamas, lingerie, and Fruit of the Looms in public. We not only learned about washing machines – how to use a wringer washer in Tucson; how to use a peculiar type of front loading washer in Salt Lake City – we learned how to strike up a conversation. How's the weather been? What's fun to do here? Do you wash colors with whites?

The bus was a civilized, comfortable way to travel, more comfortable and civilized with three people than with six, but more fun with six. Please don't call it a "camper." It was too big, too domesticated, too elegant. We stayed in campgrounds but had no illusions that we were camping. With hot showers, air conditioning, and a multitude of nonessential electrical appliances, we were not the stuff of which pioneers are made. In adventuresome moments we would stay in primitive campgrounds where we contended with the life-threatening challenges of camp sites with no electrical, water, or sewage hookups. What fortitude; what courage. We usually did this because the regular campgrounds were full.

On a trip through the Tetons, the official entourage for Lady Bird Johnson's "Beautify America" campaign unexpectedly ousted all the ordinary civilian campers from the main campground. The Park Service directed the suddenly campless into an empty field. The water source for this platoon of motor homes, campers, and tent trailers was a faucet and hose (the reputed water source, we never actually found it). We hardly dared to ask about the toilet facilities. It didn't seem to matter. A congenial sense of community spread among the campers setting up helter skelter across the grassy field and everyone had a lovely time. We strolled about after dinner assessing the various camp setups. Back at the bus, we visited with other curious travelers who wanted a look at our fine home. Surrounded by pine trees and mountains, campfires flickering here and there, we were fellow adventurers, reveling in a beautiful, cool Wyoming night. The "official" campground wouldn't have been half as nice.

To make things easier for Dad, my brother and I sometimes helped with the driving. Dad was the primary driver, and was almost always at the wheel when our route took us through mountains. Mom was terrified when we drove through the mountains, insisting that cars fell off the side of the road all the time. Her constant refrain – "you just never read about it in the paper" – is still a part of our family lexicon. Mom never drove the bus. The thought probably never crossed her mind, and certainly none of us would ever have suggested it. Trust me on this, it wouldn't have been a good idea. I would take the wheel for a few hours if the weather was good, if it was divided highway, if I was confident of the route ... and if I felt like it. (Which suggests that not only was I a persuasive child, I was also a spoiled child.)

The only other potential driver was my older brother. Unlike me, Jim would drive any time Dad let him. Fortunately this was not often. Jim had an exceedingly casual attitude about driving this 28 foot behemoth, a one-hand-on-the-wheel technique that also involved aggressive acceleration, hard braking, and dishes falling off the counter in the turns. You didn't take a nap when Jim was driving. He liked to wave at passing cars when he drove. This got us into trouble. Holding a Pepsi can, he waved at a Colorado state trooper just outside of Grand Junction. The trooper thought Jim was waving a beer can, clearly unacceptable behavior. U-turn. Flashing lights. Once the officer discovered his error, he had to find some other infraction to justify his pursuit. He made us bring Suzy inside, citing an obscure regulation about headlight clearance. We found out later he was wrong but that afternoon we were ignorant of the fine points of Colorado's vehicle code and we had to follow his directive. When the bus pulled back onto the highway, it contained six adults, two large lugubrious basset hounds (Laredo had company on this trip), and a small red motorcycle. This was not good. We decided to push on to Nebraska, one of the few times we ever hastened to drive east. We labored slowly up through the Rockies, slogged through rush-hour Denver traffic, and pressed on late into the night, straight through to Ogallala. Suzy was one too many.

There were many days when things went wrong. In fact, Dad spent a lot of time fixing things. He had to contend with automotive problems – the oil pump died, the valves seized, the windshield wipers fell off, the fuel pump failed, the speedometer gave out, the engine overheated. And he had the additional complication of house problems – the roof leaked, the windows stuck, the holding tank backed up through the shower, the oven turned off in hard left turns. But most of the time the trouble was tires. Flat tires. We had flat tires everywhere, and always in the back, where they were harder to fix. These breakdowns often stranded us in small, remote towns without any major attractions, towns that weren't even listed in the guidebooks. In Page, Arizona, semi-abandoned in the lean years after the Glen Canyon Dam construction boom, we waited for tires to arrive on the 9 PM Greyhound bus from Phoenix. They missed the bus and we had to wait for a second day. We spent two days in Algona, Iowa, parked inside the garage of a Dodge dealership while the engine was rebuilt. (The mechanics adopted us. We "helped" them work, ran errands, brought them doughnuts.) We would find interesting places by walking around and asking questions. It might be a tiny local museum with an eccentric, passionate curator or a terrific little used bookstore. We weren't fussy.

Our most noteworthy repair event happened north of Flaming Gorge, Wyoming. Road construction had cars backed up for miles. The soon-to-be new road was as yet only a half-mile long stretch of mud. Many cars got stuck and were towed. Finally, our turn came. All in sight watched with bated breath and muttered prayer. Dad wisely adopted Jim's driving style – he floored it. The bus shot through that swampy half mile like a great white hippo training for the quarter mile, sashaying wildly from side to side in the muck. There was scattered applause as we successfully exited onto hard pavement. We waved and drove on. Hours later we discovered that a hidden obstruction in the mud had punched a sizable hole in our fiberglass holding tank and we had left the road crew a memorable souvenir of our passage. We convinced some reluctant marina operators at the south end of Flathead Lake, Montana, that their boat patching skills would be more than adequate for patching our fiberglass holding tank. All this excitement and we still had enough time left to tour Hungry Horse Dam. What a great day.

We were meticulous about observing holidays and special events, and we were especially big on the 4th of July, which was also the day after Dad's birthday. No matter how crowded we were in the bus, we had to find space for fireworks. "Put back those books, we need the space for cherry bombs." (Once again I might suggest that if we didn't take Lance, we would also have room for sparklers, Black Cats, and Ladyfingers.) We lit firecrackers in a cactus-filled arroyo of the Sonora Desert outside Tucson. When the 4th of July fell on a flat-tire day, Dad came out from under the bus to join us in setting off firecrackers on the shoulder of the road. One windless, muggy summer night at Dead Horse Point, Utah, sole occupants of the newly opened and mostly undiscovered campground, we sat on the rim of the Canyonlands overlook and tossed firecrackers off into the thick fog. Today, this would be considered environmentally incorrect. But that night, back in the 60's, it was a special celebration in an exquisitely wild and beautiful place.

Best of all, the rules about eating were suspended on the bus. We abandoned any pretense of a heart-healthy diet and struck the phrases "well balanced" and "food pyramid" from our vocabulary. We considered a deep fat fryer essential to a well-equipped traveling kitchen. If the bus was settled in at a campground and we needed groceries, Dad would unload Suzy and tootle off into town. It was great when Dad did the shopping. He would come back with chocolate covered doughnuts, ice cream, steak, and french fries. The perfect meal. I doubt that he even identified fruit and vegetables as items for consumption. We had beer for breakfast and peanut butter toast for dinner. One memorable night we had Jell-O and Fritos. I have no explanation for this. If we had a campfire, we might fix a pan of Jolly Time popcorn for dinner. We usually burned it. Burned popcorn goes well with sherry.

For the next ten years, the bus was where we came together to travel, laugh, talk, fight, learn, love, and grow. It was more like home than home. In the bus, we experienced life as a family in a way that simply didn't happen at home. In our large and rambling house, with cars, phones, and friends readily available, escape from family was all too easy. We were independent and disconnected. In the bus, escape was impossible. We talked, ate, and slept with family. I played endless rounds of poker, gin rummy, and go-to-the-dump with my brothers and sister. We shopped together, swam together, walked together. And we talked – what would we do after high school, what kind of person would we marry, how could we get Dad to take us to Las Vegas. At home, during our teenage years, I hardly even saw them. On the bus, they were my best friends.

How did we cope in such a small space? I'm not sure. We all loved to travel and knew we wouldn't get permission to come on the summer trip unless we promised to behave. We didn't always deliver on that promise. We pouted often, fought on occasion, and teased constantly. Any annoying habit was fair game. We showed little mercy and expected none in return. Extended bathroom occupancy was a frequent source of sarcastic comment. "Do you intend to sleep in there tonight?" "Are you coming out or should we push your dinner under the door?" The bathroom was a tiny and unappealing little space, but it was also the only room in the bus with a door. Everyone needs to be alone some of the time.

Finally, one by one, we grew up, married, and drifted away. Long trips to the West were replaced by shorter trips to Bluewater, our favorite lake north of Grand Rapids. Mom and Dad would drive the bus up and stay for a couple of weeks. The rest of us, towing reluctant kids and spouses, would come for a weekend if we could. The closing chapter came when Dad retired and my parents sold their house. While they waited for their new house to be built, they lived in the bus, parked at the back of my youngest brother's place. After that, there was no place in their retirement life for the bus. There was no place for the bus in our busy lives, either.

I was back in Minnesota for a visit. The bus had been sold. It sat in the driveway. Soon the new owners would come and drive it away. It looked a little run down, just like when we bought it so many years before, but cherished and familiar even with its defects. A good old friend. We had gone through it one last time to be sure no forgotten treasure had rolled away into a dark corner. It was silent and still, empty of treasures but filled with memories. I lay on my old bunk, with its yellow curtain still at the window, and closed my eyes, remembering. I imagined it was morning and I heard the gentle stirring and whispering that told me Dad was getting up and we would soon be underway. Off to a new place. A place of discovery and adventure, fireworks and ruins, peanut butter and beer. I said goodbye, opened my eyes, and left.