RV Memories
- Maria O'Donnell
- May 23
- 5 min read
Simsbury resident shares10 years’ worth of cross country experiences in newly released book
By Maria O'Donnell, Staff Writer
With warm weather underway and summer fast approaching, ‘tis the season for road trips. And nobody knows it better than Linda Schofield, who does it all with her husband, Mark Deming. The 30-year Simsbury residents have journeyed all over the country for 10 years in their Mercedes-Benz engine, Unity model RV, “Betty” (a combination of Benz and Unity).
Schofield, most notable for previously serving as State Rep and on the Board of Finance, is now retired, as is her husband.
She is also a McLean Trustee and has previously served on the board of ABC and the Performing Arts Center.
She knows how to chill on the road and in RV parks with Deming. But they both also love in-depth learning about the sites they visit. This, and the urging of friends, led to Schofield writing a book that came out at the beginning of the year, Discovering America by RV: History, Science, People and Humility.
Schofield was quick to acknowledge and explain the absence of photos in the book, for practical and narrative reasons: First, photos are incredibly expensive to add to a book (and she has countless numbers of them), and second, “You can’t take pictures of history,” she said. Her focus is within the title: History, Science, People and Humility.
The couple were always campers and backpackers, according to Schofield. The RV interest came when they camped in Oregon with another couple who had an RV. Schofield and her husband planned to sleep in a tent until the Crater Lake area experienced about five inches of snow – in August.
“That night, it was foggy, rainy, and snowy,” Schofield recalled. “Their RV was so nice to sit in, have light, and be able to eat.” From there, she “did a whole lot of research and bought a secondhand motor home. It’s been great – our tenth year. We travel 2-3 months a year in the RV, usually in spring and fall.”
The best part? “How much we’ve learned,” said Schofield. “We love learning, love museums, and read all the interpretive signs at national parks.” Under the “history” category, she recalled one ominous trip to the town of Manzanar in Eastern California, the location of World War II Japanese concentration camps.
“Two-thirds of the people were American citizens of Japanese descent,” she noted, adding, “It was all done under the same law as Trump used to deport people to El Salvador.” At the time of the war, the Supreme Court upheld the law, then reversed it and paid reparations to account for the citizens’ lack of due process.
Schofield said, “It was chilling to see where people had to live. The camps were like Army barracks with plywood walls and black tar paper. In the desert, the heat and cold made for horrific conditions.” Ages ranged from newborn to 95.
Moving to the “science” category in her title, Schofield’s demeanor shifted. She smiled, recalling the banana slugs of rainy Washington State. She produced a photo depicting the long, hefty gastropod mollusks of Olympic National Park, noting there were informational signs around the park about them. (Surely, one could be, “Watch your step!”)
Another science example refers to geology. Dry Falls State Park in Central Washington has dramatic land formations called coulees. Schofield explained in her book, “A coulee is a box shaped canyon, with a flat dry bottom and straight sides, formed by a flood.” In this area, the Grand Coulee Dam is at the mouth of a coulee, now “stopped up so that water could be pumped into it from the nearby Columbia River and used as needed for irrigation,” according to Schofield’s book.
How did it get formed? She noted, “Geologists found out that a huge lake in Montana during the Ice Age broke the ice dam, causing floods at 65 mph racing down the land.” Over time, “this created dry river beds called coulees.”
Then there’s the “people” component of the book title. “We learned about lots of interesting people,” Schofield said. She cited the Huntingtons of CT and NY, specifically Collis Huntington, who “started poor, but was entrepreneurial.” She explained that he was a Transcontinental Railroad baron who had a son with a saloon girl while still married. Once his wife died, he married the girl. Their son, Archer, married a millionaire sculptor, and they bought land in South Carolina.
The couple were philanthropic and purchased 9,000 acres, wanting to display culture, according to Schofield, who noted that Brookgreen Sculpture Gardens is a permanently endowed non-profit. The park boasts 2,500 statues that get lit up at night for spectacular viewing. Fountains and lush gardens add serenity to dramatic statue poses of both people and animals.
And then there’s the “humility” category. “We made a lot of mistakes as new RV people,” Schofield admitted. The couple only had a 45-minute tutorial which was “woefully inadequate.”
On their first trip, they ventured to Biloxi, MS, and “we went over a railroad track,” Schofield recalled. “The coach door needed to be double-locked [but wasn’t]. When we went over the railroad, the door opened, and the stairs got caught on a rail and completely bent the stairs. We couldn’t retract the stairs! Thankfully, Mark is strong and resourceful and hammered them back into place. Now, we make sure the door is locked” – with deadbolt.
Her husband added, “We go through 7 to 8 things before we move. There were many lessons we learned along the way, but it was all fun.”
And that fun, as well as learning and adventure, are documented in Discovering America by RV. “It’s not just for RV’ers,” Schofield noted, and the rest of the title, “History, Science, People and Humility,” gives direct clues to that.
The book is the manifestation of emails to friends who weren’t RV’ers. When the couple first started traveling, friends and family wanted them to share their experiences. People enjoyed the descriptions so much, they’d say, “You should turn this into a book.”
That’s just what Schofield did. She considers it a “resource book,” where its table of contents is a chapter listing of trips categorized by the clusters of states they visited for each journey. Since she and Deming already did more popular travel locations like the Grand Canyon sans RV, they took their motor home, Betty, to out-of-the-way places, to a variety of museums, such as the Potato or Gourd or Brothel or Alphabet Museums, plus “a million presidential museums.” All the unusual, off-beat places and history are included, and “why the land looks like that will be explained.”
Schofield said, “There’s so much beauty in this country. I implore people, get out and see what the country has to offer. There are nice people everywhere and a nice code of ethics amongst campers.”
Finally, the couple’s RV travel days are winding down to a close. After 10 faithful years, Betty will be looking for a new owner. With one more early May trip to Denver, CO, Nebraska and Iowa, the motor home will go up for sale in the fall. “We’re in our 70’s. We’re ready to pack it in,” she said. They still plan to travel more conventionally and camp without the RV, yet, “It’s sad to let Betty go. I’m gonna be crying. I hope to find a good home for her.”
According to Schofield, “It’s been so wonderful – the highlight of my life.”
Note: Schofield’s book is available on Amazon Books: Discovering America by RV: History, Science, People and Humility. VL
