Intro

The Casimiro Ford-LTD-Station-Wagon Cross-Continental Expedition of 1973 was by any measure an epic undertaking: a journey from the Atlantic Seaboard to the western edge of North America and back, some eight thousand miles of overlanding in the hottest part of the year, with no air conditioning except windows and a driver who refused to lower them. The driver was, in fact, the expedition leader, a man in his mid-forties, with graying sideburns and a somewhat Mediterranean look, though his ancestry was Azorean, a man of a generation for whom asking for directions, pausing to eat, or pulling over to pee would signal an erosion of masculinity and fortitude.

The navigator, who grew up wild and barefoot on a farm in Pennsylvania Dutch country, was now a woman in her late thirties who shared few of the leader’s views on road trips. She liked fresh air, food, and answering nature’s call on the first ring. The expedition support team stood solidly behind the navigator. It consisted of