Instilled with a sense of history by his father as a child, Garland Frankfurth went on to teach U.S. history and although he ended his formal teaching career in the Sequim School District, he has continued to learn and explore the country’s history firsthand.
Along with his wife, Cheryl, a lifelong resident of Sequim, Garland bought an RV in the late 1990s and they have since embarked on a “quest” to visit all the national parks and associated sites, including nationally designated historical, seashore, recreational, scenic and military sites – thus far, they’ve documented 368 sites.
“My overall goal is to encourage more people to visit these places,” Garland said. “Our longest trip took about seven and a half months and we traveled the perimeter of the U.S., including the Maritimes.”
Among their travels, Garland and Cheryl are continually reminded by others visiting the United States of just how much “this country has to offer,” Garland said.
Together, they’ve followed the path of Lewis and Clark and even drove portions of the historical Oregon Trail.
“We did a little bit of the Oregon Trail in an air-conditioned cab driving 5 miles per hour trying to replicate being in a covered wagon,” Cheryl said. “It wasn’t at all the same, but it’s impressive to see what those people did and the wagon ruts.”
From the journal entries Cheryl jots down and the photographs Garland takes, the couple have complied numerous photo albums and have created a map dedicated to their grandchildren highlighting their routes taken and the sights seen along the way.
Having taken a few years off from traveling, both Garland and Cheryl admits they’re looking forward to their next adventure to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands where they hope to see six nationally recognized sites. Before heading across county, however, Cheryl and Garland shared a quick snippet of one of their travel experiences.
In Dayton, Ohio, while visiting the Wright Cycle Company – the shop where Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur began their bicycle business in the late 1800s, Garland and Cheryl found themselves in the midst of a deadly tornado.
“We were surrounded by tornados and I just about stroked out. It had been about 105 degrees for several days in a row and so it was just prime weather for tornados,” Cheryl said.
“He (the park ranger) said we could stay there where they had a basement we could go down into. But, before going into the basement, I thought, ‘Oh man, I probably have some of the windows open on the RV.’
I was just wearing flip-flops and shorts, but it was raining like you wouldn’t believe. The water was flooding down the streets, but it’s so warm to the touch. Once I finally got across the street and buttoned up the RV, I pulled it ahead between some concrete buildings, hoping it would be alright.
By the time I got back down to the basement everyone was looking online at where the storm was and we were right in the midst of the heaviest rain,” Garland said.
“Later, after we left, we were driving down the freeway and there were caravans of public utility trucks from all different states heading down the road. A lot of people were killed and thousands of people were without power.
The tornados were amazing and so scary to me.
The funny thing was the older park ranger, who you could tell was quite concerned, seemed to think it was worse to live here because we have earthquakes.
Cheryl said, “The younger ranger we were with told me that we were lucky we weren’t in a department store or something because they would have just closed the doors and said, ‘Goodbye and get out,’ and we were just in a little RV. It was still really stormy the next day.”
Everyone has a story and now they have a place to tell it. Verbatim is a first-person column that introduces you to your neighbors as they relate in their own words some of the difficult, humorous, moving or just plain fun moments in their lives. It’s all part of the Gazette’s commitment as your community newspaper. If you have a story for Verbatim, contact editor Michael Dashiell at editor@sequimgazette.com.
