The Last Road Trip

Thursday, April 09 2009 | Send to a friend

The Last Road Trip

Ruth Morris >>More

Ruth Morris’ father, Ian Morris, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2002. He fought it, but in the fall of 2008, the former runner and pilot realized he was going to die. And he didn’t want to die in Boston, where he’d spent his last few years – he wanted to die in California, the place he knew as home. Ruth talks with Dick Gordon about how her family decided to drive a van across the country to help her dying father find the warmth and landscape he loved. The day before he died, in a vacation rental outside of Laguna Beach, he sat in a wheelchair and stared into a canyon full of monarch butterflies. That night, he toasted his family members and a dear friend, and said to each one of them “I love you.”

• Read Ruth's essay about the trip
• Music in this story: Ol' 55 by Tom Waits for the album The Early Years Vol. 2
  

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Summer job: fishing in alaksa

Alissa Braatz >>More

During her college years, Alissa Braatz spent three summers looking for adventure and summer work in Petersburg, Alaska. She found both. She slept outdoors in a place called Tent City. She got to see some of the most beautiful and remote parts of Alaska from the deck of a fishing boat. She had to prove to male fisherman—and to herself—that she had enough strength and endurance to fish for crabs. And she spent long hours cleaning fish guts from giant halibut. Years later… Alissa finds herself laid off from a job in marketing. She talks about applying the lessons she learned from her time in Alaska to her task now: rebounding from job loss. 

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