It worked out. We stopped at every playground between San Antonio and Portland. (The best one, for anyone following our circuitous route, is at Baker, Oregon—an old-fashioned paradise of high slides and well-oiled merry-go-rounds.) We ate Japanese food in Santa Fe. We unrolled our moldy-smelling tent on a spot of ground in Utah and by morning were encircled by clamoring chipmunks, who had found a wealthy source of cracker crumbs. They were calling for more.