DIXON, CA (MPG) - Johanna Hoagland has been a pioneer of sorts for northern California women her whole life, breaking ground as a firefighter in the Bay Area, becoming an accomplished musician, phenomenal knitter, and now travelling to every state in the nation during the COVID-19 Pandemic along with her cat.

“I had been thinking about doing this before I turned 80 and have always liked to travel,” she said in a phone call to me while stopped in Tennessee to visit our mutual friends. “My parents camped. In 1957, we did six weeks across the country and back, starting in Massachusetts where I was born and raised.”

Hoagland was pretty sure she’d been to every state in the union but wasn’t positive and after winning her fourth battle with cancer, decided to go to every state capital and see all the Presidential libraries. She’d also stop to visit all the former Dixonites she knew that had moved to various parts of the country due to military or job relocations including Eric and Lisa Jeannot in San Angelo, Texas, Chanda Williams in San Antonio, Texas, and Frances Bornemann in Oklahoma.

Orchestrated by a Heavenly guidance, she said, a couple she met at a gathering heard her plans and told her they had the perfect RV for her. It was. The RV had only 17,000 miles on it and would easily accommodate her and her cat, Alice Springs, who wears a pink collar and is leash trained. She rented out her house and drove off in the beginning of 2019.

While in Oregon, she got to feed a baby yak with a bottle while visiting her stepdaughter who has a ranch there. Now she’s more than halfway through the states which included a stop at the Nebraska State Fair where she could admire quilts—especially the winner of the over-85 handmade quilt category.

“They made a special category just for her. She’s 92 and first entered when she was 20. She’s the only one in that category now. That’s the kind of thing that makes [my travels] worth it,” Hoagland said with sentiment in her voice.

Hoagland’s only companion sleeps on the bed during driving time, but by the end of the day, the soft gray cat is very affectionate.

“She wants me just as much as I want her,” said Hoagland. They stop for two to three days at a time for visits, sightseeing, or resupplying yarn.

“I support local yarn shops and shop for locally dyed yarn; that’s my souvenir.” But, when the Pandemic shuttered stores, that became a “major problem.” She was thankful she had brought some yarn from home as that is how she likes to pass her time when she is spending the nights mostly at a Methodist Church, but also in parking lots of large hardware stores or shopping centers.

“I don’t need the shops open, because I’m not that kind of spender so in a lot of ways the Pandemic has made things easier,” she said. “The roads have less traffic and I couldn’t believe how low the gas prices dropped. At Costco in Tennessee, I paid $1.40 a gallon but I have paid as low as $1.35!”

Unfortunately, some of the Presidential libraries got closed, but she managed to get through most of the states without a problem until she got to Virginia. She was quarantined for two weeks in a campground and then again in West Virginia. She did what all self-respecting grandmothers would do: She taught the camp host how to knit.

When she was able to move on to Tennessee, she visited former Dixonites Al and Korry Lindgren in Talbot who took the day off work to show her around. The Lindgrens knew Hoagland from the Dixon United Methodist Church where Korry taught her grandchildren in Sunday School and knew her as “the lady who sat in church and always knitted.”

“Of course, we were going to visit because she's all the way from California,” said Korry. “It was just like the next Sunday at church and like no time had passed at all, ever! Her grandson, Weston, used to come up to my belt and now in her pictures, he is 6' 2" so that’s the only thing that makes you realize how much time has really gone by. My husband enjoyed visiting with her, too. I was completely impressed. It was just her and her car.” 

They treated her to corn fritters and took her to Gatlinburg where a Christmas shop was open and Hoagland purchased a nativity there.

“It was great to share the day with her and hear about all the churches she had visited on her trip and all the ones I've visited out here and we both agree our Dixon church is our home church,” Korry said. The Dixon Church has an annual Nativity Festival that both families have participated in. “Once you celebrate the Christmas season with people every year, they're like your family.”

Hoagland’s local family, daughters Janna Polik and Erika Emslin who happens to be a Fire Captain with Sacramento PIO Sac Fires, didn’t think their mother’s plans were brave.

“My daughters do not think I’m courageous. They think it’s just normal,” Hoagland explained. “Janna married a police officer so it kind of runs in the family,” then added, “I am Swedish.”  They did tell her, though, that she had to be back by Christmas.

I asked Johanna what surprised her the most about her travels and this is what she said: “I’ve been most surprised at how much these people want to spend time with me. I knew I wanted to spend time with them, but all these folks really wanted was to spend time with me. We have history because we have Dixon, or the church, or my family.”