A tumbleweed perched precariously atop our somewhat disheveled luggage stacked in the back seat of my bright red Honda Fit prompted the biggest laugh throughout 9,200 miles of driving across this beautiful, diverse country.

Two American Indians were working at a McDonald’s in Montana, and when they saw the tumbleweed, they burst out laughing.

When I asked what they were laughing at, they said seeing a tumbleweed in a car.

“We have them everywhere,” one of them said.

“We don’t,” I replied good-naturedly.

The broad, woody weed was only one of the unique, educational, eye-opening and affirming events our 32 days on the road gave us. We had been planning this cross-country trip for years, and as with all travelers, we thought we had an agenda. But deciding part way through the northern area of this country that we’d rather serendip it than hold to a hard and fast schedule was the best thing we could have done.

Some will say that missing the Grand Canyon and Death Valley was a mistake of major proportions, but my husband and I disagree.

How many have met wonderfully friendly people who are proud of their town and region, and were eager to tell us all about it?

The “twine” lady in Cawder City, Kan., was anxious to meet with us and tell all about the 19,000-pound ball of baling sisal prominently displayed in the center of her village, which had suffered so much economically that no businesses remained. About 500 people, though, are proud of their ball of twine and the annual gathering to make it even larger.

In a rural section of North Dakota, one sculptor is trying to save his small town from dying by creating a reason for people to drive into it.

Every 10 miles or so, a 60- to 100-foot-high metal sculpture of geese, grasshoppers, deer and other animals and people suddenly jut out of the flat fields along the Enchanted Highway.

In another part of North Dakota, a major oil boom is in progress, resulting in too little housing and the near-impossibility of finding a motel room within 100 miles.

Yellowstone National Park was nice, of course, with its geysers and elk, once we got through the snow and into it through the remaining open gate, but we discovered another, little known national park that really impressed us.

The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota had everything a national park enthusiast would want — a half-dozen prairie dog towns filled with the adorable sort-of-barking rodents, dozens of buffalo that amble into the road, pronghorn antelopes, coyotes, and a seemingly endless number of birds and geese of all kinds. And it was doable in one day.

The tourism center woman and I had a major discussion about Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox in Bemidji, Minn. Our Bangor statues are far larger than the ones in this friendly, fascinating town, but she was right, and she had the history to support it.

Her Paul and Babe were erected in 1937. Ours, not until the 1950s. She could list off the top of her head where each Paul and Babe were erected, and could prove by dates that in fact, the two legendary characters actually did come from Minnesota.

We discovered:

* The hometown of Judy Garland and a museum devoted to her in Minnesota;

* The source of the Mississippi River;

* A giant statue of Superman in Metropolis, Ill.;

* The biggest buffalo (statue) in the world in Montana; and

* The Museum of the Rockies where the paleontologist responsible for most of the technical data used in “Jurassic Park” cleaned and categorized the dinosaur bones that continue to be discovered.

We ate Lake Erie perch in Michigan, walleye and whitefish in Minnesota, buffalo burgers in Wyoming and elk burgers in Nevada.

Of all the oddities, well-known sites and events we encountered, the most impressive and life-affirming were the people.

All across this great country, people were welcoming, helpful and reaffirmed my faith in humankind. When I lost my cellphone in Kansas, a truck driver picked it up and called our home number where our house sitter connected him with me. The phone was home several days before we were.

We couldn’t travel because of snow after making it through a slippery mountain pass in eastern Oregon. The people from a small Methodist church invited us for lunch and conversation. That night, in that same town, we went to a movie in what must be one of the last single-screen, old-fashioned downtown movie theaters remaining. The attendant was friendly and told us more about her town.

So many people were pleased to meet others from Maine and to tell us about their pride in their community.

I learned, again, that people are basically good and want to help where they can.

I also learned that keeping to a rigid schedule can be self-defeating when we want to see and learn all that we can in the short amount of time we have to travel.

Unusual, beautiful, educational and surprising places are sprinkled all across this country.

Arriving home late on a Thursday was just as unforgettable as seeing all these things we never knew existed. And for the first time, I smelled the fresh, distinctive scent of our very own white pine trees.

Now, when time and money are available, we’re ready to do the southern states!