Thursday, June 24, 2010

Home Again

7:09 PM | Posted by Cheryl | Edit Post


We are home again. 
After sleeping 10 hours, I woke to find Mark in the living room watching Geronimo starring Matt Damon, filmed in Monument Valley, of course. I have this sneaking suspicion that we'll be watching westerns for a while.
Yesterday we drove 650 miles and had such problems with sleepiness that I began to suspect we had exhaust fumes coming into the car from some awful damage we'd done to the car in our off-roading. But maybe it was just the miles and miles of corn and the lack of red rocks at the road's end.
We drove almost 3300 miles on this trip, and it seems like we've seen just about every variety of land - farmland, plains, mountain peaks, forests, and desert. We had rain, hail, snow, wind, and heat. We've crossed many rivers to count, most of them multiple times (Wabash, Mississippi, Kaskaskia, Kansas, Republican, Rio Grande, San Juan River, Animas, Colorado, Eagle, Blue, Platte, and Green).  What an awesome country we live in.
It is good to be home. Everything is so GREEN! The trees, grass, and corn are just beautiful here right now, having had oodles of rain while we were gone. My drama queen the hydrangea is laid out drunk on rainwater in the flowerbed. With all the rain, the corn has grown several feet in two weeks (no exageration!) and the grass has grown like crazy. Yay for lawn guys.
Drunk Drama Queen
Making up with Goldie.


Usually we get a huge, hyperactive, nibbling, yelping greeting from Goldie, but this time you'd have thought we just got back from the grocery store. She definitely got more attention with the in-laws in the house than with us (she even seemed mildly disappointed this morning that we're still here this morning).


We are so blessed to have been able to take this trip. We've had plenty of years when a two week vacation across the country would have been out of the question. It's still tough to manage, but the payoffs keep us going. We are relaxed, have had a change of scenery, and gained fresh eyes to see the world with. Both Mark's family and mine always made it a priority to take vacations every year, whatever the budget allowed. We have carried on that tradition, and I'm so glad. 


What's next? Weekends at state parks, a short trip later in the summer with Mark's folks, a trip to Las Vegas in November for a wedding, and maybe the east coast next May? Or maybe it's time to convince Amy to do a study abroad so that we can go visit her in England. Or maybe we'll make it back to the red rocks and stay at the Red Cliffs Lodge . . . or maybe . . .

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