And We Drive

Wish I had more to report on but today was mostly driving…

She has gotten handy with a map.

Today we got on the road about 9, and were planning on a breakfast of coffee for me and water for Sierra. However, as we were driving by a truck stop I said out loud "ooh Denny's". (We do that with just about every restaurant or billboard with food on it, but we usually look at each other, and then sarcastically talk about how it would probably just be disgusting.) Today however, Sierra goes "what's Denny's?"… I was dumbfounded…I'm still not over it…. We obviously had to stop.

After a wonderful, and may I add cheap breakfast, we hit the road again around 10:30. We didn't stop driving until 7 pm. We could have gone longer, but decided to just save it for tomorrow. Still 13 or so hours away from Debbie's.

Before bed we managed to find a lake nearby and take a quick dip, washing ourselves for the first time in days…yes days…4 to be exact. Keep in mind it's been a bit warm driving through Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas…Today the temperature in the van was 110 degrees with the windows down on the highway….

It's funny, when we were heading west we talked about how it would feel to head home. The entire trip, home has been in the back of both of our minds; constantly there, but dulled by the amazing adventures we have been having. We always knew that it would be a sort of "mad dash" on the way home, but we insisted that we would stop and "smell the flowers." We discussed how we would stop at antiques shops and random oversized objects like frying pans…but in reality, now that we are actually driving home, it's an unspoken agreement we have to just drive. It's bittersweet, but we are definitely excited to get home; excited to shower in a shower…not a lake or stream, to see our family, including our dogs, and know where we are going to sleep every night. But at the same time, we will miss not knowing where we are going to sleep, talking to homeless people, finding random bodies of water to bathe in, and getting weird looks as we shampoo ourselves. We'll miss the nights of driving, laughing, James Taylor on the radio, beautiful sunsets over unfamiliar landscapes, and the knowledge that we can pick a spot on the map and just go. 

Don't get me wrong, the trips not over yet. We may be driving home, but we still have stops planned, people to see, things to go wrong, and laughs to be had.  

-Adam