Be It Ever So Humble

There's no place like home!
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We are home at last, and it feels so good to be back!

The final stage of our journey was short and sweet. We slept until 8:15, and then we found that the breakfast room at our hotel was a very popular place!
The kids loaded up the car one last time and we checked out at 10:30.

This picture was taken on July 4, 1995, in Albuquerque. Sarah was 5 and Jacob was 4. After checking out of our hotel that morning, we had breakfast at the Owl Cafe, which we all thought was a really cool place, with '50s decor and a tiny jukebox at every table.

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Now guess what cafe happened to be right next door to the hotel we stayed at last night!

Deja vu! Fast forward 14 years to July 26, 2009 and here we have Sarah, Jacob, and Dylan in front of the same Owl Cafe, ages 19, 18, and 12. The trees around the cafe have grown a lot!

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We didn't eat there this time, but I couldn't resist recapturing the moment.

The most frightening 2 hours of the 5-hour trip were the ones when I let Sarah and Jacob get behind the wheel. I always do the driving on out-of-town trips. I get too tense when my children are driving, and then my anxiety stresses them out. I wasn't sure how any of us would handle them driving 75 mph while sharing the road with aggressive truckers.
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However, everyone told me I need to let my kids have this experience so they can learn and grow, plus I would need a break from all those hours of driving.

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I have to say, the whole idea of giving me a break is bogus. The whole time they drove, my stomach was clenched and my muscles were in knots. Health-wise, I'd have been better off driving!

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Still, I know experience is invaluable, so I gathered my resolve and handed them the keys.

They each drove one hour, 72 miles. Sarah went first. As she drove down the on-ramp and entered the freeway, we were nearly side-swiped by an 18-wheeler that changed lanes right into us. His rear bumper missed the front of my car by less than a foot.

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Then a heavy rain began to pour down on us, the kind of rain where you can't see the road. Then it was road work with bumper-to-bumper traffic. (Both Oklahoma and New Mexico are proudly spending their millions of Obama bucks on highway repairs.)

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I was sure I'd have a stroke before we reached Gallup. However, I survived, and we had lunch from the Taco Bell dollar menu and switched drivers.

Thankfully, Jacob's experience was more pleasant. The weather cleared up, the traffic cleared up, and the road work cleared up. He was doing very well by the time we stopped at the entrance to the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert (in Arizona) so I could get behind the wheel again! What a relief!

We reached the Arizona border (home!) at 2:15 and reset our watches to 1:15. This is a view looking into Arizona from one mile inside the New Mexico side.

The next thing I knew, we were back in our home state! We still had almost 2 hours of driving ahead of us, but it seemed to go quickly once we were on familiar turf. We pulled into our driveway at 3:30, Arizona time.

Our pets were ecstatic to see us. Diego could barely believe his eyes when we drove up, and he jumped all over the kids with joy for at least half an hour.

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The boys who were caring for our pets hadn't seen our cat Gimli since Monday. They were a little concerned, but as soon as Sarah went out and called him, he raced home. He followed us around all night, begging to be scratched and cuddled.

There were many messages on the answering machine and a big pile of mail to sort through, not to mention all the unpacking and laundry to be done, but somehow we got through it all.

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Now the house is quiet. The kids and pets have gone to bed, and my final vacation post is complete.

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Ahhhh, it's good to be home!