- Watching Nan’s need to “nest” and reorganize the dining room, school room, bedroom, and garage—and being sucked into the nesting vortex along with her;
- Looking at a yard that could be the subject of a full-hour HGTV special titled “Hopeless Grass: Weeds Gone Wild”;
- A six-hour retreat as my first work meeting after four months;
- Watching our new little kitty slowly drop off to sleep, then slowly fall off the couch onto his head (...Nan lobbied for a "camper kitty" throughout the trip, but I managed to hold her off. Once we were home...well, the woman just can't be trusted in a pet store);
- Seeing Bentley get incredibly excited to see us when we went to pick him up, then watching him stand by the car to be sure we weren’t going to leave without him again;
- Being back at my desk at work wondering if I still remember how to do my job;
- Trying to put together a set of pictures to show people, knowing that looking at the pictures is more for us than for them…
Continuing in the spirit of lists, since our arrival home we’ve been chatting often about things from the trip that seem to be at least on the edge of miraculous if not quite worthy of a call to the Vatican. Here’s a partial list of the miracles, large and small, we’ve been discussing:
- Nan actually persuaded me to take a four-month trip. (On several occasions in the months before we left I said, “This will never happen!” and I meant it.)
- We traveled for the full four months without even considering cutting the trip short.
- Over the course of the trip we stayed in or at least passed through a full half of the states in the US of A.
- According to the odometer, we covered a few tenths over 12,407 miles, pulling a trailer for most of it. If someone built a few long, strategically placed bridges and we straightened those miles out, we could have gone about halfway around the earth.
- We didn’t have a single mechanical breakdown of any kind…not so much as a flat tire. If I wouldn’t have left the crank in the back of the camper during week 1, we’d have had a flawless trip. All the tools I brought and the advance preparation for disaster went thankfully unused.
- Aside from Nan getting a few days of something resembling the flu while we were in Alabama, and a couple of runny noses for the rest of us spread across the states, our travels were injury and serious-illness free. All the first-aid supplies and medications we brought were also thankfully untouched.
- Our kids get along so well, it’s astonishing. They are truly best friends. After four months on the road together, sharing an end of the camper, spending every waking and sleeping moment together, they returned home and are now taking turns sleeping in each others' rooms. As I type this, Kerby is sound asleep on the floor in Joelle’s room after a long, happy day playing together with their neighborhood friends.
- Both our kids love to read. They read so many books on the trip that we were looking for bookstores almost as often as we were looking for grocery stores.
- We have friends and family who like us enough to take care of our dog, our cat, our snake, our rabbit, our mail, and our house for four months. And everything is perfectly fine…
- I managed to get a surprising amount of work done while we traveled. Not needing much sleep is quite helpful. I was afraid it’d be impossible to get anything done, but thanks to my early-to-bed/late-to-rise family, things flowed easily.
- We’re still married and not even considering divorce.
…Those are the kinds of things that pass for minor miracles at our house. Alas, The Big Trip has come to an end, and we’re back at home happy as clams. We had such fun. Wonderful memories, great family time, and even some work along the way. For now, it’s time for all of us to get back to life and work—living the dream, as always!
Simon--The Legend with Knobby Knees
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