Rolling Home

We woke up in Missouri, 980 miles from home, and headed east.  Our first destination was Columbus, where Jon's uncle Peter lives, and we were trying to get there for an early dinner.  Like all the other driving days of this trip, things went surprisingly smoothly.  Jon found the lowest priced diesel in the whole country (or at least on our path):  $2.29/gallon.  Crazy.  The lowest price for regular fuel was $1.55 in Hannibal.

We saw a long, strung out caravan of wide load trucks, each one carrying one gigantic piece of pipe.   We are still curious.

At another point there was a wide load truck that stuck out about four feet over the shoulder, carrying a huge assembly of pipes all fitted together.  The trucker was some kind of impatient and he was actually passing people on the left, so then his load took up the left shoulder instead.  His advance car was about a half mile ahead of him, so maybe the trucker knew there were no obstacles on either shoulder, but the whole thing seemed completely reckless. 

We finally allowed ourselves to think about the list of tasks that await us at home.  Jon wrote down everything we could think of -- from farm taxes to setting up the CSA registration to ongoing construction projects to financial aid forms to planning our Israel trip.  Then we put the list away for another day.

As we got closer to home, the scenery got less interesting.  And the roads got more crowded.  And there was never a glimmer of sun.  But the soil in Illiinois is still incredibly black and delicious-looking and much of Ohio is still used for farming so all was not lost.  All across the country, the rest areas are getting very technoswanky with all these no-hands devices.  You can walk into the building without touching a door, all the water goes on without any intervention, the hand drying machines turn on and off without running forever.  Mostly.  We crossed the last time zone, which made the end of the trip feel very close.

Peter was ready and waiting for us when we rolled in at 5:30.  We packed a lot of conversation into three hours, and had a delicious Italian dinner just a half block from his house.  Peter lives within easy walking distance of the university where he was a philosophy professor until his recent retirement, and every time we visit him we are treated to a different restaurant, just a brief walk from his front door.  We learned about his current struggle with tendonitis in his ankle, which is limiting his ability to walk much at all these days, but he is keeping busy and does not seem much slowed down, even in retirement. We are always glad that we have a 30+ year tradition of going through Columbus each time we go west and Peter is incredibly gracious, no matter what time of day or night we arrive.

We headed toward home at 8:30, not sure exactly where we would stop.  And then we didn't stop after all.  We just traded naptimes, listened to the full cast recording of Les Mis on Sirius, and wrangled the last mountains. It felt surprising to be back up at 2800 feet after so many hours of level terrain.  Saw more snow in Garrett County MD than we had seen since Minneapolis. Rolled into Blueberry Hill at 3:10 AM after the longest day of driving.  There is no bed like home.

Quick summary:

19 days

7800 miles

46.5 mpg average, not one moment of car trouble

20 households visited (loosely counted, some visits not at home)

3 museums

4 outdoor destinations

12 restaurant meals

6 supermarket stops

6 motels

no exercise at all 

temperature range: -8 degrees to 60 degrees

Not a moment wasted.  

Such a good trip.

(Photos to follow, when this rises to the top of Jon's list. As expected, his list expanded drastically when we walked through the door...)