Home Sweet Home!

Sorry I haven't been adding much new in the last week. It wasn't for lack of trying. We had some major internet issues on the road. I would type and look up and see the spinning wheel in rainbow colors (which usually means the computer is "thinking") and find out that all my typing didn't do anything.  There would be brief 10-15 seconds periods of being able to type, followed by 3-5 minutes of "thinking" which was excruciatingly frustrating for me.  Yeah, we're spoiled by being used to fast internet.  But still. It was too much. I didn't have hours to sit waiting while the computer thought and chugged away. It would destroy my flow of writing.  Dang machines.

So, the news this morning is that we're home!  We drove from St. Louis, Missouri yesterday all the way back home in Colorado.  Wow.  Almost 900 miles.  We pulled into our driveway last night about 11:30 and were almost in tears to see our house again.  Vacation was great, but sometimes the best part is getting home again. I know the kids were homesick, and we all miss our critters, so it's good to be here.  We pick up our dogs in a couple of hours. I can't wait to see them.

You know, much as people malign American-made cars, I have to mention here our Dodge Grand Caravan, which has taken us on numerous family road trips over the years.  This van tuned over 200,000 miles within the first few days of this recent vacation.  On the second morning of our trip, somewhere in Iowa, we heard a THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! under the hood after setting out on the freeway.  Pulling back off the freeway, we discovered a chunk missing out of one of the belts on the engine.  Fortunately, we were within a few miles of a NAPA parts store, which was open (this was a Sunday morning - yay NAPA!).  My husband bought a new belt and a tool to replacement, but felt we should just go on, hoping the belt would hold until we got to a better place to fix it.  And you know what?  We still haven't replaced that belt.  Our great car went another nearly 3,000 miles, chunked-out belt and all.  In total, our trip was about 3,600 miles. Wow.  Granted, my husband is a gifted mechanic and keeps all our cars in great condition.  But still, how many people would head out on such a long road trip with a car nearing 200,000 miles?  I kind of expected everything to fall off the car when we pulled up to the house last night, thought it would be kind of a comic end to our trip. But the car is still sitting there this morning, appearing to be completely intact.  What a great car!

So today we express our thanks for all the prayers and well wishes for our journey, and for the opportunity to take this trip with our kids. It has been a huge blessing for us.