And Then We Were Home

Monday morning we packed up our truck and trailer in Memphis and set sail for our hometown, Fayetteville, Arkansas. We'd driven this 320 mile stretch many, many times before from when we'd lived in Memphis and went to visit home. Sky could have probably driven it blind by now. We drove by downtown Memphis, crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River, and then traversed all the way across the state of Arkansas on Interstate 40. Forty five miles further north from there, on Interstate 540, and we were home. WHAT???

JUST LIKE THAT....17,100 miles and 9 months later, we were back to where we'd started from. What did it feel like to be home? Well, you know that feeling when you come back from a nice vacation and it feels like you were never gone, like time flew and here you are again? That's what it felt like. As soon as we crossed the state line into Arkansas and Arkansas license plates became the primary plates we saw, it was like we'd never left. It was as if I'd watched an amazing movie about traveling around the US, instead of having actually lived it. I think we just needed time to process everything we had done and seen.

Crossing into Arkansas over the Mississippi River 

The Mississippi River between Arkansas and Tennessee

The upside to feeling like we were never gone is that once we actually got into town and got settled in, we just picked up our life in Fayetteville where we'd left off back in February. BUT, first and foremost I had a few items high on my list that I wanted to do right away. Here they are in no particular order:

1) Take a long, hot bath in a familiar bathtub where I'm not worried about other people's cooties!

2) Use the microwave to make my favorite hot ham and cheese sandwich. No more frying this baby!

3) Let our cooped-up pups out into my parent's fenced backyard. Thank god for fenced yards!

Now we are back to living with my folks until we decide what we're doing next. Stay tuned for further details.

Happy Fayettevillians!

M.