I cannot tell y’all how much I am loving this trip right now.
It’s true that sibling disharmony is not improved by being stuck in a car for 6 hours at a time, but if they’re going to be fighting anyway, they may as well being doing it half way around the world while getting to see some of this amazing country with all it’s contrasting landscapes, cultures and accents, and learning so much about this side of their heritage, both cultural and familial.
And, as much as traveling through the West and Middle – seeing Yellowstone for the first time, and Chicago, to name just two pleasures – was awesome, it is really the time with people that I value the most.
We had plenty of that on the West coast, and now on the East – visiting with friends we hadn’t seen in over a decade, meeting people I’d only met before online, catching up with family and meeting new family (including staying with some AWESOME cousins who may be removed by a few “in-law” relationships, and have never heard of us before, but took us in at a moment’s notice anyway), and last night having dinner with a friend we saw most recently in Australia about a year and a half ago – who has now generously given us free range of his house while he is away.
We have met and reconnected with all sorts of lovely people, we have seen amazing sights and tasted all sorts of wonderful food, we have slept in a three-season tent during an unseasonably cold 19F night (that’s like -7C) and lived to tell the tale. We’ve figured out the metro in various cities, seen Washington DC from the top of the Washington Monument, marvelled over Yellowstone’s hot springs, and wept at the 9/11 memorial.
All this, and we’re only about half way through our road trip!
