We are thankful to be safely home.
You are my God, and I will give You thanks; You are my God, and I will exhalt You. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever. Psalm 118:28-29
Alas, all good things must come to an end. After a restful morning, we packed the car and trailer up one last time and went for a quick lunch at Cracker Barrel. The three hour journey back to Kingwood seemed like such a short jaunt relative to our previous 13 days of traveling around the US.
Our 14 year-old neighbor had watched the animals and taken care of a few things around the house, in return for which she received some spending money for her family's vacation in the northeast, which started the day ours ended. I was also glad we arranged to have the yard mowed twice while gone as I don't have to deal with that for another week now.
The house looked great and just as we had left it. While saddened about the end of our journey, it was nice to walk into a familiar place and sleep in our own beds last night. Jennifer woke up in the middle of the night and asked me where the kids were. I told her they were in their beds and she asked where their beds were, she couldn't see them in our room. Maybe we were gone too long!!
As promised, here are some factoids about our trip:
- Total days gone from home - 14
- Total miles driven - 3842 (all but about 35 by me)
- Total gallons of gas consumed - 240.23
- Least paid for gas - $3.89/gallon - in Kingwood
- Most paid for gas - $4.79/gallon - in San Diego
- Average gas mileage ~16 mpg - I figure the trailer decreased mileage by about 2-3 mpg; we were actually averaging close to 16.5 mpg until we left Las Cruces and then seemed to have a fierce head wind the remainder of our trip that really affected the efficiency
- 20 Questions Champion - Jennifer (I think she cheats though, and it is the kids version. Braden is probaby the best of the kids)
- # of Cheeseburgers consumed by James & Jennifer - That's a personal question - too many to count
- Best burger - In-N-Out Burger
- Best hotel - Embassy Suites in La Jolla, California
- Worst hotel - Springhill Suites in Las Cruces, NM (not really that bad, just not as good by comparison)
- Best meal - Bucca di Beppo - Anaheim, CA
- Worst meal - Wendy's in Grand Canyon Village
- Loads of laundry done on the trip - 10
- What I would do different next time - consolidate clothes into fewer larger bags so we have less to carry in at each stop
- James' favorite/least favorite thing about the trip - family time together on the road/every time I had to stop for gas
- Jennifer's favorite/least favorite -
- Dawson's favorite/least favorite - Disneyland - Toy Story/Hoover Dam
- Braden's favorite/least favorite - Disneyland - Matterhorn/Hoover Dam
- Tate's favorite/least favorite - Disneyland-Winnie the Pooh Rid/Characters at Disneyland
- Abby's favorite/least favorite - In mommy's arms/Pirates of the Carribbean when she was hungry
Dawson & Braden playing a competitive game of checkers at Cracker Barrel.
Picture of Abby riding in mom's lap on the way home. Where did those blue eyes come from?
We're home. Everything looks good.
Tag, our Golden Retriever, really missed us; we could hardly get him to sit still for this picture. I don't know if I've ever seen him so excited. Pool's not too green.
1 comment:
It's always so nice after a long trip, to come home to a clean, familiar home. Aaaaaaaaah. Then all of the upacking, laundry, grocery shopping...... in the words of Soul II Soul.... "back to life, back to reality".
Glad to have you all home safe and sound. Looking forward to the stories and pictures that didn't make the cut for the blog. Thanks for letting us peek in on your vacation. It was fun!!
Crystal
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