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 Sunday morning hazy sunrise over the Tennessee River.

That was all I wrote on the last page of my little journal, and this was the last photo I took, because the final day of our road trip was a route we had traveled many times before and there was no need to continue taking photos.  Many of those times we had been returning home from running the Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville.  We knew all the familiar sights:  The Tennessee River, and then US-64 through Murphy and along the Ocoee River past the Ocoee Whitewater Center, built to host the whitewater slalom events of the 1996 Olympic game.  It is a beautiful drive and the weather was just perfect on this Sunday morning.

 

We drove from Franklin to Highlands, and then down the Walhalla Road to our home, and all was at it should be.  No trees had fallen on our property, nothing was amiss.  (Although the grass really needed to be cut after five weeks).  It was good to be back home again.

 

Martha posted a photo of our deck and wrote on Facebook:

 

“We are home!! Thanks to all of our friends and family that “armchair traveled” with us on our 5 week Wild West Trip in our Mini Cooper!! We drove 7,340 miles (with no mechanical issues) through 18 states, and visited 14 National Parks. We appreciated your prayers and your special comments along the way. We hope our trip brought back happy memories for many of you, and inspired others to start planning your own adventures!!”

 

We had indeed been surprised by all of those who had followed our road trip, some of them very unexpected.  And since returning, we keep running into people in the post office or the grocery store who say, “We loved your trip!”  It was our longest trip, but one of our most satisfying.  And I keep thinking about those questions I asked on Day One (see post of July 31):

 

·       What did you see?

·       What did you learn?

·       How has it changed you?

 

Those are questions I ask every day as I remember those special moments that we spent together seeing all that we saw, and that I will continue to ask as I process all of it.

 

And now I have finished “catching up” on this blog, which has taken me several weeks in itself.  To those few readers of this blog, thank you for following us.  And may you have adventures of your own someday.  Bon voyage!

"People cannot discover new lands
until they have the courage to lose sight of the shore."  Andre Gide