Day 23: Home Sweet Home

Today, we were all smiles. We were going to be home before dark! Our beloved pets were waiting to be petted. Our own comfy beds were calling. Our own familiar surroundings beckoned us back towards home.

But first, eight hours or so of highway driving, including the infamous Pennsylvania Turnpike. The first couple of hours in Ohio just looked like home to me. No matter that I have now lived in the DC area about two decades, the rolling hills of Ohio are still what come to mind when I think of “home.”

And yet, to get to our own homes, we had to skip going back through Columbus to stay at Mom’s house again. I knew Mom would be disappointed, but I also knew she would understand. I tried to salve my conscience that I would be seeing her at the beach in a week, but I still felt stabs of unworthy daughter guilt and the thought that what's a child to do, even an adult child, but disappoint her mother?

We hadn’t been hot and sweaty for weeks, but Michigan and Ohio brought heat. We rolled up jackets and packed them away. We guzzled water at every stop. But the day was truly beautiful, as was the ride. We hit the Beltway around DC, and traffic thickened. It didn’t matter, because we were an hour from home! As we rounded the Beltway, we saw thick, gray clouds on the horizon, and we headed right into them.

At the last gas stop, we said our goodbyes to K and S in advance. Once L and I got to our exit, we would peel off while S and K continued to their exit. But as we approached our exit, L and I talked helmet-to-helmet that it just didn’t seem right to cap off an 8,000 mile trip with a disinterested wave of “See ya later.” We decided to ride with them to their house, give them a proper hug and goodbye, then head the last few miles for our home.

We had been staring at the gray clouds for so long that we had convinced ourselves they were impotent. Nothing could stand in the way of these four intrepid travelers! And just after we passed the last possible moment to exit to our house and away from the clouds, those clouds burst. With a vengeance. On a stretch of Beltway called “The Mixing Bowl” where it would be suicidal to try to pull off onto a shoulder and don rain gear. Where the rain pelted down so hard and so quickly that it would be useless to try to pull off and don rain gear as our clothing was no longer dry enough to even try to protect. We were drenched in moments. Saturated. Sodden. And laughing at the absurdity of it all. Ten more minutes and S and K could have been home dry. Fifteen more minutes, and L and I could have made it as well. But no, first one last cosmic joke.

In the end, we waved goodbye anyway as we parted at a stop light. There was obviously not going to be a leisurely goodbye in their driveway with this rain. L and I headed to our own home, L leading. Two miles left to our own driveway, and l drove through a huge standing puddle of water in the road. She watched in her mirror as she saw a huge plume of water stream off the back wheels of the trailer, arc majestically in the air, and crash right into my face. We laughed so hard that we almost ran off the road.

Daily Recap: 480 miles, States: Return through OH, PA, MD, and PA

Total trip recap: 7,784 miles, or 338 miles/day average. A few hundred photos. About 144 freezer bag meals. Can’t even imagine how many ounces of Gatorade. About 65 gas stops. One lost retainer. One back broken, then repaired. 5 oil and/or repair stops. Amazing wildlife viewed. Postcard quality scenery seen. Countless laughs enjoyed. And friends for life. Priceless.