The View from Home

Weary, sniffly, and a little sad, we're finally at home. The Turtle is sitting in the side yard, awaiting her next adventure -- but R and I are wondering whether it makes sense to travel by motor home now, what with gas prices (among other costs) skyrocketing. Our per diem expenses have doubled over the last couple of trips. We could probably save money if we traveled by car and stayed at hotels. Of course, that would mean sleeping in strange beds, eating restaurant food, living out of suitcases, limiting what we could carry along.

I don't think either of us is ready to make that decision just yet, but it's certainly something we'll be talking about over the next few months.

Meanwhile, we have precious memories of this trip -- memories of time spent with family, and of course memories of the places we visited (and revisited) along the way.

The photo on the left was taken when we paid a visit to a neighbourhood park with my beautiful great-grand-niece. (Boy, it makes me feel old to write that!)

The next photo shows the lovely frozen chocolate-strawberry vegan pie that her mother made for me. I ate the pie while I sat out on my sister's deck on a beautiful Texas evening, feeling very fortunate - very spoiled, in fact.

 
(By the way, it took a major effort of will not to steal the dessert plate. Isn't it gorgeous?)


I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do -- like finally meet John Hayes (Robert Frost's Banjo) in Portland -- but I did get to spend the day with Peggy Richardson (Wizard of eBooks) in Las Vegas, and that was a whole lot of fun. Of course, I've never been with Peggy and not had a whole lot of fun!

I got to spend two nights in Death Valley and take a walk at more than two hundred feet below sea level. That experience left me stunned. I wanted to move there -- permanently.

I spent days driving through several deserts -- and I do love deserts, especially the Sonoran.

I got to spend more time with my little sister than I have since we were both children, and that was very cool indeed. We talked and laughed and cried and sang and cooked and knitted. It was perfect.
 
Altogether, then, I feel good about this trip. Eventually, I'll finish moving our belongings from the Turtle into the house, and then I'll sit in the Turtle and write a post (The Bug suggested that, and I love the idea) about how much I love being there.

I can tell already that traveling by Turtle will be a hard habit to break.