At noon today, we finally arrived back at Mariel and Rob’s house in Hudson, Ohio, just two and a half hours from our final campsite on the western tip of Lake Erie, in Monroe, Michigan. I made a point of being prepared for sunrise, and I was amply rewarded. Our camper was parked literally 50 feet from the beach, so we could view this sunrise right from our bed. I spotted a bird on a post across the road from the camper and went out and got the shot while it was hot.
Now we’re back to civilization, after 10,700 miles, 19 states, two Canadian provinces, 12 US National Parks, 5 Canadian National Parks, four Great Lakes, two National Lakeshores, countless National and state forests, state parks and a handful of private campgrounds. I don’t even want to count up the gallons of diesel fuel or the carloads of groceries, campfire wood and bags of ice we’ve consumed along the way, but it was worth it many times over to take a trip like this at least once in a lifetime,
We’ll be home again on Saturday afternoon, to try and resume life — but not as it was, rather as what it will be from now on, as it has been shaped and affected and informed by the things we’ve done and the places we’ve been in the past nine weeks. Because of all the newfangled electronic technology we were packing, we never really got totally away from it all, though there was a blissful serenity in being far from the nearest cell tower or hotspot once in a while. Maybe next time, we’ll get our affairs in order and leave all the gadgets behind. Maybe when we drive to Alaska and the Yukon.