Ahhhh, it's good to be home.

The laundry is done, the car is repaired (not to my satisfaction, but we're working on that), the pictures are loaded onto the Mac (not all labeled and edited, but well under way), and we're back into some sort of routine.  It's time to reflect.  I'll do it in small doses and add pictures as I go.

Overall, the trip was wonderful.  We saw more of the country (and Canada) in a little over a month than I would ever want to do again.  I started referring to it as "The Whitman's Sampler" road trip.  We discovered some places we'd love to see more of (Bryce Canyon, Wyoming, Colorado), places we don't care to see again (Fort Stockton), and places we saw fully and don't need to get back to (Mount Rushmore).  We found the kitschy (The Jolly Green Giant, Wall Drug, etc...), the historical (Washington, D.C., Crazy Horse, Mt. Rushmore, et al) the humorous (unusual folks in New Orleans), the educational (USS Alabama, Schiele Museum), the relatives (too many to list), the beautiful (Niagara Falls, Luray Caverns, Zion, Bryce, etc...), the unexpected (the evacuation of The Holocaust Museum, locks and dams in operation on the Mississippi River), the fast (Shark Attack), and the relaxing (beaches, good company, friends and family, good food).  We traveled good roads and bad, saw all kinds of weather, met kind and helpful people, a few bad apples, had some bad luck with the car (but not as bad as it could have been), said prayers for patience, prayers of thanksgiving, prayers for departed stars and sick family members, prayers of gratitude (I guess I talked to God a LOT on this trip), and were blessed throughout.

The start from home was uneventful...just the way we like it.  And we had a good wireless connection and were able to blog right away.  Amazingly, as the trip went on, wireless became more unreliable and/or less available.  Plus our days on the road got longer.  The first day, there wasn't too much to see (except, of course, "The Thing"), and the driving was 6 hours/day or less.  By the end, we got up early, saw a sight for hours, drove for hours (seeing sights along the way), and sometimes even saw a sight once we arrived.  Long days didn't lend themselves to blogging when there was still unpacking, laundry, and sleeping to do.  I was upset with myself at first, then cut myself some slack.  It's getting done now, isn't it?  It's just a retrospective instead of a contemporaneous journal.

Day 1 pictures -home to Las Cruces, NM.

Day 2 pictures -Las Cruces (White Sands) to Fort Stockton, TX.

I labeled most of these with some sort of label, but if you have questions about a picture, please ask.

More in the coming days...I don't want to overwhelm anyone.