Touchdown – Wachs Across America

We got Ava packed up for the last time and hit the road at 9:15 for the very familiar drive from Phillipsburg to Longmont. There was a detour that cost us about 30 minutes, some poorly coordinated bathroom breaks, lunch break and a stop at the Welcome to Colorful Colorado sign for a picture. I spent a lot of the drive time exercising my memories of the trip and tried to avoid thinking about the task of moving back into our house.
We rolled into Old Town about 4:00. My brother came over to give us all hugs and help us move stuff out of the rig. Mary Ellen and Liam came over to welcome us home, the Wieder’s came over, Milt and Isla stopped to say hi on their way to bike night and Camilla stayed to help us move stuff. The Hernandez 5 helped move stuff, Graham, Riley and Luke Riddle all came over to help. The Kregurud girls came over to welcome us back as did Jen and Lauren and a bit later Troy and Leslie came over to give welcome home hugs. Our yard was full of kids playing…just like it’s supposed to be in the summer time. It was awesome to see everyone and to be back in the hood…our community.

But inside the house were piles of things that needed to be put away. And there was all the stuff we didn’t take on the trip…the stuff that we lived quite comfortably without for the past 5 months. What is even in some of those boxes? Do we need any of the stuff that is in there? At least for me, I’m not opening my boxes. If I need something I’ll pull it from the box otherwise I’m going to continue living with the same stuff I’ve had for the past 5 months. It has served me well and I’ve never felt like I needed anything else. Any remaining items in my boxes on July 4, 2017 will be jettisoned for good.

Graham took care of our lawn for the past few weeks and he did a great job. He also pulled some monstrous weeds from our raised beds. Even with his efforts though the yard still needs a lot of love. Its a hard thing to come home to that after 5 months of having some of the coolest yards in the world to enjoy and never having to weed, mow, trim, water, rake, etc. I probably sound lazy but I’m really not afraid of hard work. Its just I want the work to make sense and to matter. Grass just seems so ridiculous. In fact, way back in the day the reason rich people had lawns was because they were so ridiculously useless. Lawns were used as a way to say “we have so much cash that we can waste this fertile land we have by growing this useless crop and then pay someone to cut it down and throw it out.” Our yard gets a lot of use so ours doesn’t feel useless I suppose…so we’ll keep it. Enough whining from me.

The kids were all so excited to see and play with their friends. Steph too was all smiles as she reconnected with all the neighbors. It was good to see them all so happy.

Lord, thank you for safe passage, thank you for a wonderful community to come home to and thank you for the adventure. Amen