4061.4 Miles

We just returned from our 4061.4 mile road trip.  The kids were incredible during the majority of the hours on the road.  We left June 9 for Utah, driving through Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah. We drove from Provo to Salt Lake a number of times during 2.5 weeks and then down to Beaver. UT. The final leg took us through Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana.

When we left Indiana I was not in a good place.  I didn’t realize it until we left and my typical world stopped long enough for me to listen to what the voices in my head were really saying.  For a few months I’d had the prompting to “watch my thoughts” (Mosiah 4:30) but I felt like I couldn’t grasp what was in there.  A few thousand miles with beautiful landscape helped me tune in and realize a pretty discouraging dialog was running. I felt inadequate and incapable. I was missing joy.  Then I felt discouraged about feeling discouraged.

Gratefully, a few weeks around family in my favorite places on earth helped me to recharge and gain some perspective.  Andrew left for New Orleans for a week and that was a surprisingly necessary step in gaining my confidence back.  Three days on the way home to process and recommit were essential. I love road trips and I’m particularly glad for the timing of this one.

I will be unloading the memories of our trip very soon, but I’d like to start with the very end.  We arrived and unpacked late Wednesday evening.  Nathan was content to crawl around and explore toys. Emily played and did everything in our house for about 30 seconds each. Shopping. Chalk. Bubbles. Filling bags. Digging in Dirt. Reading Books. Finding things.  It was a busy hour or two for her.

When hunger pangs could be ignored no longer and we didn’t want to make a trip to the store yet, we wandered out to our garden and grabbed a bowl full of greens (kale, swiss chard, beet greens) and made a green smoothie for dinner.