HOME!

'Nuff said!

I got up a little after 6 am this morning, showered, dressed and went down for breakfast consisting of biscuit and sausage gravy and coffee. I returned to my room packed up my things, loaded them in the car and checked out. I gassed up the car on the way out and was on the road by 7:20 am. Samantha indicated that I should be home between 12-12:30 pm. The sky was clear and 70F when I left Springdale, AR. As the drive and morning progressed the temp began to rise into the 80s.

Scenes along the road from Springdale to Ft. Smith AR

I made a stop in McAllister, OK for a rest stop and get a snack for the rest of the journey around 10 am. Back in the car and continue down the road. I hit the Texas state line between 11 and 11:30. I was home at 12:20 pm and glad to be here, finally.The temp was now 91 and supposed to be heading toward 98! I hope it doesn't take me long to acclimate back to the warmer weather since I've been in 40-50s the past couple of weeks. Samantha was funny, though, with some of her directions once I made the turn south headed for Texas. She had me stay "right" on US 75 and gave a distance where I was to do so. As I got into Texas that distance would put me somewhere between McKinney and Plano. Wasn’t sure what she was up to until I got to the point where I was to stay "right" on US 75 and it turned out to be at the HOV lane entrance. She wanted to make sure I didn’t get in it and stayed on the main road. Funny! Thanks, Samantha for getting me where I needed to go, most of the time.

Scenes along the road in Oklahoma

Trip Computer Data Since Bryce Canyon.29 MPG on the second half of the trip, 27 the first half - not too shabby

Odometer reading at the start of the trip

Final Odometer Reading – 8,475 miles later

I unloaded the car and put the camping things on the floor of the garage. I need to decide where to store them, but that is a task for next week. I unloaded my clothes, souvenirs, dirty laundry, foodstuff left over (oatmeal bars, trail mix bars, coffee, beef jerky, etc.) I put away the clean clothes and now I need to sort the dirty laundry to start washing, but not today.

There is a stack of mail to go through. Thankfully, Katie and Josh have been coming over to check on the house, mow the grass and collect the mail. Katie and I have talked about what things I was receiving and has arranged them in stacks to help be get to the important things, like bills and then the varying degrees of junk mail, magazines and catalogs that have accumulated over the past six weeks. My community group from church meets tonight, and I haven’t seen them in two months. Monday I will head back to the gym and “start over” and Tuesday the handymen at Senior Network have our monthly ramp building session. So, it will be good to start getting plugged back in. Also, I need to see my children and my two grandsons that are here this next week.

The trip was a lot of fun and refreshing, but after 6 weeks on the road, there is no place like home. I will post some final thoughts in a day or two about the trip and then that will be the end of the road, for now.

Back at you later!