It's a wrap

40 days, 1 unfortunate car incident, no speeding tickets, 13 national parks, 13 states (several more than once), countless crossings of the Continental Divide, officially 8,284 miles...

Funny moments and amazing sights were plentiful our last days of adventuring, but still, I am finding it difficult to write with any notion of a light heart...I, for the most part, was a bitch...complete...ONE HUUn-dred percent (as JBN would say it) our last week of adventuring...and feel kinda bad about that...just a little, though. I lived with boys conversations, boys bodily functions, boys conversations about bodily functions , boys cleanliness (or lack thereof) and boys sense of focus (again, or lack thereof)...for 40 days and nights on the road...in a car...I was a modern day Noah (I am in complete awe of this story, btw! there should be Noah shrines at every roadside attraction to inspire the likes of me) Still every day with a smile I would...short order cook at the campsite...all three meals plus snacks...get the laundry washed...make sure all the water bottles and camelbaks were full...pack hearty snacks for each boy...spray them lovingly with sunscreen...and buy candy at every damn gas station we passed...so, when I wasn't so pleasant to be around those last few days I figured they could just put up with it...but deep in my heart...waay down there...I HAD pulled up my hiking boot traps...and had loved it all...even the funk...like the constellation I came home with on my middle made of irritated red ant bites...the kids in the back seat...

sidebar: what I would have given for some magic powers....stop time, turn to the back seat...and while the little cherubs sit, smiling with their angelic smiles in suspended time and say... "SHUT THE FUCK UP!...and no you cannot have, do, say, play, one more fucking thing...and look happy when I take the 3000th damn picture, will ya, you ungrateful little shits"...whew! felt good...that was my trucker ego talking...

back to loving it all...kids in the back seat...my total loss of control as Tom always drove...a bit like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange with the toothpicks and violent movies? That was me having to ride in the passenger seat for 4000+ miles. Someone’s really perverse idea of totally desensitized me of being in control...I drive dammit...always...literally and figuratively...regardless...

I loved it...loved it all, really...REALLY! Loved it! I have more than 6000 photos that have been edited down to a 60 minute slide show (only used about 1/3 of the picures) and I watch a little of it almost everyday...

so many keep asking how it went...and genuinely seem surprised that I smile and say "..SO great!" but it was...I would and will do it again! Even riding in the passenger seat...

I am thinking...Route 66...next summer...

so if I had loved it all so much...why on earth did I act like such an evil girl that last week...