Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

We left Wisconsin at 5:30am on Saturday. We drove until 7:30pm on Saturday night, when we rolled into the parking lot of a Hampton Inn, dragged our suitcases up to our room, and tumbled exhaustedly down onto the beds. We probably should have called it a night right then and there, but instead we rallied for 20 minutes of exercise in the fitness room, 20 minutes of swimming in the indoor pool, showers, take-out for dinner, and an hour of mind-numbingly poor Saturday night television before finally crawling under the covers.

Right before I went to sleep I got up to check on the kids. I
felt for but couldn't find Hallie (and I started to panic a little)
so Tom turned on a light and located her, hidden and wrapped
up like a mummy, at the foot of the bed. Can you see her?

Looks comfy, doesn't it?

We hit the road again early Sunday morning, and pulled into our driveway ahead of schedule at 2:42pm. I took advantage of our earlier-than-expected arrival by immediately pulling out of the trunk the suitcase in which I knew my tennis shoes were packed, throwing them on along with (semi-dirty) workout clothes, and jumping back in the car bound for my 3pm Zumba class. An hour later I felt almost sane again…though not quite sane enough to tackle the disaster zone that was my house without melting down a couple of times.

Our road trip south differed dramatically from our road trip north. Instead of traveling slowly and with a relaxed attitude, we stopped for only 15 minutes at a time and to let the kids run off steam and stretch our legs. We skipped the interesting restaurants, scenic overlooks, and roadside fruit stands. We ate the majority of our meals in the car while cruising down the interstate. The kids watched at least twice as many movies as they did on our way to Wisconsin.

More than once - usually when Hallie starting screaming about how her headphones had "accidentally" become unplugged (because she kicked them out) or she'd dropped her stuffed owl for the 947th time - I tried closing my eyes, clicking my heels together, and repeating "there's no place like home, there's no place like home". Needless to say, wishful thinking didn't work; thankfully, chugging along like the slow (and slow I mean, no more than five MPH above the speed limit) and steady tortoise did.

We had a wonderful visit in Wisconsin, and all things considered, an enjoyable drive back to Texas as well. But the cliche is true: there's no place like home.