November 04, 2003

Road Trip - Day 31: Going Home!

The past couple of days have been spent driving...west...toward home! Yesterday morning we left Durham, NC, heading south and west to Knoxville, TN where we spent last night. (The Appalachian Mountains were beautiful!) This morning we left Knoxville, crossing Tennessee and half of Arkansas. Tomorrow we will be home, Lord willing!

We decided to cut our trip a little short. We have all grown incredibly weary of the road and have been longing for home.

We had initially planned to stop in both Nashville and Memphis as there is so much to see in those cities. But the only stops we made were necessary ones.

Tonight, we drove west of Little Rock, and found restaurants and a hotel in Conway, Arkansas. Tomorrow we will complete our journey as we travel back toward central Oklahoma.

Last night was one of our worst nights on the road. We stopped at yet another Red Roof Inn where we asked for a non-smoking room as usual. (I'm very sensitive to the smell of cigarette smoke, and it usually gives me a really bad headache.) Anyway, late in the evening we began to smell smoke in our room. Joel called the front desk and was told our room was right next door to a smoking room. I took some sudafed and melatonin hoping that would help me to sleep. But at around 2:20 a.m. I finally gave in. I wasn't sleeping and wasn't going to. I took the blanket off our bed and went to the van to sleep. But I couldn't sleep out there either. I came back in a while later and Joel went to the front desk to get another room away from the smoke. We didn't want to wake the kids, so I went up there by myself.

Thankfully, the staff at the Red Roof understood and not only did they not charge us for the second room, they gave us a discount on the first room. Both Joel and I were really tired today due to the lack of sleep, but at least the financial end of it turned out okay.

It was a long day of driving, but we passed the time by listening to another of the Myst audio books, and the kids played Nintendo and watched SpongeBob on the DvD player.

It's been a great trip. We've seen some incredible things--inspiring things, beautiful things, things that increased our patriotism, and things that will continue to impact our lives for years to come. It may take a while for us to process all the things we saw, but as Joel told the kids tonight, this trip will be one of those things that will be a topic of conversation even as their lives continue to unfold.

As for school, the kids did their usual schoolwork yesterday morning, and they did today's schoolwork last night to so we could get on the road quicker. I told them in celebration of our last day of traveling we would take a day off of school tomorrow. (That got a jubilant rise out of them!)

I feel incredibly thankful for the opportunity we've had on this trip. Not only for the impact upon our lives through the things we saw and experienced, but for the time we had together. Before the trip we were a bit concerned about being together 24/7 for a month, but I can honestly say we had very few truly tense moments, and much less irritability than I expected! (Just goes to show you the power of prayer! We've had a lot of people praying for us.)

So, that's the update for now. Lord willing I will be writing my next blog entry from home tomorrow night! :-)