{Megan}

Home, home, here we come…

I’m sure you can imagine.  Spending that many days together, schlepping so many bags and driving so many miles, we were bound to have a few very minor, minor tiffs.  There was a moment when I had a complete hissy fit and screamed F**k as loud as I could because my iPhone wouldn’t load fast enough. I was road weary.  Or the time where Mike had a similar F-bomb meltdown because there was literally no parking at our Grand Canyon hotel.  We managed…about a mile from our room.

And then by the time we reached our final destination of the lovely desert town of Barstow, and paid nearly the same amount for a stinky roadside room as we did for our plush Westin suite, we were just about done with the trip. We don’t fight, we just get snippy.  And snippy we were.  I instituted a no talking rule, since clearly talking was not working, and set up the bed pillow for a brief visual timeout for extra measure.

For our last dinner on the road we searched Yelp and found a local pizza joint which was actually pretty fun.  Until they informed Mike that they do not have draft beer. Oh yea, and they don’t have anything closely resembling an IPA.  He gritted his teeth, ordered a Stella, took a deep breath, and made the best of it.  It actually turned out ok, especially since I kept reminding him that this is an adventure and we’re trying new things; like light beer.

By Sunday, we wanted nothing more than to be home so we hit the road at 6:30am and we were starting to feel giddy for the comforts of home.  Oh yea.  He just had one more pit-stop…

You remember my story about my Jeep?  Well Mike bought his Dodge during that same time as well and he also had 225,000+ miles on it and he was overdue for a new ride.  So before we left on our trip, Mike found this zipply little Mini-Cooper in Fremont.  He test drove it, negotiated and he had a deal!  He picked up his cashiers check just hours before we left on vacation and carried it with us for the whole trip.  We arranged a slight detour off I-5 and I dropped him off and he drove the last hour towards home in his new car.  Now that’s a way to end a vacation!

Thanks for coming along on our adventure. I hope we inspired you to plan a little something that you’ve always wanted to do. Life moves fast and sometimes it is short. Plan it now!

Post script: I’m one of those types who has to have the house perfectly clean before a vacation, so when I walk back in after a long trip it’s a clean, calm oasis before the laundry and luggage explode with dirty clothes.  So I opened our back door and within 2 steps I knew something was wrong by the smell in the house. My eyes darted to the fridge and there it was… I accidentally left the fridge door cracked open. For 6 long, warm days. Mike and I stood side by side, assessing the minor damage in lost food. The reenactment went something like this:

Me: “Oh no, the door was left open!!”

Mike: He reached in to feel if the beer was warm. The beer!!  Ha, ha!  Not the milk or the mayo. The beer.  And that folks is why he has his blog, Burgers. Bikes. Beer.

Images taken by us, just for you.