Feeling Welcomed Back Home

We left our camping spot in Nebraska early in the morning, and crossed the Missouri River (again) to find ourselves in Iowa (again). This river and these two states do a do-si-do along Interstate 29.

We were heading straight south through farm country. We loved seeing the harvest colors of the fields of grain through this flat section of the midwest. 

Staying on Interstate 29, we entered our 15th state as we drove through the northwest corner of Missouri. But we didn't make any stops in this state because we were on a mission to get home.

We crossed back into Kansas not long before we got to our house. 

This two-month journey had taken us 8,345 miles from the central plains to the Pacific Northwest and now back home. We had 27 different camping sites, and Mark made the 2025 map that shows the location of each. The green line is this trip, while the blue line shows some of our earlier camping spots closer to home. We had a great time, and we gained a daughter-in-law in the middle of our adventures!

Back at home, we had a lot of unloading and cleaning to do. But we had good help waiting for us. There was a "welcome home" banner on our front door . . .

and our refrigerator was stocked with milk and eggs and meat and all our favorites fruits and vegetables. 

Our granddaughter helped shop for all those goodies and drew our welcome home banner. It was so good to see her sweet little face, and catch up on the latest visits that the tooth fairy had made to their house on her behalf.

Our four-year-old grandson couldn't wait to come visit, and he was a big helper. He helped wash all the grime off our bikes . . . 

helped Grandude with the tools . . .

and vacuumed out two months of grime from the pickup. What a cute helper he was!

We don't get to see our granddaughter as much, since she is in school all day. But we were glad to be home so we could go to events like her school fun-run.

When she comes to our house, she teaches us new math skills that she learned in school. Since she's in a Spanish-immersion class, we are struggling to learn new math in Spanish.

Returning in September left lots of warm weather to spend time at the park, and we enjoyed this last fall with Eli since he will start school next year. We felt welcomed and loved, and glad to be back at home!