Strange as it seems, we're home again

Blogged by Kathleen Hicks

How strange, to sit on a couch while watching the world speed past at a steady 65 miles per hour.

Strange, too, to drive a seemingly flat road and yet pass a sign that reads “Grant Village, elevation 7770 ft,” realizing that this flatness is over a mile above the sea.

Stranger still to wake up in the flatlands of Iowa and hours later fall asleep in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. And yet, this is just what we have done.

On this trip, I have spent days in some of America’s biggest cities (Chicago, Denver) and passed through desolate stretches of desert and prairie. In hours, my family has traveled from the lovely resort town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming to the relatively remote wilderness of Yellowstone Park, devoid of cell phone service and wireless internet (I say relatively because, despite the overall remoteness, Yellowstone still contains gas stations and convenience stores, handy for when we run out of essentials like milk, bread, and beer -- for Dad, of course).

This trip has illustrated the beauty and moreover sheer vastness of America; so vast that by this, week three of our family vacation across the country, traveling over 500 miles in a day, at times within one state, seems somewhat banal.

Of course, this trip has been anything but banal, and I would be lying if I said I had not loved every second of our trip. I have met family members for the first time who, by the end of a long weekend, I missed even as we pulled out of their driveway.

I have seen, never mind climbed mountains for the first time, descended into canyons, seen a rodeo, and whitewater rafted down a river I first read about in a historical fiction novel at the age of nine.

I have thrown a Frisbee enough to make my fingers bleed, and have laughed at my ten year old sister’s hilarity so hard my stomach ached. I have watched the country hurtling towards me through a window nearly as tall as myself.

I have looked behind me from my perch at the front of our 39-foot rental RV, seen my siblings watching a movie as we drive through an intensely boring stretch of Nebraska, and thought, “This is not the real world.” I then return to whatever Harlan Coben novel I’m reading (we brought three and bought two more) and alternate page turns with long gazes out the window.

Surprisingly, I’m not sick of my family, contrary to many people’s predictions. We’ve had a blast, enjoying each other’s company despite the usual arguments (I called the last enchilada first!).  Mostly, we’ve laughed (at jokes from Amy, along the lines of “What does one moose say to the other at its Bar Mitzvah? Mooseltov!”) and ooh’d and aww’d  at the incredible sights we’ve seen.

But alas, we now turn for home. My father and I have to go back to work (my mom never stopped working); Betsy and Jimmy have a week of running camp.

I knew it was coming; the real world hovered in the back of my mind like the mountains rising out of the haze behind Denver.

Now that I can use that image with the  knowledge of what it looks like, I can’t decide what’s stranger; that this trip is ending, or that it happened at all.