Home

Have you ever wanted home so bad? I bet you have. It doesn't matter who you are or where home is. Home is a universal theme for us all. Even in good times like our trip, coming home is a delight. 

​I've had some other musings along the way. Themes that I discovered to be true. For our last day, we drove from Wisconsin to central Montana, so I had a lot of time to think. I'll be posting more in the next few days about the themes that tied our whole trip together. But first, our last day.

Racing the sun

Google put it at 15.5 hours on the road. Grandma Chrissy told me in no uncertain terms that she thought I was crazy to attempt it. Still, my longest drive on this trip was an about the same, but through Chicago at rush hour. So I knew I could do it. 

We got going at 5 a.m., just before dawn. All day long, I smiled up wondering who would win, me or the sun. Sunset at home is 8:45 p.m. We should have had 1:15 minutes to spare, with the time zone bonus. As the day wore on, gas breaks, potty breaks and lunch added up. We got in at 9:30 p.m., dark enough to see the first stars. The sun won, but I didn't mind. Seeing our front door was wonderful.

But better than seeing the front door was waking up and seeing my own ceiling. As we got around to cleaning out the car and trailer, I checked on our trip stats. The truck has been keeping track: 

Total Driving Time: 174 hours, 21 minutes
Gallons of Gas Used: 596.7
CO2 Released into the Atmosphere: 10,500 pounds (calculated from gas used)
Miles Driven: 7,616
Average mpg: 12.7
Mpg going east: 13.1
Mpg going west 12.2

Our truck passed 100K miles on this trip. Like it wasn't a thing. In about two posts from now, I've got to tell you how "Spy Truck" came to us. 

My last thought for today is 26 states. We could have gotten 4 more, and missed leaving holes, but it wasn't in the cards. I guess that means we'll need a return trip to some places. Here's our final map: