On Our Way Back Home

Tampa and I are back after spending practically a month on our adventure. We left on Sunday, August 23rd for our journey back home. Sunday night we stopped off in Birmingham, Alabama to see an old friend of mine whom I hadn't seen in over 25 years!! It was wonderful to see her and meet her beautiful family. We talked about the old neighborhood and the good times we had growing up.

The next day we drove through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri. I really wanted to see the Arch in St. Louis. As we were nearing it, Tampa told me to "Look," so I turned my head to see what she was doing. She had colored herself with marker...when we did get to the arch, she was crashed out, fast asleep. I did get some pretty cool pictures, though.

The next day we drove through Kansas City Missouri, Kansas, and beautiful Colorado. We took a lot of back roads in Kansas trying to find a great town to check out. Most of the towns are dead. It's really sad how hard this recession has hit. As we were filling up in Burlington, Colorado, I noticed signs for Kit Carson County Carousel . I asked the gas station attendant if it was worth going to being that we had wasted a lot of time checking out towns with not much going on in them. He told me the history of the carousel and sent me on my way. We had a wonderful time there. It was such a treat for Tampa. Colorado is incredibly beautiful. I'd really like for us to spend some time there exploring.


The next day we drove through Wyoming. Highway 80, I learned, was the first interstate of the US. It has two names, The Lincoln Highway and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway. Anyway, I thought it was pretty interesting. I also thought that it was pretty cool that all the explorers, Lewis and Clark, Fremont, etc. All had left from St. Louis, Missouri. I felt like I was driving in their footsteps. :O) I completely forgot what city we spent the night in because I was exhausted that day. We were a few miles from Utah and stopped at 4:30, which was quite early for us.

The next day we arrived in Salt Lake City, I drove around looking for the famous Temple. My GPS didn't have any information on it and unfortunately, I didn't have my atlas. I got back on the highway thinking there'd be a sign somewhere. There wasn't and I ended up at Saltair Resort, which was once a happening place back in the day. Now it's a tourist shop and they hold concerts there. After purchasing a few things from there and getting directions to the Temple, we were on our way. I can't say enough good things about the place. I was really impressed with the spectacular beauty of it all. In the Tabernacle there was an organ recital already in progress. I was told that there'd be another one at 2. We were to be on the road at that time. They were nice enough to let us in right before it ended so we could see and hear the last few notes being played. It was awesome. We drove on through Nevada and ended up in Winnemucca.

On Friday, we were on our way to Sacramento to visit my cousin-in-law and family. But first, we stopped off in Fair Oaks to the Rudolf Steiner College Bookstore . This college teaches people how to be Waldorf teachers. As many of you know, I'm homeschooling Tampa and I plan to use the Waldorf method as a complement to her classical education curriculum. I needed to get some "school supplies" for her and I wanted to get them here. These school supplies and toys are known for being natural and they promote imaginative play, something that I really want Tampa to experience. Well, after driving 7,000 miles on our adventure, I saw there was a sign on the door. I got out and saw that it read, "Closed on Fridays and Saturdays during the month of August." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I had been looking so forward to coming here for a looooong time. After a while of sitting in the car, talking on the phone, I noticed a lady walking out of the store. I ran up to her and told her that I drove 7,000 miles just to come the store. Then I realized as I looked at her face how utterly crazy that sounded, so I explained it better about our adventure, etc. She let me in to shop and told me to take my time, even. She was wonderful! Afterwards, we continued on to the cousins. Tampa was so excited to see her cousin. We all had a great weekend celebrating Tampa's cousin's birthday, which was on Sunday. We left from the party to go home. We had a great vacation and we're looking forward to our next one! :O)

On Our Way Back Home