Home Sweet Home

We’ve been gone for 6 days, and had family visiting for 7 before that, so we’re a bit discombobulated. But we’re home. After covering 1800 miles in 6 days, we walked in the kitchen door last night and it was so welcoming I could feel it wrapping its arms around us.

While we were gone we celebrated my father’s 85th birthday with him and family. He’s pretty cute for 85 if I do say so myself! He used to be a hair taller than me, and we decided his missing hair is what makes me taller these days!

We drove through Oklahoma and spent time in Kansas, then back through another part of Oklahoma, and some extra time in the northwestern corner of Texas, the part they call ‘The Panhandle’. We saw prairies so wide open I could easily envision covered wagons and horseback riders from years ago, and even Indians living there, off the land. We made a side trip to Palo Duro Canyon, where the walls dropped down 1000 feet below, and a river crawled back and forth through the floor. It was a breathtaking surprise part of Texas.

We had a roadside picnic with a mama deer and a bunch of turkeys as visitors, and nobody else. 

We saw a musical full of old, corny songs that sang of cowboys and ‘Home, Sweet Home’.  Then we finished the trip, pulled into our driveway and had a renewed sense of ‘Home, Sweet Home’ ourselves. And I can’t tell you how good that felt. To see our home and have it look familiar and the place we belong. It’s been awhile coming, but was worth the wait.  No matter where you’re traveling this summer, isn’t home still the best place to be?

This week I’ll be starting a new phase of living here in Texas – coming up with some schedules and meal plans, etc. – the mainstay stuff of life with less projects and more cozy days. I’m a lover of lists and plans and such, so it feels good and way overdue.

Today – a half day of cleaning, a half day of ‘being’ which may involve curling up on the sunporch with a book, or a nap. Then pizza and salad for dinner before we watch ‘Last American Cowboy’ on the Animal Planet – our new favorite show, and one that we have a new appreciation for after seeing west Texas up close and personal.

And this guy? Found him munching on my ground cover in our back yard. Texas’ state mammal – the good ole armadillo. We suspect he (or she) lives under our deck.Hard to say which of us is more scared of the other…