Why, hello there! Just popping in to say I’m back from a week away. It’s so good to be home! I hope you enjoyed my wedding week posts last week; I was very tricky and scheduled them before I left so you wouldn’t even have time to miss me before I told you I’m back.
Don’t you love how traveling gives you a new perspective on home? Jon and I got home last night from road tripping a couple thousand miles―first driving to Colorado, camping in the mountains, then stopping at a cabin in the Black Hills on the way home to celebrate our anniversary.
The week was spent without internet and mostly without cell phones as well, since we didn’t get coverage that far into the mountains. While we were there, we communicated with our fellow travelers via walkie talkie. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve been so unplugged!
As we drove into Winona yesterday evening, I had the most wonderful feeling. After spending nearly 10 hours in the car in a single day, I was ecstatic, for sure, to be nearing home to unpack, hug my kitties and sleep in my own bed. But not only that, my view of home felt different too. I love the way a vacation to a different place stretches your mind and introduces new things. I couldn’t get enough of the views out the car windows through each of the states we went through on our road trip, and once we were in Colorado, I got to soak in the mountain scenery and the exciting discovery of vegetation and wildlife unlike anything I see at home. We spent our days hiking and exploring and talking and enjoying some good old fashioned family time, and it was fresh and new and different from what I normally do every day.
But I forgot how the vacation glasses stay on as I drive back on my familiar roads, and I get to rediscover the little things I overlook because life at home becomes routine. Driving through the beautiful river valley, pulling up to our house, seeing how much my garden grew in the span of a week (TONS! I need to make a trellis for my pumpkin vines, they’re going to take over everything!), and walking in the door to my home and remembering with a little bit of surprise just how much I love it here.
As I opened my laptop to see what kind of emails I’ve missed in 9 days, the screen looked unfamiliar, and it took me a few minutes to get used to typing again. That’s saying a lot for a person who spends 9+ hours in front of a computer each day! (Vacation takeaway number one…I need to work on that.)
I’ll be back later this week to show you some of the great vintage treasures I scored on the way, and to show you a few of the highlights from the trip. In the meantime, I hope you had a lovely Monday!
