WHEE!  We are back home. 

We arrived at our home around 6:00 last evening.  Ron drove straight through from Richmond .  (We moved from Hagerstown , Maryland, to Richmond to visit our daughter and her family.)  We left up there around 9:00 AM, and only stopped three times along the way for short breaks.  We were traveling in the hottest day of the year.  It was indeed hot everywhere along the route.  Richmond is always hot and steaming, even in the morning, but when we got to Winston Salem it was 98 degrees.  A brief shower cooled it down to 84 degrees.  But it was hot, in the 98 degree range, all the ways to Ridgecrest where it was 92 degrees.  It felt so good to be back on Heathcote where our temperature was 82.

Coming home after being gone 45 days, we found plenty of weeds.  The grass looked good as it had been cut by our yard contractor and watered by Mother Nature and our neighbor, Ken.   The trees and shrubs are out of control, and all will need pruning.  We will be busy outside as well as inside for a few weeks getting everything back to normal.  Inside we will be catching up on mail, restoring all stopped services, getting our plants from a good friend, Susie, cleaning and opening up our porch, and getting caught up on happenings of friends and neighbors.  Forty- five days is not long on the road traveling, but it is a long time to be away from the house and yard.

Our trip took us to around 20 states and 7 provinces of Canada.  We traveled by car almost 10,000 miles.  We had one bus trip, but no ferry or train rides on this trip.  We would have had to take a ferry to Newfoundland, but we decided to forget about going there.  The ferry only runs in summer when the weather is acceptable.  While we were in the North-East, the weather was stormy and the sea was very choppy.  We did not investigate the ferry, but we were sure that the ride was not one that we wanted to take.

What did we like best?  We always love the West.  We have gone west four out of five times on our road trips, and we are glad that we have.  We enjoyed seeing and experiencing north-eastern Canada and the US, but it is not a place to which we would return---except for Maine and Quebec City.  All of the north-east is pretty, but we are not “water bugs”.   We don’t sail, swim, or boat.  After days of lakes, bays, bridges, and sand, we were ready to leave.  We enjoy seeing different places and finding out how other people live, but we enjoy most what is different from us.   Our way of life, our plants, and our lakes are much like those north-east of us.  So, to us the West is much more exciting and interesting.  We are glad that we had the opportunity to visit in the north-east, but are hearts beat for the West.