I'm sitting on the couch next to Logan as he studies for his math final, looking out at the water reflecting back the baby blue twilight of the sky. This view take some getting used to, as though my body can't quite believe that the landscape that feels so natural in my bones is actually in front of my eyes. It is one of the most lovely versions of uncomfortable.
Mackenzie and I survived our road trip across the country remarkably well, with incredibly few hitches, almost never losing our way, and an incredible assortment of photos of Wall Drug billboards. The vastness of the country was truly impressive, along with just how many different views we had out the window of my lovely little Volvo (aka Magic Carpet). The quick run down: amazing pizza in Missoula, mineral hot springs in Wyoming, wandering through Millennium Park in Chicago, a whiskey-and-cigar bar in Omaha, meeting Dad for sweet potato pancakes in Nashville, being eaten alive by mosquitoes in the Smokey Mountains, the Badlands pulling your heart down into the soil, Mackenzie climbing everything whenever we weren't in the car, Yellowstone in the rain, with a herd of bison wandering down the highway, the Crazy Horse memorial where they are carving another mountain in the Black Hills, this time to honor the American Indians and their heroes and tragedies, a whole lot of cornfields, fresh baked pita (which we ate for the next few days, so fresh isn't exclusively accurate), so much license plate counting I can't even tell you, an hour or two of fake British accents which we thought were hilariously funny, lots of sister bonding, and amazing company all along the way, with old friends and new ones all the way across the United States. Feel free to check out twitter.com/MackenzieTaisha for the play by play of our car delirium, though that should be a pretty representative synapsis.
So now I'm home, a long summer stretching before me that I'm afraid is going to rush by faster than I can blink, and then France and new adventures await. For now though, getting comfortable with this view sounds like a strenuous enough goal :)
