Home Again

March 28/06

We arrived home in Fernie early Tuesday afternoon. We dropped Jen & Dave at their place yesterday, over-nighted and caught an early ferry eastbound. It is nice to be home. As we drove into Elk Valley it started snowing. A nice welcome home.

From Yuma, we drove north with no delay, sticking to the interstate highways. No trouble enroute, other than some balky trailer lights that refused to work until ½ way home. The little VW diesel pulled the overloaded trailer without any problem.

Unfortunately there was one sad incident that marred an otherwise happy homecoming. Dave and Jenny’s dog “Seda” went missing from their home a couple of days before we arrived back. The reason she disappeared and her fate is yet unknown. Dave and Jen live on a small acreage and Seda was free to roam but she had never wandered far before.

Dave is absolutely devastated. Seda is really Dave’s dog. He had been worried about leaving her, while we were on the trip, and was so looking forward too seeing her again. It has been 4 days now since she went missing. Despite numerous posters, calls to neighbours and the various related agencies, there has been no word of her whereabouts.

March 29/06

Time to get back to reality! The mail pile is huge and there is lots of work to be done on the uncompleted house renovations. I also want to find time to organize the over 1000 photos and summarize the trip.

It was a wonderful experience that we all enjoyed immensely. After almost 3 months travelling and residing with Jen and Dave we are all still on speaking terms. That in itself is a satisfying accomplishment. (There were some tense moments, but nothing too serious. At times, Dave’s adventuresome spirit and risk assessment differed substantially from ours). Linda and I feel very lucky that we had this opportunity to travel with the “kids” in this manner. It is not something a lot of parents get the opportunity to do, or a lot of “kids” might want to do with their parents, for that matter.

The trip was a great learning experience for us all. Not only did we see and experience countries and areas that were previously foreign to us but we were able to successfully challenge ourselves. Although we never felt that we were in danger, we were often on or just outside our normal comfort threshold (all except Dave, that is!).

I’m particularly proud of Linda. Linda was probably the most anxious at the beginning of the trip but she really didn’t let it show and quickly settled in to the uncommonly austere accommodations. Many times she was a moderating and stabilizing influence. Also, she discovered that she can comfortably travel for 3 months with one small bag of clothes and personal items!

Time to start planning the next trip!

THE END

We will now revert to updating our main blog. http://thehidewayoflife.blogspot.com

If you are interested, you keep tabs on us there…