Day 77 – Home Base for 12 hours

We thank all those with Lufthansa and those in the airline industry for getting us back home to Seattle! Smooth as butter on hot toast.

This afternoon a quick wash of the laundry and a pack up of the van for a 3:30 am departure to the Midwest was required. Our original plan was for some time relaxing in our backyard with family but some dreaming and plotting and arranging with relatives led us to another high mileage road trip. We are going on a journey to touch all of our main home bases. This means two special stops in Minnesota, one in South Dakota, one in Nebraska, one in Colorado, and then straight west to Oregon. Oops, after all that was planned a required 5k cross country qualification race was put on the calendar for Norah. So Norah and I will have to jump back to Seattle for two days and then fly back to Colorado to rejoin the van crew. Yes that doesn’t make a lot of sense but hey, life is a fun wild adventure. Let’s go!

I found these words very meaningful in this summer season:

“For Those Who Have Far to Travel” © Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. 

If you could see 
the journey whole 
you might never 
undertake it; 
might never dare 
the first step
that propels you 
from the place 
you have known 
toward the place 
you know not.

Call it
one of the mercies 
of the road:
that we see it
only by stages
as it opens
before us,
as it comes into 
our keeping
step by
single step.

There is nothing 
for it
but to go
and by our going 
take the vows
the pilgrim takes:

to be faithful to
the next step;
to rely on more
than the map;
to heed the signposts 
of intuition and dream; 
to follow the star
that only you 
will recognize;

to keep an open eye 
for the wonders that 
attend the path;
to press on
beyond distractions 
beyond fatigue 
beyond what would 
tempt you
from the way.

There are vows
that only you
will know;
the secret promises
for your particular path 
and the new ones
you will need to make 
when the road
is revealed
by turns
you could not 
have foreseen.

Keep them, break them, 
make them again:
each promise becomes 
part of the path;
each choice creates 
the road
that will take you 
to the place
where at last 
you will kneel

to offer the gift
most needed—
the gift that only you 
can give—
before turning to go 
home by
another way.

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