Time to go Home

We woke up in our awesome hotel and prepared for our last day on the road. We stopped in the lobby for the continental breakfast where Tim had his best cup of coffee of the trip. Tim wanted to see a little bit of Pittsburgh so we drove to an inclinater which takes you up and down the side of the hill and gives you awesome views of the city. This thing was over 130 years old, but it was a cute little ride. Then began our drive home which only took about 4 hours. To help pass the time, I started asking everyone about their favorites and in some cases least favorites. It was neat to relive the memories. Now I just have to figure out a way to scrapbook the page. Pulling into Ephrata, we let out a sigh of relief. Yay, we're home. We go to get into the house, but who has the key? We had given our keys out. After a few phone calls we were able to go pick up a spare. (Later as we were unpacking, I did discover I had packed an extra set of keys in a very obscure pocket in the one duffel bag) And now came the dreaded unpacking and laundry. Needless to say, it's the following morning and not quite everything is done. We also had 3 and 1/2 weeks of mail to go through. Man it feels good to be home. Reflecting back on the trip: First off this was an absolutely incredible experience and we are so greatful everything came together as it did. I was very concerned about not having places to stay booked for our entire trip, but came to realize, there is usually something available somewhere for you, and it's just a matter of letting things happen. It seems what happens was meant to happen. A couple of times, we did not have any plans until we actually got to our destination and then figured out what to do. Most times, it was a matter of going to priceline to bid for a room. I never bid more than $40 for a room (except for Downtown St. Louis which was $65) and sometimes I bid $35. Most of these rooms were 3 stars or higher. We found that really nice rooms could be had near the airport. The campgrounds were also very reasonable. Most of the sites were $20 or less. In the National Parks, alot were only around $15, but then you had to drive and pay for a shower. Our budget for lodging for the trip was $40 a day, and the average came to $38.32 a day. For food, we packed a cooler with a case of water, and just kept refilling the bottles. We also really liked the flavor pouches you could add to you drinks. I had two bags filled with snacks like cereal bars, peanuts, and then tortilla rolls for sandwiches. It was pretty awesome to pull into a rest area, pop out a bag and quick make lunch. That's not to say we didn't splurge on quite a few meals. Our Anniversary dinner was the most at close to $80. for one meal. We ate a lot of hotdogs to make up for that one meal. Our budget for food was $30 a day and the running total showed us at $26.00 under budget. The gas was the kicker. I have no idea where I came up with an estimate of maybe $600 for the trip, but it was actually $1007, which is what Tim thought it would be. All the extra miscellaneous stuff came to about $700 for tolls, laundry, attractions, souvenires etc. Our overall budget was $3000 and we ended up exceeding it by about $250. Stupid Gas. Our total mileage for the trip was 6429 miles. The kids did excellent, even though by the end of the trip I was so sick and tired of seeing punch buggies. They were both real troopers and more than once, we had comments on how well behaved they were. I hope they both realize how special this time together was. I know I do. Time goes so fast, that sometimes you just have to take a chance and do something crazy, which was what this trip was for us. Thank you for reading along as we took our trip. The End.