I thought our last blog post gave some meaning to the blog name, Drifting World Citizens, but it turns out the last three months have the cross-country road trip beat!
First I should finish where I left off in October. We left New Mexico the morning of the hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque and got to see hundreds of balloons scatter as the sun came up. We drove on to Arizona and headed south through an amazing mountain pass where we stopped just in time for Thumper to throw up all over Pancho! The drive ended at my good friend's home surrounded by cactus and wild horses. It was so fun to see such a welcoming face. After Coolidge, AZ we headed up to Kingman for a night of rest before our big Grand Canyon adventure!
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Hot Air Balloon Festival
Albuquerque, NM |
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| Beautiful pass through AZ |
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Real Cactus!!
Southern AZ |
The Federal government, and thereby the national park at the Grand Canyon, was still shut down so we found our way to the Hualapai Indian Reservation and braved unseasonably cold weather to walk along the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. It was on my bucket list for a reason and we were not disappointed.
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| No caption necessary. Amazing. |
From the a Grand Canyon we traveled south again before heading north up to the Pacific Northwest for the last leg of our journey. We stopped to see good friends at Camp Pendleton and family outside of Oakland. I won Thumper a purple Halloween bear from a claw machine in a Denny's somewhere between California and Oregon, now his favorite long past the holiday, and we stayed with more family in Oregon. By this time Thumper and Pancho had had enough road trip...while pregnant Legs could have kept going for days! Thumper asked over and over when he could get out of the car and we told him once we get to Washington he could get out. The second we announced we had crossed the Columbia River, he yelled from the back seat, I can get out now!!! I want to get out!!
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| San Clemente, CA |
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| Washington State at last! |
We stopped to surprise my mother in Eastern Washington and then drove to our *final* destination. I can't begin to describe the relief we felt coming home. The last year has been a hard one for us and driving across open land with no timeline to arrive in the arms of friends and family has been healing in more ways than one.
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| Columbia River |
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| Home. |
Now, on to what we have been doing since October! We settled in for about a week and then took a bunch of small trips to visit more friends and family. Legs found a daytime water aerobics class full of old ladies who were beyond excited for baby. Thumper played in parks and was spoiled by many a grandparent. Pancho did a 21 mile day hike in trail shoes and too much snow at the Enchantment Lakes and hiked locally at least twice per week. We enjoyed the time we had just as a family of three until December 17th when Flipper made us an even happier family of four!
Flipper, you might ask? Yes. Big Foot sounds too mean although it is more accurate. Flipper was born with giant feet that extend into the text on his commemorative footprint certificate. He moves them just as much as Thumper did but has a hard time fitting into his age appropriate outfits because his feet are so long.
In the past few weeks we have stayed somewhere new every four days and after three months of 'drifting,' we cannot wait to settle into our temporary housing in Vancouver. Yes, temporary. It saves us from having to line up housing prior to our arrival and heck, three months in one place sounds like heaven even if we do have to move again at the end of it.
So, we live up to our blog name and have come full circle from where we left off two years ago. I just celebrated my oh-shit-I-turn-30-next-year birthday but I've got high hopes for 29. Our experiences this past year have made our little family stronger than ever and through some trial and error, we know what our boundaries are as they relate to work and life. What a ride!
