Life on the road

Nancy and I left Salina Kansas this morning and headed west. We had a lot of fun along the way. We sang our favorite songs and talked...we even called a few places to see about horseback riding for while we are out here. The trip is coming along nicely and the experience is most definitely shaping up to be a memorable one. Between stopping and eating Dairy Queen in a very quiet Hays Kansas to hopping next door and eating a BBQ sandwich from "Bar B Cutie" restaurant the trip has been very flavorful. She and I are really not opposed to making this trip a driving tour of the United State's Dairy Queens...but then we would probably not fit in the car after about hot fudge sundae Ohio #35.

We did however make it here to CO. and we are truly overjoyed. The hotel is great and the mac and cheese we made here in the hotel room's kitchenette was good thanks to the "borrowed" butter and milk from the Kansas hotel's continental breakfast that we put on ice this morning. Nancy and I are pinching our pennies as much as possible and we are having a ball doing it.

On a totally different note, I personally find it so interesting when you look back to the events in your life with observant eyes. You look not at the point A to point B events in your childhood or lifetime but you look at the road which you took to get there. There are so many little details, incidental conversations, funny stories, small gestures, mindless even habitual routines...yet it is the combination of all of these things that allows us to get from one truly memorable experience to the next. Today, we took 70W for such a long time. Then finally we got on US Hwy 24. What a change of pace?! It was so much more laid back and scenic. Every turn expanded on something we had already gotten a chance to take in...it wasn't like a busy interstate where you skip from one exit to the next. This road allowed us to process what we were looking at while driving on it. The slower speed limit and calm nature of the drive allowed the farms to unfold their stories to us. We could get a feel for the little towns as we drove through them, and as we drove closer and closer to the mountains we began to understand why we worked so hard to get here in the first place.
The sky again tonight was radiant. The beautiful colors in the sky provided a perfect backdrop for the clouds and the mountains were the most perfect welcoming skyline we've seen so far. I do not find it odd at all that we've traveled so many major routes to get here and this last little drive on a scenic road is the one that will be forever in my memory.
Life on the road is often a phrase to describe a phase of moving around a lot, or being able to pick up and go, but tonight after traveling like we have...I think of it so differently. Life is whatever we make it to be. We carry it with us and of course there are things out of our control, so we do the best we can with what we've got, and the added clause to that sentence is: We also work endlessly until we get what we need. All of the little things get us from one place to the next. Here Nancy and I have worked so hard to get here and we are here. All of our friends and both of our families have worked, donated, and prayed to get us here and here we are. Nancy and I carry with us all of the love, memories, experiences, and life with us. Now, we are adding to it. Another chapter...another connection for our life stories...found right here on this road.