You’ve heard of Harpers Ferry in West Virginia, right? And, maybe you know a little of the history, but as we discovered there is so much more to the story.

New Year’s Resolutions – I don’t think I’ve ever made one in my life.

Yesterday, we watched the odometer turn over 3,000 miles. GPS has guided us well. We crossed another time zone somewhere in Tennessee between Nashville and Knoxville. For the most part I’m already having trouble remembering what day it is and where we’ve been.

It’s an interesting thing to travel during the Christmas season; something we’ve never done before.  Now with just over 2,500 miles and 10 nights on the road behind us, I’m finding myself in a bit of a reflective mood, thinking about where we’ve been and how far we’ve come.

I was all prepared to write a raging bitch rant about how much it sucked to drive 500 miles from Las Cruces, New Mexico to Abilene, Texas – known forever in my head as Hwy 20 from hell across west Texas. But then I thought, what would Pollyanna say?

Before this trip I don’t think I’d ever heard of Chihuly Glass.  But, I did know there is beauty in the desert. We’ve always found a special genre of beauty in the desert landscape.  It’s a bit tricky to get up close and personal sometimes, but the desert is a artistic landscape.  As we made our way south before turning east, a stop in the desert was on the agenda.  Although it was a stop intended to meet up with a friend, it was an unplanned trip the gardens that made the day.

After our marathon drive from southern Oregon to southern California, we awoke to blue skies and just a slight chill in the air. Guess what? We were just one hour north of Anaheim, which, if you don’t know is home to Disneyland.

I’m looking at the time and realizing it has been 12 hours, almost to the minute, since we rolled onto Interstate Highway 5 this morning.  And although we logged nearly 650 miles we are not where we thought we’d be at this time.

As I sit here, I can smell the turkey sizzling and crackling in the oven.  Abi is outside working in the yard – something he never tires of doing – and I’m puttering, continuing to ready ourselves for our upcoming road trip.

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words,

but to live by them.”

John Fitzgerald Kennedy