Week 45: The Road Home
September 5 – September 12 | Union, MI → Cortland, OH → Stanley, NY
Where We Stayed
Prissy Chicken Harvest Host, Union, MI (Friday)
Project 1547 Harvest Host, Cortland, OH (Saturday)
Home (Sunday through Friday)
The Last Week on the Road
I feel like I need to be honest here, because this blog has always been honest.
I lost the mojo of this Adult Gap Year somewhere in the final stretch. I hate saying that. I hate ending the trip this way. But the heat dome that descended on us back in Medora never really let go, and somewhere between the mechanical breakdowns, the shortened itinerary, the job hunting, the refrigerator on the fritz, the unexpected trip home, and another week of triple-digit temperatures, I ran out of road-life resilience. I'm tired. I'm grumpy. I'm ready to be home even though I also don't want this to be over. Both things are true at the same time. Don has been feeling it too. This week we found each other in the same place: done. Ready. Let's go home. So that is what we did. Two last states, two last Harvest Hosts, and then the drive we've been putting off for forty-four weeks.
I-90: Memories From The Road We Kept Crossing
Most of our final drive home was on I-90, and it turned out to be the fitting. We've crossed I-90 so many times on this trip that, while driving, we kept recalling portions of our year on the road. In Seattle, Don picked me up after my trip to Europe with my mom. Washington State is one of my favorites on the entire trip, home to two of the national parks I loved most: Olympic, where we experienced alpine peaks, ancient rainforest, and a wild Pacific coast in three days, and North Cascades, where we had the most epic kayaking day of the whole year on Diablo Lake. East of Seattle on I-90, we stopped to see Jakob Two Trees, Thomas Dambo's troll in Issaquah, then continued to Tinkham Campground in the forest outside North Bend, where we picked up our mouse problem and had a 4 am departure we will never forget.
Further east, the trees disappeared in real time as we crossed the Cascade rain shadow into Idaho, where the Hiawatha Trail sits just off the interstate: fifteen miles of tunnels and trestles through the Bitterroot Mountains, one of the best bike rides of my life.
South Dakota. Rapid City. Badlands on one of the first truly brutal heat days of the trip. I remember sitting in the bus on I-90, looking up how long it would take to drive straight home. Just out of curiosity, I told myself. I wasn't ready then. And then Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and finally New York- the last stretch of the last road, every mile a mile closer to our life on the road coming to a close. The definition of bittersweet.
25,000 Miles
Somewhere in the Chicago traffic and construction on Friday, while we were inching forward in a way that felt like a metaphor, the odometer crossed 25,000 miles for the trip.
During a Kuhl Call, I shared this fact and my dad mentioned that the Earth's equatorial circumference is approximately 24,901 miles. We had traveled the circumference of the Earth in a converted school bus?! I thought about that a lot while sitting in the traffic.
Michigan: Prissy Chicken Harvest Host
Our Harvest Host in Union, Michigan, was at a small farm with a vegetable stand, and I had been hoping for a full harvest spread to make one last great bus salad. The pickings were slimmer than I had imagined: tomatoes, cucumber, green beans. Good ones, but not the variety I had pictured. I made what I could: a simple cucumber-and-tomato salad with feta, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar, which is honestly one of my favorite combinations we've made in the bus. The real score was the ice cream. Without a freezer, we had to finish it immediately. We sat in our camp chairs overlooking the gardens and the horses. After enjoying our ice cream, I read my book, and we went to bed early. It was a quiet last evening in Michigan.
Ohio: Cuyahoga National Park & Our Last Harvest Host
Saturday was our last state, our last national park, and our last Harvest Host.
Cuyahoga National Park sits near major cities, and on Labor Day weekend the visitor center parking lot was completely full. Not our favorite kind of park experience, but we chatted with the ranger, got our sticker and walking stick medallion, and headed for a waterfall hike. My knee started screaming before we got far, and Don noticed the power steering fluid line was hanging loose again. We turned back. It really is time to go home.
Don tied it as best he could, and we quietly encouraged Skuhlie to hold herself together for one more day. Don has been referencing the Blues Brothers lately, specifically the ending where the car makes it all the way to its destination and then completely falls apart. He kept talking to the bus, urging her forward. She listened.
Our last Harvest Host was Project 1547, a brewery in Cortland, Ohio. A food truck, live music, great beer, wonderful hosts, and a community of people clearly proud of what had been built there. When we checked in, the owners mentioned that we were their first-ever Harvest Host guests. Their first. Our last of this trip. I could not have written a better ending to that part of the trip if I had tried. Ohio is also the state where Don and I met. We had originally planned to stop at Hocking Hills State Park, a place we used to hike when we lived here. We didn't make it there this time, but being in Ohio on the last night of the trip, with good beer and live music and the particular feeling of something coming to a close, was its own kind of memory.
Sunday: Driving Home
We told Hanna we were coming and gave her a rough arrival time. She arranged to be at Grandma's house when we pulled in. When we got there, Grandma was genuinely surprised by how soon we arrived, and very, very happy to see Don. She has missed him a lot, and watching them reunite was one of the quiet highlights of a quiet, emotional day.
The last stretch of I-90 into the Finger Lakes was hard. I had driven it just weeks earlier with Hanna on the way back from Tennessee, and driving it again so soon, this time marking the end of the trip rather than a detour, was disorienting in a way I didn't expect. I felt the weight of both drives at once. Skuhlie made it home in one piece. Don had been talking to her the whole way.
Coming Home
The week after returning was a different kind of adventure: unpacking the bus, which turned into a full excavation of a year on the road. We really did pack a lot into 80 square feet. Skuhlie went to see her doctor, Mike, who has been on our minds every time she made an unusual noise or hit a bump too hard. We thought of Mike often. Lucky has been very confused since being home. She recognizes everthing, even the cats were already here when she got home, but she's anxious at how far she is from us at all times. We are occasionally even behind closed doors.
On Friday, Henry came home for the weekend. All four of us, together. We played board games, took long walks, had lunch out, visited Grandma, watched cooking shows. For me, the highlight of the week was Don, Henry, and Hanna watching football and the Jets winning their first game of the season. We talked about the trip, about what comes next for Henry and Hanna, about what comes next for Don and me. We loved every minute of what makes us a family.
What Comes Next
A job, first. And once Skuhlie gets a clean bill of health from Mike, we'll explore whatever state I end up working in. That will be the next adventure, the next bucket list. It won't be a weekly blog, but this adventure will continue as long as Skuhlie can. Thank you for being here for the 45 weeks of our own amazing Adult Gap Year.
The Numbers
45 weeks on the road
Over 25,000 miles traveled (the circumference of the Earth)
48 contiguous states visited
Countless national parks, state parks, breweries, Harvest Hosts, farmers' markets, kayak launches, bike trails, and strangers who became friends for a day
One converted school bus, one dog, and a couple who now know more about themselves, each other, and this country.
Skuhlie, you did good, thank you for an amazing year.
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