Day 68...I think

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November 19, 2009
Well… we cannot put it off any longer…today we will start our two day journey…home! The van is packed, the pictures are taken, the gifts purchased, the memories made and the plan for the next adventure has already begun to take shape…we are happy/sad, excited/reluctant, tired/energized…we are on our way home. We left our Maryland house at about ten this morning and what do you suppose greeted us once we reached the interstate…FOG! Is this a recurring theme with us? What could all this fog mean??? Is it a message about the end of our trip? Are we “foggy” about how to get home? Does the fog represent our feelings about our adventure coming to an end…ambivalence, lack of clarity? Is the fog “blocking” our way home…suggesting we restock the van and continue our odyssey? Or maybe the fog is just fog…nothing more than mist…weather…a coincidence… But whatever the fog stands for…there is a lot of it…we can barely see ten feet in front of us…reminiscent of the fog on the mountains in Pigeon Forge! After a short while, the traffic comes to a complete stop. There is an accident ahead, the road has been closed and we sit…for an hour. We send Bill out with the umbrella because of course it is pouring rain. Bill looks kind of cute with a woman’s French designed parasol working his way through the line of cars and trucks! He is gone for a bit, but returns with no real news…just that there has been an accident involving a white pick up truck that had actually passed us a while back, driving like a crazy person, we thought, in the fog and rain. I don’t know if Bill felt compelled to give the driver a few tips about operating a vehicle in inclement weather…while they pulled him out of a fiery wreck…probably. But finally, we are on our way. We stopped for lunch in a small town in Pennsylvania, and then continued on. The rain was relentless, making it difficult to see much of anything. When we landed for the night, we were in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Our last hotel…the last time we would stack all of our belongings on to a luggage carrier, the last time we would have our day’s end cocktails, the last time we would search for a decent place for dinner, and the last night we would spend away from home…it felt strange. Our only real comfort came from a sign that Donna had glimpsed as we had driven into town that evening, a sign we had not seen in close to ten weeks, a sign that meant we would not be held hostage again to the “free continental breakfast”, a beacon of hope, a ray of sunshine in the pouring rain…it said Dunkin’ Donuts!!!
Today’s Road Lesson: We would have good coffee in the morning!

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