Journey's end

The marvelous adventure is over, and we are back in Wisconsin. I don't know if anyone is still checking into this site as I let it fall by the wayside the past few weeks.....but we're back....and getting ready to head out again to Nantucket. So in the end we drove 20,370 km. through 21 countries...not to mention travel on quite a few ferry boats. With gas ranging from 9-12 dollars a gallon...gas looks cheap here on our return! Actually so do most things...After seeing $9 sodas in Norway! The trip ended in a mad whirlwind. We drove across Germany and went into the Netherlands for about 2-and-a-half days. Having spent a month there 4 years ago it was like coming home. The boys of course wanted to see all their favorite places, and I wanted to check in with a few cousins, and it's just not possible to do it all in 2 days. Not that we didn't try! One place we went was a fairy park, which we had been to on two previous visits: when the boys were 1 and 7 and again at 6 and 12. I felt rather meloncholoy on this visit knowing this would be the last time I would probably be there with my children....still as children anyway. I was having that feeling alot at the end of the trip. This travelling with the boys has been great over the years. We have had so many adventures and gotten so close, but with Chase entering college in two years this was probably the last great journey for our fellowship. The boys have spent about 8 months total of their lives in Europe now, so that has been good. We left a cousin in the evening, and drove across Belgium into France in the middle of the night, arriving by the Paris airport at 5 a.m. With 24 hours until we had to head out to the airport to catch our plane. I parked in a hotel parking lot by the airport and emptied the car to repack it. Had a very interesting conversation, with me trying to remember every bit of french I could in a hurry, with a policeman who clearly thought I was stealing from the car, not taking everything out to reorganize it. We finally headed into Paris itself to spend the afternoon until well after midnight.....seeing Notre Dame, the museum of the Middle ages, up the Eiffel Tower etc.
When we got back to the U.S. we have spent the past week or so with Chase taking his finals so he'd get credit for the sophmore level classes and move on next year, taking his driving test, going to doctors etc. I pulled my achilles tendon back in Hungary and have been limping for 2 months. I figured it was just a sprain and once I quit walking about 10 miles a day all would be fine. However the doctor says I have to wear an ankle brace all summer, a hideous orthopedic shoe, and maybe have surgery in the fall. Uggh.
Anyway, if you've stuck with our journey thus far, hope you enjoyed the stories, I was going to try to post a few pictures on here, but I am technically incompetent and Chase has been preoccupied with those tests and stuff.
Have a great summer. Mijke

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