The journey home, day 5. In which I am home! All of a sudden I just wanted to sleep in my own bed and wake up to my own sunshine through the oak limbs and hear the roar of my own breakfast smoothie in the Ninja. Butte is 665 miles from home so I didn’t think I was capable of that drive in a day, but I decided to just push ahead until I couldn’t anymore, then bed down one more night on the road. But once I got into Washington I was a woman possessed. Once I saw the gleaming ribbon of the Columbia, and heard my radio tune in to OPB, there was no way I was stopping.

As I made this obsessive dash west I left a trail of promises in my wake. “I’ll be back!” I said to Montana’s big sky and broad grasslands and forested mountains. “You’re on my list!” I shouted back to the rugged Black Hills. And “See you in my rear view mirror!” I said to eastern Washington’s wind scoured plains, no love lost there.

This country is so huge and so amazing. I drove on past so many places because I knew a few hours would be nothing, I wanted to come back and stay a while. And I will. This trip has been the wide open, just for me adventure I’ve been longing for as we rolled through life changes the past few years. I have been studying maps and making lists, preparing my van and testing it (and myself) and preparing some more.

4087 miles, 9 states. Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, Montana. I’m so glad I did it, and I’m so glad to be home. Thank you for following my journey!