I've gone 6,000 miles...

During the past 10 days I have traveled to and from three countries, across the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, by train, bus, and plane and eventually by car. My trip to Fez from Marseille logged a roundtrip total of 1,694 miles by air. This does not include the 116 miles I traveled by train from Antibes to catch my flight. The day I returned from Fez to Marseille I took a train for 411 miles to Paris, where I camped out in someone's living room to recover from these 2,221 miles of travel in less than one week. Then, on Monday, I flew 4,168 miles from Paris to Charlotte, with a stopover in Newark.

The grand total for all of this traveling was 6,389 miles. The next day Leigh drove me from Charlotte to her mother's house in Grundy, Virginia: another 239 miles. On Saturday we are driving 180 miles to my father's house and on Sunday we are driving another 276 miles to Myrtle Beach to join my parents at their beach condo for a week of relaxation and catching up with the parents. Then, at the beginning of June, we will drive from Virginia to Washington State to start our jobs with my grandparents. This will be at least 2,800 miles, not including any side trips we take to Yellowstone, Missoula, Big Sky, and Rock Island before reaching Seattle. It's a lot of travel and can be both stressful and expensive, but its experiences like these that make my life so interesting and so blessed, so it's worth it. Plus, since landing in Charlotte, I know I will share every mile of it with my best friend and favorite person.

So after some days here in the sleepy town of Grundy, which I will spend organizing my stuff, doing my laundry, and reconnecting with our cat/first born child, Leigh and I will go on vacation with my parents to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. My dad teased me last week that the last thing I need is another vacation, but I contend that backpacking through Europe (often solo) is a very different experience than laying on a beach with one's family. Traveling Europe as a young person is great fun, but also education and sometimes a lot of work. Family vacations are true vacations involving a lot of sleeping, chatting, relaxing activities and eating. Plus I get to share this vacation with the people I love, rather than discovering something new all by myself as I have done over the past 7 months. I haven't seen my father or step-mother since the end of September, so it will be really great to spend several days with them, enjoying some real southern heat, and eating good food that I will surely regret later when I have to burn off the extra calories.

Well, I should check on my laundry and try to come up with something to cook for dinner that Leigh might actually enjoy (have I mentioned recently that I'm not a great cook? Poor Leigh...).