The Road Home

Our final morning began as most of our mornings did, slowly and quietly. First one up as usual, although I realized I was no longer waking up before the sun now that we were in the eastern time zone. I brewed one last batch of coffee and read my book in the quiet of the woods. I felt a sense of sadness overcoming me but mixed with the satisfaction of a successful trip. I knew deep down inside that a trip like this would likely never happen again.

We packed up the RV and began unhooking everything. I went inside the RV to flush the toilet several times to make sure everything was empty. And then something really horrible happened, something that we thought we'd managed to dodge the entire trip. As John was unhooking the sewer line, a poop flew out the end of it.

Aaaack! Poop on the ground! We couldn't just leave it there, what kind of campers would that make us? I gingerly picked it up with a plastic bag, trying not to think of the fact that it was human poop. Dog crap is one thing, but this was something else entirely. We averted our eyes and silently vowed never to speak of it again.

Then it was back on the road for one last time. But before we headed home we had one more stop to make. We were very close to the Flight 93 Memorial, a place none of us had ever visited before. We made a slight detour to view this very solemn piece of ground. The new museum and visitor center was scheduled to open later that month prior to the 9/11 anniversary, but it wasn't open yet. We walked along the pedestrian plaza and read all the plaques and signs commemorating the event and memorializing the victims. We gazed upon the site where the plane dove down with the brave passengers fighting the terrorists until the very last moment. We read the names of those whose lives were lost. It was very humbling to be in that very spot, to know what happened here. I retold the story to the kids of where I was when I heard what was happening, how the plane that had turned around and traveled over this very land in Pennsylvania suddenly vanished from radar, how what had happened onboard became apparent as the days events unfolded.

As we pulled away I felt a sense of calm come over all of us. We were sad to end the trip, but glad to be together and to have had this amazing experience together. To spend this amount of time together, to see our beautiful country, to experience all that we did, both the bad and the good - it brought us closer together in ways that still surprise me to this day. It's a feeling of bonding, of togetherness, of knowing that we can spend this kind of time together and be happy doing it. As we crossed into Maryland and finally into Virginia, I think we all felt the same way.