Highlights

Hoooray! We just got home from a reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally long trip, during which we made countless memories that we will treasure forever. (That's writer talk for, "I'm going to spare you all the long, intricate details.") Instead of giving a blow-by-blow (which I kinda sorta already did in the last two posts), I thought I'd just take a few minutes and share some of the more, um, interesting highlights of our trip. SO - here goes:

• We spent 50 mights away from home. Exactly. Precisely. And, because of the kindness, patience, and generosity of friends and family (who opened their homes, guest rooms, sofa beds, campers, and fridges to us) only 8 of them were spent in hotels. Four hotel rooms were in Mexico. They ranged from what you'd consider a really poor 1 star American hotel to something much less than that. (There were bugs almost the size of a deck of cards, lizards who serenaded us as we slept, and one sleep-walking incident in which one of my children had the door almost open before I managed to convince her to get back into bed.) 
• We put 10,660 miles on our Jeep Liberty between June 9th and July 29th. We were in 16 different American states. (I don't know how many Mexican states we were in. Forgot to keep track of that.) Most of the time, it was just the five of us in the Jeep. At one point, though, there were 8 of us crammed in, along with all of our bags and purchases. We can put a LOT of stuff (and people, apparently) in that little space.
• I highly recommend being church tourists, like we were, when you're on vacation or away from home. We were gone for 7 Sundays, and attended 5 different churches during that time. It was great. I know a lot of people moan and worry over the state of the church in America. And, trust me, I get it! There are problems, to be sure. There are many churches (whole denominations of them, perhaps), who have walked away from the true purpose of gather together. But, there are also amazing, faithful, wonderful, joyful, honest, sincere, open, welcoming, Bible-reading, Jesus-loving, gospel-sharing congregations in every corner of the country. It was so good to get to worship with so many different people in so many different ways and places.
• Borders are always interesting and a bit unnerving. We think it's particularly important to teach our children how to fill out paperwork and complete border requirements. (It's a good skill for them to learn, and helps save us time.)  On this trip, Sarah (who is 8) filled out her own Visa form, complete with signature... with a heart at the end. :) Other border incidents of note - we may have inadvertently and completely accidentally sorta kinda bribed a border agent, and once got followed by a border patrol truck and instructed to turn around when we misunderstood a hand signal and drove off without having completed the required inspection. Oops. You live, you learn.
• The view out of our windows was awesome. We saw mountains, grassland, farms, ocean views, rolling hills, expansive skies, huge cities, little towns, remote villages, and so much more. Mexico is beautiful. The United States is beautiful. Life is beautiful if you're paying attention. 
• It's good to be careul what you wish for. During Day Two through Mexico we always end up skirting the coast for about half the day. I've always wished we could stop and play a little, since I dearly love the ocean, and the beaches were almost completely empty. This time, I got my wish. (Unfortunately.) One of our traveling companions kept hearing an unpleasant sound during big bumps (of which there are MANY on Mexican roads). He stopped once to try to get it fixed. The mechanic said it was the spring in the shock (forgive my automotive ignorance), but didn't have the parts necessary to fix it. Several hours down the road, it finally broke, causing us to have to pull off, find another mechanic, and have the spring welded back together. Can't say I would have wished that on anyone, but we did have fun for about an hour and a half on the beach while we waited. The fact that it broke 2 blocks from a mechanic and 3 blocks from the beach was pretty awesome, all things considered. 
• If you're planning on moving to Guatemala, don't bring a Toyota truck. I don't know why, but they are the single most popular vehicle here. The smaller ones, usually from the early-to-mid '90s are EVERYWHERE! (Like, one out of every three vehicles). Turns out, they're also the ones most likely to be pulled over by military and police checkpoints and at borders. Unfortunately, one of the members of our caravans, who were just moving to Guatemala for the first time, had a really nice Toyota truck, and they were hassled, stopped, inspected, and bothered WAY more often than we were. I'm not gonna lie - it feels good to not be such total newbies anymore. 
• Goodbyes don't get any easier the second time you leave the country. As much fun as it was to see everyone, in some ways it was also harder than before. Our bonds were deepened, but the pain of our separation was too. I wonder if that will ever change. 

There was more. Of course, there was so much more. But, since there wasn't room for you to join us for the ride, I hope you at least enjoyed the highlights. Next time we'd love to have you come along, though I'm thinking we might need a bit bigger vehicle. :) 

Our Trip, Parts 2, 3, and Beyond

<sigh> It happened again. Life got busy, and this blog got neglected. (Sure glad I'm better at caring for my children, pets, and houseplants than I am the blog.)

Anyhoo - let's see... where all have we been? Where are we NOW, come to think of it?!?

After wonderful, relaxing, amazing, fun-filled times with family and friends at the Gulf Coast of Alabama (including wicked sunburns and our very first jelly fish stings), we headed north for more visits with family in St. Louis. This is always a highlight for us, since we spent part of our honeymoon there, and always love coming back.

Our time there was brief but beautiful, and then we went north again, this time to the town in Eastern Iowa where we lived for most of our married life. Since our mailing address is there, we had to catch up on correspondence, update drivers licenses, pay our taxes, and do other business stuff. But, it wasn't all business. We laughed. We ate. We visited friends. We ate. We shopped. We ate. We soaked up the sunsets and countryside. We ate. (Catching a trend? There's a reason there's a whole lot more Farrier heading back to Guatemala than left there.) I think we squeezed in more visits with people to this part of the trip than any other, and we sure are grateful for each one! It was so very hard to leave our friends again, but indescribably good to have gotten to spend that much time with them as well.

From Eastern Iowa we went west, and right into the warm embrace of more loved ones, including our church family. The days were long and lazy, just like we wanted them to be. We soaked up the love and hugs, ate all of our favorite foods (we won't mention just how much Chex mix was consumed), worshiped the Lord (in English!), played with farm animals, caught lightning bugs... all the good stuff! This goodbye was also very hard, but we were starting to be ready to be home by then, so off we went, headed south.

In Oklahoma and Texas we caught up with some family and friends we'd made in Guatemala (a missionary and a teacher at my school), and were very refreshed by our time with them. We sure hope they were serious in their offers to have us back again, because it's something we're already planning for our next trip to the States. It's all been a blur, but now we find ourselves near the Mexican border, ready to cross over tomorrow. Prayers are much appreciated, since three solid days of driving can be hard to do. Though we will miss each and every one of our beloved family and friends, we're also very excited to be getting back to the loved ones we left behind at home, in Xela.

Thanks for following our adventure. I wish I'd have taken the time to chronicle our trip better (for my sake, mostly, since it's so easy to forget things like that). But, I can promise you that we treasured each moment, even if we didn't have time to write about it all. And now, it's time to be on the road again.

Thanks for loving and treating us so well, America. See you next time!