After three and a half weeks, almost 5000 miles and more hours on the interstates than I care to calculate, we are finally home. Phew! It was a good trip but a tiring one, both physically and emotionally. We got home late Sunday night.
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| View from the trail, Jemez Mountains, NM. Photo © K. Pekar |
We spend a week and half visiting with my mom and stepdad and my sister’s family in New Mexico — and walking and hiking, of course! Then we headed to Arizona, where we moved ‘Robin’ in to her new college on the 23rd and 24th. She’s now off on her wilderness backpacking adventure until the latter part of September. The orientation groups spent the first 5 days at the college, learning to pack their packs, plan menus and purchase food, and other pre-trip training, before leaving for “the field.” We won’t hear from her again until she gets back from the trip.
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| Robin, ready for her backpacking trip! Photo © K. Pekar |
Once we left her at college — and that was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in a long time! — we drove up to Salt Lake City to see my dad, stepmother, and other family members on my dad’s side. I enjoyed seeing them all, especially my dad and stepmom. It’s several years since I’ve managed to get out there, and I’ve missed them.
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| Sneak preview of the Lambspun yarn shop! Photo © K. Pekar |
We drove home from Salt Lake in three days, which at nearly 2200 miles was quite a push! We detoured a little so I could visit the yarn shop featured in Maggie Sefton’s Knitting Mystery series. Yes, I will be writing a post about it — with pictures! And I bought several skeins of yarn and a signed copy of one of Maggie’s mysteries. We also stopped in Kansas City to indulge Mr. Bookwyrm’s love of good barbecue. By the time we got home late Sunday night, I was exhausted.
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| Double rainbow, driving east from Boulder, CO. Photo © K. Pekar |
Since Monday morning, I’ve been trying to get caught up on all the non-blogging stuff — cuddling the cats (they were a bit miffed that we were gone so long), unpacking, doing laundry, cleaning the house, and figuring out how to deal with a small but persistent ant intrusion. I also need to build up my freelance business, and choose music and do pre-season publicity for the choruses I direct. Oh — and visit the library. Not that I need any more books to read at the moment, but I’ve got some to return.
But I’ve really missed blogging, so I decided to sneak a little time to catch up here as well. In addition to this post, I’ve been trying to follow up on all the comments I missed responding to (apologies, everyone!) I’ve also got several reviews of finished books to draft and a lot of books to read in the next few weeks. It’s going to take me a while to get back into the swing of things, so I hope you’ll all be patient with me!
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| Tasha doesn’t want to let on, but she’s secretly glad we’re home. Photo © K. Pekar |
readerholicnotes
Welcome home, Lark! It sounds like an amazing trip, but I sure understand being exhausted–both physically and emotionally. I love all the photos from your trip and the photo of Tasha (I have a calico who looks almost exactly like her–Elf has a little more white on her face.)
Lark @ The Bookwyrm's Hoard
Thank you, Jan! See, I knew we were a lot alike — we even have similar cats. 😉 One of these days, we should get together — I think we live within an few hours of each other.
readerholicnotes
Yes, I think we are only a few hours apart. We’ll have to get together sometime! I’ll also have to put pictures of my cat on the blog so you can see how similar they look!
Lark @ The Bookwyrm's Hoard
Sounds like fun — the get-together as well as the cat photos!
kimbacaffeinate
Sounds like ya all had a blast Lark, I hope you all settle back into your routine, sometimes after trips like this, I feel like I need a mini-vacation at home to recover 🙂
Lark @ The Bookwyrm's Hoard
Oh, definitely! 😀 Luckily, I’ve got one, at least in a way. My next indexing project doesn’t start for a week or two, so I have a little time to focus on the choruses, the blog, and the house.
Bea
Welcome home. That sounds like an exhausting trip but a good one. I’m sure Tasha is very happy to have you home. 🙂
Lark @ The Bookwyrm's Hoard
Thank you, Bea! Once they got over their initial snit, both cats seem very happy to have us home. I was less happy with Tasha’s attention-getting ploys at 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning last night, though!