The Odyssey - Part 6

The last Odyssey post. For real. Can you believe it? And it's only about a month after we got home.

Fun fact: I finally finished unpacking just last week. One suitcase had been nestled against a far wall in our bedroom holding a few pairs of socks and a couple of shirts ever since we returned. Ha! How's that for procrastination?

Our final stop was Albuquerque, NM. Our final hosts, Katie and Noah. We were so glad to get to see them again and let the cousins catch up with each other. As always, their excellent hosting and good food made us ready for a return trip anytime.

We started out with a trip to Costco to get some eats for the last long drive home the next day and the kids were introduced to the wonderful world of churros. Now I'm more excited than ever that Knoxville is getting its very own Costco soon. (Take that, Sams Club.)

It was a hot day so we decided to cool off at a local splash pad. We were also lucky enough to crash a birthday party there and get some unexpected cake.

That night Emma got to babysit all seven kids while Scott and I went on a double date with Katie and Noah. We rode on a tram up the side of a mountain where just one of us may have been pretty certain the cable would snap at any moment and we would plummet 1000 feet to our grisly deaths, and couldn't stop thinking about how horrific those seconds of plummeting would be. But the other three thought it was pretty neat.

Looking out the tram and up the mountain.

We woke up early the next morning and psyched ourselves up for the final haul. Next stop: home, sweet home. Originally we were going to split the last stretch into two shorter days of driving, but a strong desire to get it over with motivated us to leave early and push on through in one really long day of driving. We thought we'd end up arriving 1-2am Knoxville time. It would have been really great if that had actually happened. As it was, we pulled in to our driveway about 5am (but no big deal, we were still on Mountain time so it only felt like 3am :)). We took turns driving and napping. I was behind the wheel the last two and a half hours from Nashville to home. It reminded me of when we moved from Utah nine years ago and drove that same stretch. So good to be home.

We did plan one fun rest stop along the way...nothing breaks up a long day of driving like spray painting Cadillacs.

"Tell your mother you <3 her"

"Dr. Who"

"Josh"

"Ben"

"Amme, Neb, Shoj, Aidyl, Notfa
The story begins here"