On the road - the end

Our vacation journey for 2009 is now over. We are home. However the vacation lasts until Tuesday.

We left Des Moines, Iowa this morning around 9:36 Central time and arrived at our house at about 8:30-ish Eastern time. So another 10 hour day on the road.

We had actually planned to stay in Buda tonight, and we did stop there. No one was home when we arrived, so we took a walk around the block. By the time we got back we decided to keep driving. The problem with staying in Buda is the longer I am there, the harder it is to leave. Plus I wasn't really in the mood for any kind of small-talk. Plus Carrie texted us and said we had a flat on the Buick, which I wanted to make sure was fixed before I left town again on Tuesday. My dad came home before we left, and we chatted briefly and then took off again.

All told we travelled 3,380 miles the last 10 days. We spent 1 night in Buda, 2 nights in Annandale, MN, 2 nights in Deadwood, SD, 3 nights in Loveland, CO, 1 night in DesMoines, IA, and here we are. We saw family and friends while attending my nephew's graduation open house in Minnesota, we stopped at Wall Drug in Wall, SD, saw some sights in Deadwood, visited with friends in Spearfish, SD, saw Mt. Rushmore, visited with Jane's brother and his kids in Loveland, spent some time in the Rocky Mountains, and really did have a nice vacation. Even though the only day we didn't get rained on was the last day coming home. But at least we never encountered any hard rain or storms. All in all, I wasn't stressed too much ever, and my back didn't really even hurt. Very nice. The Elantra did us well. Once we got 29 mpg, and once we got 40, but mostly we got between 35-39 mpg. I'm not sure where the 29 came from.

Now I need to unpack... and go to bed.