TUESDAY, APRIL 27th
Up before my alarm at 6 am. Take my last compartment of daily vitamins, shower, gather up my remaining belongings and leave. The singing and chirping birds sound so familiar and I realize…these are the same birds as we heard in the pre-dawn in our years in Kansas City!
Driving on the Cimarron Turnpike, then Kansas Turnpike—the familiar return from Winfield. I talk with Karen Deal at the Walnut Valley office and Jim Pierce as I relive those memories.
Stop for a chance to journal at the rest stop on I-135 just south of Lindsborg. The steady west wind is a bit brisk and my fingers begin to get stiff from the chill. Messages left for my college friend, Meck. I decide to stop on Kansas Wesleyan Campus and drop in. He is grading papers but sets them aside as we go to lunch at our second choice: the student center.
Today I'm listening to Vince Papele’s book, “Invincible.” Quite a powerful and compelling story. The drive west does begin to get tiring and long. My stops have broken it up nicely, but now I am feeling the pressure to finish the final tricky logistical steps with the precision of a finely-tuned Swiss watch.
At the start of this trip, I flew to the Baltimore airport and picked up the rental car that would carry me across the country. A shuttle ride from Greenride took me from the Harmony Transfer Center to the Denver airport to begin the trip.
After I left, my wife picked up my car from the Harmony center, so it wouldn’t sit there for 2 weeks. Now I need to fill up the gas tank before arriving at the rental car drop off, then drop the rental car at Dollar (which has just been purchased by Hertz, while I’ve been on this trip), and catch the Dollar shuttle to the airport terminal, in order to catch the Green Ride Shuttle back to Fort Collins.
This all works as planned. I schlep all my gear and instruments into the terminal for a bathroom break, then schlep back out to Island 3 by Door 505 to sit and wait with a white-haired woman who is also waiting for Green Ride.
The shuttle arrives only a few minutes after the expected time, we load up and head north as the sky grows darker. The woman beside me started her travels in Tampa. The couple in front of us are the winners, however. They began their travels 24 hours ago—in Cairo, Egypt!
David Schnaufer and Butch Baldassari’s recording and Dan Fogelberg on my iPod accompany the final leg of the trip. Two spots of road construction slow our progress, but we are finally delivered back to our destination.
As we turn in, I can see the silhouette of my wife with our little black dachshund on his leash waiting patiently beside the silhouette of a man with his poodle-terrier on a leash. It is good to be home, and great to be warmly welcomed!
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