Ah, it\u2019s good to be home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love to travel. LOVE to travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love packing a suitcase. I love trip checklists. I love the nervous feeling you get when you head out the door, and the excited feeling you get when you arrive. I love buying coffee in strange places. I love trying to figure out how I\u2019m going to manage to go for a run when I only packed one running shoe. (Good thing I brought the duct tape and my flip-flops!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there are few things better about traveling than coming home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love to come home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe the best thing about traveling is appreciating how important home is. How welcoming. How comforting. How reassuring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is especially true after spending 13 days on vacation, with the last one stuck in a car for 14 hours on a rainy slog from Virginia on the Friday before the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are daredevils who have climbed Mt. Everest, wrestled bears and swam through underwater caves without lights while being pursued by piranha. These people would NEVER attempt such a foolhardy and dangerous thing. A day when the roads are filled with the two worst kinds of people: 1) Those who believe bobbing and weaving in stop-and-go traffic will help them arrive at their destination 2 minutes quicker than everyone else, and 2) Those who thought tying 1,400 pounds of luggage, camping gear and children\u2019s bikes to the roof of their car with kitchen twine would somehow hold. The first drives 90 mph, the second goes 55.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the Friday before a major holiday, the interstate is littered with the crunched bumpers of these two types of people who have decided to come together and ruin everyone\u2019s day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What was I thinking?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh yeah. That I want to get home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Home. Where the yard will be so overgrown that it even be possible to pull into the driveway. The grass will form a wall taller than the fence, and the weeds will have unionized, declared independence and contacted a lawyer to have you evicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Home. Where the cat has been living, cared for by your mother. Your mother who didn\u2019t think that two kitty litter pans would suffice. Or that your kitty litter was satisfactory. So she changed it up. Change it ALL up. Decided you needed at least 17 kitty litter pans scattered about, and that only the cheapest kitty litter would do. That way you can have a thick layer of dust all through your house. Like the kind you get after a volcano erupts and covers everything in a coating of ash. It will take you three-full days just to vacuum it up, and you\u2019ll be stepping on kitty litter kernels for the rest of your life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Home. Where you\u2019ve left a stack of bills and to-do lists and other assorted responsibilities that you didn\u2019t dare deal with before you left. The minute you walk in the door, they\u2019re all screaming for attention. \u201cWhat do you mean the power has been turned off?!?\u201d you say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Home. Where you forgot the mosquitoes are so bad this time of year that once the weeds have evicted you, they offer to put you up in the house they took over next door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Home. Where you\u2019ve been gone for so long that you wake up in the middle of the night and can\u2019t remember where you are, or more importantly, which direction the bathroom is. Is it to the left, or the right? Or are we still in that house in North Carolina and it\u2019s downstairs? \u201cFigure it out,\u201d your bladder screams. \u201cFigure it out quick!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Home. Where you get to see neighbors again. Where you know where everything is in the grocery store. Where the snack drawer is always filled. Where there is never a shortage of forks. Where the WIFI works like it\u2019s supposed to. Where you can just sit down and relax and say, \u201cAh, it\u2019s good to be home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which lasts about 10 minutes, and then you\u2019re thinking about where to go on the next trip. (As long as it doesn\u2019t require ANY travel on a rain-slicked interstate just days before a major holiday.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ah, it\u2019s good to be home. <\/p>\n
I love to travel. LOVE to travel. <\/p>\n
I love packing a suitcase. I love trip checklists. I love the nervous feeling you get when you head out the door, and the excited feeling you get when you arrive. I love buying coffee in strange places. I love trying to figure out how I\u2019m going to manage to go for a run when I only packed one running shoe. (Good thing I brought the duct tape and my flip-flops!)<\/p>\n
But there are few things better about traveling than coming home. <\/p>\n
I love to come home. <\/p>\n
Maybe the best thing about traveling is appreciating how important home is. How welcoming. How comforting. How reassuring. <\/p>\n
This is especially true after spending 13 days on vacation, with the last one stuck in a car for 14 hours on a rainy slog from Virginia on the Friday before the Fourth of July. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[578,561,565],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-nutshells","category-family","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2271,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270\/revisions\/2271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}