I didn’t forget about you! Yes, we’re home. Here’s the final stretch of the trip.

Well, it was pretty easy for us to cross the border and get into Canada. Coming back into the U.S. was a little more complicated. The border agent subjected us to a bit of an interrogation and informed us that we may have been breaking the law by carrying firewood more than 35 miles. Thankfully, he was able to take care of the situation for us, and we didn’t get a ticket or go to jail over a bundle of wood.

As good as it was to be back in the U.S., we definitely missed the kindness of the Canadian people and the beauty of the landscape almost immediately. Our first stop was Voyageurs National Park, which is mainly a water park. Not a slides-and-wave-pool kind of water park, but the kind where you really need a boat to appreciate its beauty. We did not have a boat, and the NPS-led cruise was sold out for the day, so our options were a little limited. We did stay at a really lovely RV park right on the water, though, so we were able to appreciate some of the park's beauty right from our yard. Voyageurs is also a designated Dark Sky Park, so once the sun went down, I got to have some fun with astrophotography and came away with some great star photos.

Next up: the Upper Peninsula and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We got in late, and Sam and I immediately headed to the shore of Lake Superior to start looking for Yooperlites, rocks that glow under UV light. We didn't have any luck at the lake, but when we got back to the RV park, we discovered a whole bunch of them hiding in the gravel around our campsite. Apparently we didn't need to go very far at all. Just a butterknife to dig them out. Learning from our Voyageurs experience, I had pre-booked a cruise so we could see the full extent of Pictured Rocks, since so much of it is best viewed from the water. Mother Nature had other plans. It was a beautiful day on land, but the wind and waves on Lake Superior got a little too high, and our cruise got canceled. So we pivoted. Instead, we went out to Miners Castle and got to see some of the colorful cliffs and rock formations from land. Not exactly the Pictured Rocks experience I had planned, but after nearly a month on the road, we'd gotten pretty good at adjusting when things didn't go according to plan.

For one last adventure before heading home, we stopped in Detroit to see Sam's brother, Chad. While we were there, we got to see where Ford F-150s come from on the factory tour and then explore the Henry Ford Museum. There was plenty for everyone to look at, we all wandered through the exhibits at our own pace, and we all seemed to enjoy watching the process of trucks actually being built. It was a genuinely good final sightseeing day and completely different from almost everything else we'd done on the trip. There was also something kind of perfect about ending this enormous road trip at a museum devoted to cars, especially after we'd spent the past month hauling our house around behind a Ford F-350.

Then it was time to point that F-350 toward Florida. We had almost 1,200 miles between Detroit and home, and we knocked them out in two days. The driving actually wasn't too bad, we managed to bypass Atlanta, which made everyone happy, and mile by mile the scenery became more and more familiar.

And then, finally, we pulled into our own driveway. The dogs were SO happy to see us. And I think we were just as happy to see them.

The overall experience was amazing. We got to see so many beautiful places and natural landscapes, but I also learned a lot about myself along the way. I journaled every day, and going back through those entries helped me see some of the things I was figuring out as we went.

The biggest one is probably that feeling anxious about driving the truck (or doing anything, for that matter) doesn't define me, and it doesn't mean I can't do it. I learned that I can let other people make decisions and play cruise director sometimes. And I learned that it's perfectly fine to go off and enjoy an experience by myself when it's something I want to do.

I think the road-trip chapter of our lives is closed, at least for a while. I'm excited to see what adventure next year brings, but I'm ready for something new and different.

Maybe a month in one place. Asheville, perhaps.

Or Greece...

We'll see where we end up.