End of Trip

Today is the day our trip will end.

It has been a good trip, filled with much fun. But like all good things, it, too, must come to an end.

It's actually not such a tragedy. We're all ready to go back home. We miss school and we miss our friends there. We're ready to settle back into our routine for another quarter. We're ready to see what 3 a.m. looks like again.

We stopped yesterday afternoon at Eric's house in Nebraska. His mom, who's such a sweet lady, came running out of the house to greet us, so excited that we had arrived just in time for Easter dinner. We spent the next several hours hobnobbing with Eric's extended family, some of the friendliest people I've ever encountered, which we were showered with good food and lots of candy. We even got to hunt for eggs in the yard. I ended up snagging fourteen -- more than Alex's twelve, but less than half of Matt's thirty-one. After emptying our eggs of candy, I was able to score many green apple Starbursts through negotiations. It is good to like the candy everyone else hates.

Right now, I'm sitting shotgun and watching Kim weave her way through the asphalt jungle that is Iowa. We're currently less than 30 miles from the border and just passed under a sign reading "Chicago." Ah, home sweet school.