Home again, home again

I'm back in Colorado! Funny how wonderful it is to come home--I'd like to bottle all the warm fuzzies that come with reunions with pets, cozying up on my own sofa, sitting down to dinner with my family, wrapping up in familiar blankets. As my son Fletcher says, it's great to visit friends and family but the travel back and forth can be "very stressful".

We don't often go home (home being Pennsylvania, where we store most of our relatives :)) for Christmas. Travel this time of year can be tricky. Picture Christmas day spent in the Buffalo airport; or a family with two little kids stranded in Iowa, their car broken down; or (my personal favorite) there was the year that I started to drive cross-country with two kids, remembering to check everything but the gas tank. Lucky for me, we didn't run out until we reached Nebraska, where we were rescued by a no-nonsense rancher woman in her immense white pickup truck.

When we decided to venture East again this winter, we decided to try something new: we took the train from Denver to Buffalo, NY, a trip that takes (theoretically) 36 hours. The train takes about as long as driving, cost a little bit more, and allowed for a lot more leg-stretching. It was also the kind of adventure every writer needs to experience now and again.

Adventure inspires, but it's good to be back home, where I have a bit more time to write about the experience!

:) Cheryl