from sea to shining sea

2 ½ hours from landing in Cincinnati. Home Sweet Home. Skyline, Wal-Mart, Costco, Panera – never will I take you for granted again. I’m ready to go buy anything in bulk. Just because I can.  We’ve got suitcases full of stinky clothes, stinky shoes, and snow globes. Thanks to 9/11 we can’t carry on the snow globes Mackenzie collects. We ended up with so many souvenirs for the kids that we had to pick up a carry-on bag in Egypt. It’s made of camel hair. Actually, it has a Diesel logo on it. Yeah, right. It was right next to the $20 Rolexes.

Our trip was pretty darn good. Ernie had the adventures he needed to spice up retirement. He’d gotten a little restless going from 20 years of being in different cities every week to hanging aroud the homefront.. Though he got frustrated with the map reading, metro madness, train confusion, language barriers, Hobbit stairs and baguettes, I haven’t seen him that excited and happy in a quite a while. We were good traveling companions with few spats and no big arguments (thank you to friends who prayed!). The weather was more than cooperative with only a couple of rainy half days and was much cooler where we expected it be be too hot. The people we encountered in different countries were mostly kind and helpful and just want to make a living like the rest of the world. People do with so much less than Americans – less space, less possessions, less independence. But instead of feeling like a spoiled child I appreciated the American lifestyle, freedom and comfort more than ever. Yes, I could make it with a dorm size fridge, only two kitchen burners and an 18" square sink in the kitchen. Or with a shower that comes with a shoe horn and no hope if you drop the soap, or no outside space, or room for only one love seat and a table, or a closet that only holds 20 hangers. And all for around $400,000. But give me my side-by-side plus an upright freezer in the garage. Give me my big screen TV. Give me my yard with all those weeds to pull. I won’t complain about cleaning so many bathrooms for at least a month. I get to have a couch all to myself and catch up on all the stuff I DVR’ed .   I want to fill my giant "Grandma" coffee mug from Disneyworld instead of refilling a demitasse cup.  As much as I love visiting other countries and learning about their lifestyle and history, I am an American girl through and through. I’ll say it loud and proud!


Ernie is asking me where I want to go next!

Maryl