We're home!

Eighteen days and 4,444 miles later, we have finally made it back!

Homer is resting comfortably in an undisclosed location. Lucy is still at the "doggy hotel" (we can't pick her up since it's a holiday). Elias threw up all over the kitchen. Anna is cranky. But Steve is doing the laundry, so I can't complain much.

After we left the KOA where we stayed our first night on the road, we stopped at another KOA in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It wasn't nearly as nice as the first one, but it did the job. We had planned on staying at a place about an hour east of El Paso, but it looked really questionable so we kept driving. We then planned on staying somewhere else (Deming, maybe? It's all blurring together now.), but those also looked sketchy. So we wound up in Las Cruces, which was much farther than we had planned on driving.

Then yesterday we planned on making a short trip and staying two nights wherever we ended up. We figured the kids had put up with a lot of driving and deserved a break, plus we didn't want to drive back into Southern California on Labor Day when we would be sure to hit awful traffic.

Again, the first few places we planned on stopping looked a little scary. So we kept driving and wound up in Yuma, which resulted, again, in far more driving than we had planned. I scoured RV-park reviews online while we were driving and managed to find two that had pull-throughs, 50-amp electric, a pool, and were "family friendly" (a lot of the parks around there are reserved for seniors).

When we finally pulled in to the one we chose, it was a ghost town. Nothing but taped-up trailers waiting for their owners to return in the winter. I think there were only four other people in the whole park, including the people working there.

It was pretty sparse and ridiculously overpriced. Another internet search revealed that there is absolutely NOTHING to do in Yuma during the summer. The camel farm doesn't open until October. It was also 110 degrees. We decided that if we left early enough in the morning we should be able to beat the holiday traffic.

In the meantime, it was so hot that Steve and I were both able to shower this morning without turning on the hot water. I'm not exaggerating: the cold water was warm enough to bathe in at the same temperature we normally would.

We did hit a little traffic, but not enough to make us regret our decision.

In retrospect, we wish we had stayed at that first KOA (the one with the amazing barbeque) for another night or two. But there will be other opportunities.

I have many more observations and things to write about and photos to post, but those can wait until later. Right now I'm going to get the kids to bed and take a nice hot bath.