NEW CASTLE, INDIANA – We made it ten miles before the cat started puking. Only 2397 miles to go. Or so we thought. Apparently we were already going in the wrong direction.
As we fueled up at the New Knoxville Market, I punched in our new address on Bainbridge Island and waited for what seemed like minutes for the GPS to calculate our route. When it was finally done the display read:
Miles to Destination: 2407
Time to Destination: 39 hours, 10 minutes
“Wow, that’s like a work week of driving,” said Marley.
No problem, I thought, pulling out on to Route 29. It was well into the evening. The sun wasn’t quite setting yet, but casting long shadows and a perfect yellow glow on the Ohio countryside. The golden hour, photographers call it.
In front of us, a thin slice of crescent moon was beginning its descent to the western horizon. It was strange but Ohio never looked so beautiful. That’s about when Twister started puking.
A few months ago we had bought a gross of paper towels from Sam’s Club, but had barely put a dent in them. In the days before we left, we had been handing them out like so many highly-absorbent quilty parting gifts, yet somehow had saved none of them for our trip. Not one.
So as Marley is trying to mop of Twister’s mess with Kleenex we notice the navigator has now added more than a hundred miles to our trip.
Miles to Destination: 2541
By the time we decided to call it a night, we’d made it here to New Castle, Indiana – about half hour outside of Indianapolis. The first leg of our great migration west ended in a scratchy roadside motel with an out of focus TV and an AC unit that rattled through the night like a rusty old train.
It was a hard night. Not because of all the hard work that day or broken TVs or noisy air conditioners or even puking cats. It was a hard night because with each passing mile the full weight of what we are leaving behind truly settled on my soul. We are leaving so much more than just a place. We are leaving friends and family that have meant more to us and have done more for us than mere words could ever express.
Yes, we are going to something. And going to something so challenging and new will be fun, scary and exciting.
But right now we are just leaving. And leaving something so rich and wonderful is sad and hard and heartbreaking.
The Blog from the HOG
About Us
- Jon Anderson
- A family of four on a grand adventure to Seattle and back, and then back again.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost
-- J.R.R. Tolkien
(They) attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.
-- Douglas Adams
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best...
-- Paul to the Philippians
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed
by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
-- Mark Twain
Not all those who wander are lost
-- J.R.R. Tolkien
(They) attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.
-- Douglas Adams
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best...
-- Paul to the Philippians
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed
by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
-- Mark Twain
7 comments:
Ok, so once again you make me laugh and then you make me cry...
I told you that you were going in the wrong direction! You were supposed to pass our house so that we could have one final parting wave as we cried our eyes out on the front step. We went and got our ice cream at Main St on the way home and circled back round to pass the house one last time while you were still there. Marley was loading something in the back of the van as I wiped tears from my eyes.I had to squint through the tears in order not miss my turn on to Laura St. The ice cream was supposed to make it easier. It did not. It was supposed to get our minds off of the departure. It did not. Not even the Baileys and vodka could take away the heartache. I cried the kind of cry that makes your head hurt and your eyes swollen into the next morning. You know the kind of cry I am talking about.
So after dropping the kids at VBS this morning I drove by again and thought of my dear friends the Anderson's and yes I had to wipe away the tears just as I am doing now. I love you my friends.
diana
And now we're all crying! We both miss you so much (but I miss you more)and yet you also have a great ability to write things that make us simultaneously laugh and cry. I'd rather have you living 8 minutes away, but being able to read your words is a comforting consolation. Everytime Noah pulled out the K'nex(which was many times today in the car) I thought of you and my heart ached. What a joy it will be to see you all again! Soon.
Love,
Marley
Sandra and I have only tears...no words really do anything for our hearts at this point. Being older makes us ever so more want to cling to that which is good...like Amelia with her blanky. Take it away and life becomes sadly unsettled. No "good" in our good-byes last night, only sadness.
I tried making a "Dora" type of game of following you on the map for Celestina...but it was a melancholic mapping as far as she was concerned. I'll drop it for a few days anyway.
I too saw the moon's distinct silver sliver, on the lake last night...my first outing of the season. My appreciation for the constance of the universe was again established, as I thought on your departure from our lives.
Love never fails, so it has to come around again...like the planets...and the stars...and the Andersons.
We love you guys,
Randy
Hey brother Jon,
I feel connected to you again just because you are going to study with Dan A. I can't remember if we talked about Kirk and Heather....can't remember their last names but I was in a men's group with him our grad school year and they both went with Dan to Seattle to start Mars Hill. Great people. I am also a regular "PCP" (Pod Cast Parishioner) at Imago Dae, a church in Seattle. Mark Driscoll is a great preacher and really seems to be creating a community of Christ followers there. You should check it out. He is real, strong and Biblical. What a great combination.
I also enjoy reading the comments above. I celebrate the sadness because it tells that you have invested yourselves and loved (been invested in and loved too). You know we live in a world of constant transition and must be purposeful to not allow heart callousing. The sadness at a departure always tells me that I have remained open and alive; that I am not managing my pain.
Glad to be along for the ride again. On another note, our H-berg small group has scheduled it's "swan song" meeting in June. We will drive down to join with them. The core of that group has been together 4 years which is a long time for a military community.
Blessings to you all,
Jeff
Well, of course you felt the full weight of what you were leaving behind - but that's the price you have to pay when your ultimate goal is put as many miles as physically possible between yourselves and ourselves in Tampa, FL without actually leaving the continental US.
I really think you could have gotten the point across with a move to, say, Montana. It would have been more than obvious if you'd have gone just as far as Washington state, but you had to practically leave Washington and, quite literally, find an island beyond Seattle!
Yeah, I'm crying my eyes out for you. Jerk.
Randy, I always knew you were a poet. Thank you for these words. They are another gift from somone who has already given much.
Jeff! -- so good to hear from you, my friend. I've missed you. And I really appreciate the way you have captured things here. As usual, you get it. This move has brought back memories of another migration west, seems like a dozen years ago when you and Candy rallied around us, helping us on our way. We simply wouldn't have been able to do it without you.
We'll be in Denver today to hear Peter teach. Thank you for introducing us. You have no idea how much impact it has had.
Ted -- Instead of thinking how much farther west we'll be from you, consider how much closer to east we'll be. We've got to be a good 3000 miles closer now!
Jon,
Yes, you're right, shaving 3000 miles makes us only 21,900 miles apart measured the other way.
That's around 2,068,420,000 inches.
Coincidentally, 206 is the area code in which you'll reside. I imagine if we calculated it all out correctly, we'd be able to determine your phone number. Something like 206-842-XXXX.
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