We left Wisconsin the morning of the 20th, planning to get as far as Cleveland, then head all the way to Cambridge on the 21st. Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio = a bazillion dollars in tolls. No me gusta. Other than stopping to empty out pockets of change at the toll booths every 30 minutes, it was an uneventful day. We found a Hampton Inn by the freeway and called it good.
Saturday the adrenaline was going. We were on the last day of our trip, we couldn't wait to just get to Cambridge. There was a HUGE weather front going through, and we were expecting to hit some rain while driving. It was a band of weather that extended from Canada to the Gulf and we were going to be driving right through it. Sure enough, as we crossed into Pennsylvania we got hit HARD. Rain so heavy and hard that you could hardly see in front of you. This was by far the scariest day for me driving. I was worried about Paul in the truck, and I was on an unfamiliar, winding highway through the Allegheny mountains where it seemed like every semi-truck was flying by me at 70 mph, shaking my car and throwing even more water up in front of me. Things cleared up a little by the time we got to Baltimore. I had one last obstacle between me and the Eastern Shore: the Bay Bridge.
Crossing the bridge everything finally hit me. I quit my job and left my parents, grandparents, Mariah and everything familiar to me; and took a leap of faith into the next phase of my life with my family. I was scared, excited, overwhelmed and exhausted. I kept saying, "This is home, this is home" over and over to myself. The distance we had just crossed in a few days, suddenly, I felt the magnitude of it. It was starting to get dark as we finally arrived in Cambridge. We passed through town and into the darkness of the country roads to get to the Horn Point campus where we were going to stay until we had a place to move into. We collapsed into our beds.
When we woke up it was like we had landed on another planet. The crickets from the night before were still chirping away, louder than I had ever heard crickets. The air was heavy with a dampness that just kind of sits on the earth. Different than other humid places I have been. It was called the Marsh House for a reason. We were in a flat, wetland area. Not even the grass was familiar. We didn't have time to rest though, we had to find a place to live!
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| The Marsh House |
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| Big Bird could finally take a break |
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| Lucia was fascinated by all the new bugs. Me, not so much. |
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| This photo cracks me up. Random, but I love it. |
Reading this...the vastness between us hit me too. I miss you all very, very much and I realize that children don't generally remember much before they are five which includes me.
ReplyDeleteI remember when we moved from the UK to the US, jobs and families behind us, too. Your words are so moving and it's so interesting to hear how the reality of your move finally sank in after your adventurous cross-country trip. We simply got on and off the plane...
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