Home At Last But OMG, We Never Came Home To THIS Before

When I had to take Molly outside this morning it was only 3:30am. I had slapped on my winter jacket but was met with a raging storm outside. While Molly was traipsing around on a big pile of snow I was huddling besides of the van to get out of the blast. Another couple of hours of sleep followed, but at 6:30am it was all over. daylight filtered through the curtains and we got up. Early morning ride along I-84 yesterday Just a cup of coffee and off we went. Road was wet but no ice. Probably I got a load of SALT on the van this morning. Oh well…better salt than landing in the ditch…or worse. But then we got onto coastal route#1. After many miles we saw the first snowplow lumbering along. It propelled the slush way out to the side. The road is now heavily damaged by the frost and the potholes were so bad that traffic slowed to 10mph.  The amount of snow besides the road was impressive to say the least and we figured we’d have to dig our way into our driveway. But you can’t dig without a shovel. So we stopped at a local lumber yard in Machias,ME to buy a snow shovel. The pothole blues…                                      Bridge into New Hampshire When we finally reached our border station the officer asked us whether we had bought something while in the States. We told her about the shovel and she just nodded and said we would sure need it. And that was all there was on border crossing today. Waterbury,CT We barely made it up the hill to the top of our road and I was again thankful that our van was equipped with STABILYTRAK, otherwise we would not have made it. Arriving at the bottom of our driveway, the shovel got to work. I backed off a bit and forced the van through the slush. Up we went until the front wheels met too much resistance. But that was OK we were home at last.   I went to work in the house, turned on the power and tried the water pump. NOTHING!  Turned out the water line running from the well to the boiler was frozen. There was just a little slurp and then it stopped. I gather the heat from our wood burning stove and the furnace will eventually thaw out the line. Meanwhile we got some drinking water from…..somewhere in Idaho and another well full of water good enough for washing, inside the basement. So we are fine . Really…? We unpacked the van and while running back and forth, Molly freaked out. She ran around on the snow like she was followed by a swarm of killer bees. Obviously, she understands that traveling time is over and that she is finally home again. It was sure fun to watch her. And then she just laid down –exhausted.   Machias,ME                                  and finally Lubec,ME - border town to Campobello Home..sweet home                                                        Peter gets a work-out Our JEEP was still standing where we’d left it in December – now buried in snow. As the sun had come out and the wind died down a bit, I grabbed the shovel and started to dig out the Jeep. It we didn’t freeze while doing that!! And oh my…it’s still Christmas……so Molly get’s a present. So the Jeep is back on track and I also got the LTD started. Our phone was connected the minute after we called, but the internet has taken a bit more time. Aah…finally home again…. We let our neighbours know about our return and they were happy to know us back sound and safe. This winter’s trip has taken us about 15000kms. We went from Campobello to Freeport, FL, from there to Holtville,CA, from there to Calgary, AB and finally the last 4700kms from Calgary to Campobello. With that we almost completely circumvent the United States. I have about a week at home before I have to drive back to Alberta…..YUK!