“While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader.  When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle.  When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws.  And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan’s country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise.” 

Reepicheep from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Our camper sits on the east side of our campground here in Kingman.  Each morning we watch the sun rise above the Hualapai Mountain range and light up the Mohave County landscape.  There have been very few mornings in the past four plus months that we have lived here that the sunrise has been hidden behind clouds.  The bright morning sun gives way to warm (often very warm) days and dazzling sunsets to the west.  The desert has its own unique beauty.

Somewhere over those mountains is Owensboro, Kentucky.  Waiting in Owensboro are family and friends.  We are thinking more and more about them lately.  Over that horizon – where the sun rises two hours earlier, is home.  The writer Thomas Wolf wrote that home was the place that when you go there – they have to take you in.  For us – home is the place that when you go there – they don’t think you talk funny.

There comes a point in our travels that Lisa and I begin turning our mind and hearts toward home.  We have reached that point here in Kingman.  This week we realize we are one month away from leaving Arizona in it’s dust and turning our RV eastward toward Kentucky.  In our minds – our time is up here and the work is completed.  Now it is a matter of lasting out the final weeks and saying good-bye to Kingman and the friends we have made here.  Sure we still have four weeks before the end arrives – but now we see the end in sight and the desire to see our family and friends in Kentucky grows with each of those rising suns.

Whenever Lisa and I have traveled with her job to a location – there has been a  recognizable pattern of adjustment we have encountered.  Upon first arriving in a place we find the first month to be a time of acclimation – of figuring out locations, attractions, just learning how to get around.  After that first month we simply settle into a place.  It is then that we get to know people – make friends, make return trips to our favorite restaurants – find a church, the best grocery store, and learn how to navigate the Wal-Mart.  From that point until about a month from leaving we just accept where we are and make the best of it.  At the point in which we are at now (one month from going home) our desire to get home gets very intense.  I would say it is the closest to homesickness we have experienced.

So we will continue to write about our final experiences here in Kingman.  Next week we will travel back to Los Angeles to pick up some items for our son’s upcoming wedding.  And there will be more things to laugh about before our time here in the Mohave Desert is over – rest assured.

But in the meantime – Lisa and I will be staring at those mountains to the east with a little more intensity and longing – because we know what is waiting on the other side.

With our noses to the sunrise!  Love, Steve and Lisa