Final week and back home

Well the trip from Maui to Oakland was uneventful. We checked into the Extended Stay, got the van and then the next day I went to get Gus in Santa Rosa. He had a great time staying with Aura, John, Roxie and Indie. He was happy to see us and settled right into the new routines.
Henry was excited to see us. The Extended Stay is bare bones but clean and spacious. They have good plumbing and that became important because some time on Friday I started with diarrhea. I don't know if it was a flu or something I ate but it hit me and hit me hard. I was out of commission the rest of the night. Pat went out to dinner with Jason and Lindsey, while Lindsey's dad watched Henry, and I stayed in the room. This went on all night and into the next couple of days. Because I was concerned about passing something on to Henry, we decided to leave Saturday night to get a head start to Salt Lake City.

I felt better, but not great. Pat drove and we made it to Reno OK. We did get a room at the Atlantis casino, which is one of two in Reno that allow dogs. We had stayed at the Grand Sierra in the past, but their prices were high this weekend. The Atlantis was a total disaster. The Motor Lodge should be condemned. The window wouldn't lock, the carpet was coming up, the headboard fell off and to top it all off the toilet quit working in the middle of the night. I was still using it every couple of hours, so it made for a very bad situation. It was too late to call housekeeping as we didn't want the bother and I was too sick to even get mad. The next day Pat took on the Casino and the end result was that they comped us that night plus gave us a free night in the main Casino, which was actually quite nice.

We then hit the road for Salt Lake City, arriving with no further incidents. We ate lunch at the Coffee Cup in Elko and arrived in SLC late afternoon. We spent the next day with Isaac. He was so excited to see us. We walked to the park (about one mile) and back, and then walked to the book store and back. In the evening we had dinner with Matt, Rachel and Isaac, and then went back to the motel. The next morning we got an early start and spent the rest of the day  in the car. We hit Lincoln Nebraska about midnight. This was a total of over 800 miles that day.
We then headed to Des Moines, where we spent the day and night with Melisa. It was great to hang out with her and catch up on her recent trip to England, and her upcoming group trip to South Africa with 11 students. She also is presenting this fall at conferences in Glasgow Scotland and Honolulu. Great opportunities for her. We left around nine AM and hit the last leg of the trip, which was 650 miles. We made it home about 9pm and had smooth sailing the entire way. It helped that the weather was clear and we took turns driving. It is great to be back in our own house. We had a wonderful three months but it is good to be home. Check out the slide show for our pictures of the trip.
Pat-not much to add, Dan pretty much encapsulated it all.   It's good to be back home--last night we drove through orchards of cherry blossoms, saw blooming trillium in the woods, and enjoyed the quiet and stillness.  Of course, we also have had noisy partying neighbors, tent caterpillars, etc.!   But we are back in the swing of our active social life, and it was good to see everyone again.
The best part of the trip was seeing the weekly changes in Henry, and being there for it.  We also saw a lot of Isaac, and really feel like we connected with him.   It was  a great trip.