Oklahoma Part 3: Going Home

It had been a very long and busy week. Certainly it felt much more like the vacation it was instead of returning to the everyday grind of living there again. With all of the preparations for leaving early Sunday morning done, there was nothing left to do but reflect. Was Oklahoma with its wide open sky and wheat, red dirt and clay, sun baked earth and wind, wall clouds and tornado warnings, OU football and Thunder basketball, a place I had so much love for and pride in, home anymore? 

Sunday morning we packed the last little bit of luggage and said our good-byes to Nanny and Papa. Heading back it made more sense to drive straight through instead of another two day trip. Having kids meant frequent stops so we wanted to get an early start. A little before 8, with coffee and Redbull in hand, the last segment of our journey began. 

Unlike our very paced drive down this was a mad dash to the finish. No sight seeing stops (driving I-35 through Kansas made that extremely easy) and eating our meals on the road. We also decided it was time to deploy our secret sanity saving weapon: Netflix on our tablet. It wedged perfectly between our seats as if some engineer somewhere had little kids and knew exactly what the world needed. 

Still the hours dragged on as we took shifts driving. Somewhere past Des Moines Chelsea and Clayton finally slipped into naps. Peace and quiet for at least a couple of hours. We passed into Wisconsin around 6:30 and after that long in the car we needed a break. We woke the kids up and the way Clayton looked was the way we all felt. 

A nice meal at Las Palmas Mexican restaurant in Platteville was just what we needed to get us through the last 4 hours. We pulled into our driveway just shy of midnight and we were home. 

I finally had an answer. You can visit where you come from but once you leave its not home anymore. Home is where life's adventure takes you. For some its the place they have and will always live, and there is nothing wrong with that. But for me, I wanted more, I wanted different.

When I met Erin I fell in love and it wouldn't have mattered where she was from. If she had lived in Oklahoma I would have stayed there. The combination of finding the person that made me happy and getting to take the adventure I always felt I was missing is a dream come true. Wisconsin is where I live now but when I'm with Erin and Chelsea and Clayton, regardless of the where, I am home.