3/8/99: It was a rainy, sleety drive all the way through Missouri. Stopped in St. Louis where Ruth drove me around her alma mater, Washington University. She also insisted we get a “concrete” from Ted Drewes, and I’m glad she introduced me to the delicacy of ice-cream shakes… We also stopped in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois to see our friends the Karl and Crystal. They were kind enough to receive packages that we shipped home as we traveled for the last year, so we picked up the parcels and had a brief visit… Then, as we drove up I-57 to sweet home Chicago, the snow hit! It was a fitting welcome back to the Windy City, since we left last March 24 only days after a terrible ice and snow storm. So, of course we got to drive back into town on a night when the meteorologists are predicting 8-10 inches of snowfall! We managed to stay on the road, but must have seen two dozen cars and trucks stuck in ditches as we made our way to Chicago. We the rental car off at O’Hare Airport because just one additional day would have cost almost as much as the entire first week! Hopping on the Blue Line “L” felt so familiar it was if we had never left Chicago. We arrived back at the home of our friends, Mars and Sanna, where we had stayed briefly as we were preparing to embark on this trip a year ago. Unpacked, showered, and went to bed. Tomorrow we will begin the next adventure…
3/8/24: There have been, of course, many more adventures for us in the last 25 years. That is because “an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered,” and that is how we have chosen to consider things. Travelling abroad for a year was a great privilege and a profound learning experience, and we are grateful to God, to family and friends who supported us, to those missionaries who welcomed us and allowed us to briefly work with them, and to all the new friends we met along the way.
NOTE: The photo above is a notated google map that shows the basic route and major country stops we made along the journey.
