The last night of 2009....

The last night of the year 2009 finds us on the road, as is often the case for us. Tramp 1 is working tonight and we are some 225+ miles from home. We traveled through snow, frozen fog and black ice to get here. And today it snowed another six inches or more. He is doing a year-end inventory observation/audit and will hopefully be done before midnight.

Tomorrow morning we will be hitting the road again, traveling over the Cascade mountains to visit family for a night. We have done a lot of driving for Christmas and New Years. When we get back home again, we will have been in the car together for some 1400+ miles since the 24th. Good thing we still enjoy each other's company! Although there is a bit of discourse about driving abilities sometimes... Things like "slow down - it might be slick" and "Oh, #$*%, the road is all ice!", "I told you so - why didn't you listen?", "Please slow down, I am getting sick..." But when it is all over, we will have fond memories of being part of the caravan of humanity traveling for the holidays - cars, vans, trucks and buses - all needing to be somewhere regardless of the weather. Driving at night, we get to see the twinkling Christmas lights on even the tiniest of homes, some being the only light we see other than those of our car. At night we get some great skip on the radio and can pull in stations from far away places. And in the darkness, we reminisce about holidays past - when we thought we saw Santa, who told us there wasn't a Santa and what childhood gift we remember the most. Maybe the reason Christmas is at the end of the year is so we can enter the New Year feeling some of the warm fuzzy emotions that well up from our past, blotting out the trials of the current year. Wishing all of you special memories and happiness to carry into the New Year, from our camp to yours.