Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig

That was a rhyme my Grandmother Margaret used to say, nearly every time she pulled the car into the garage, funny how some memories return all these many years later.

We made it back to Maple Valley, finally, about 12:30 this morning. We arrived home to our house, intact (see the regular-stuff blog from a couple of weeks before we left) and cold cold cold. We had turned the heat off before we left - and as we pulled into the driveway, noticed the front window was fogged over - uh oh. Thankfully - we have the gas fireplace, which we promptly heated up and snuggled the girls in front of...just like old times for them.

So - some trip statistics:

We haven't yet added up all of the gas and other travel necessities (Junior Mints, Good N Plenty, Diet Pepsi, etc.) but I would say that the experience was worth every penny! Wow, what a great time we have had!

Southern and Central Oregon were beautiful this morning - the colors going over Grants Pass were amazing!

The final leg of the trip was quite amusing, as Lloyd took photos of random people driving, riding and hitchiking on I-5 through Oregon. This game would have continued into WA as well, but it got too dark to shoot those photos without a flash and a flash could really cause some problems on the drive.

Some folks were oblivious, some annoyed and some found humor in it. We were actually surprised that we never got any middle fingers! The following photos are some of the folks that we hope that we cheered up a bit anyway.

This was the sign Lloyd devised and held up for each shot.

One of our early subjects - didn't appear to be that happy to be driving his Prius (see how nicely this game tracked with our Prius game?!)

We figured we would also take some photos of some passengers, this poor guy appears to have lost something...

The eyebrows on this motorcycle driver said "WHAT THE HECK?"

Our first subject was a trucker who actually laughed out loud - or appeared to anyway.

This vision of health seems to be saying "Anybody got a light?"

Is it illegal in Oregon to be on a cell phone while driving?

Here's an Estelle Getty look-a-like who was obviously enjoying getting her photo taken.

We tried over and over to get this Obama supporter to smile, or even look at us - but her gaze was locked on the road ahead! Maybe she was watching for change?

Clearly...not amused.

Clearly amused. This lady actually gave us the thumbs up before we took her photo! Although I suspect her driver was a bit annoyed since I had to hit the brakes in front of him in order to capture one of the others...

Finally, our "PEACE" guy. This guy was so happy to have his photo taken, he actually sped up so that Lloyd could get a better shot!

So - all things considered, we drove a lot, ate a lot, played a lot, took lots and lots of photos and had a wonderful time. Our sincere thank yous to all of our friends/family members who welcomed us so warmly, and apologies to all that we were unable to see along the way.

Thanks to those of you who read along with our daily adventures and gave us encouragement to keep on posting.

Until the next big adventure...