Home Sweet, but Bittersweet, Home

We arrived home last night. It is absolutely wonderful to be home and we have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, including Sadie's current health and strength. It seems a bit bittersweet though as this is the first time we will not spend Thanksgiving as a family. Due to covid, Sadie, Garrett and I must all spend the next couple weeks in quarantine and that means the boys cannot come home for the holiday. We will not be together as a family until Christmas now. It hurts my heart.

The trip home was long and uneventful. We had no issues at either border crossings. We left Tijuana early Friday morning and had only a one hour wait at the US border. This was good luck as we have heard the wait times average at least 2 hours and can be much longer at times. When we finally got to the border, the US border agent asked where we were going, took down my license plate, and waved us on. Traffic was very heavy from LA to Vegas and we hit Vegas at rush hour. We pushed through Nevada, Arizona, and Utah and stopped about midnight in Pocatello, Idaho for some sleep. Idaho and southern Montana are beautiful this time of year and it was enjoyable drive for the first part of the day yesterday. Northern Montana was very windy and we got to the Canadian border at about 5pm. No real wait at the Canadian border as there was only one car ahead of us. The Canadian border agent asked a lot more questions than at the US border, provided us masks, gloves and information on mandatory quarantine. Our next stop was home. I think Garrett was keeping tabs on us the entire drive as the garage door was open and he was there waiting when we pulled in. The dogs were very excited to see us and they still get excited every time one of us walk in a room; like they forget we are home.

So our next couple weeks will be spent trying to reset our temperature comfort zones and my driving habits. Hopefully 2 weeks of no driving will help me remember normal driving rules like speed limits and stop signs. It was definitely a noticeable issue on the way home.

Sadie is following an at-home program of supplements and diet before returning to Mexico for the next round of chemo in a couple weeks. This next trip will be by air.

We had a different view the last couple nights in Tijuana. We stayed in a hotel beside the clinic. There is a lot of traffic in downtown Tijuana.

If you are going through Montana and want a nice restaurant to stop at, I highly recommend The Hummingbird Cafe in Butte. Great healthy food and maybe the only vegan / vegetarian options in the state.

It was a bit of a shock to the system this morning with the temperature dropping below zero. I am not looking forward to winter. I might just have to quarantine for the next 6 months.