“There’s no place like home… There’s no place like home…” A phrase I kept repeating one night on our journey as I thought of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.

We made it home safe and sound!  The journey back was long since we added in a visit to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.  I am finding myself exhausted and had a two day migraine I am hoping will scamper away soon enough.  Joyful however that the Lord found favor upon us and brought us home safely.

The trip home had one frightening moment in time, when we left Yellowstone only to find ourselves in the mountains once again, in the dark, on a two lane road with 20 mph speed limits and open roaming of cattle.  Yes, we saw two cattle on the side of the road at one point, and no we did not see many cars for over an hour as we climbed a mountain in the dark.  I mistakenly took the wrong exit out of Yellowstone only to find myself in near tears, feeling lost with my kiddos somewhere in and out of Montana and Wyoming.  In all honestly it was another one of those moments when all you can do is keep going even when you didn’t know where you were going nor where you would end up.  I suppose it’s much like Lyme Disease.  For over the last year it’s been a way of life, just keep going, there has to be light at the end of the tunnel.   My prayer as we climbed higher and higher and I was getting more and more tired was that God’s mercy would provide energy to my body, peace of mind, and a stopping point sooner than later.  I asked for safety as we were visibly unable to see what was ahead of us or around us.   When we finally did end up in a town, one hotel was out of rooms and we nearly spent the night in the car.  Fortunately, we checked the bed bug registry to find another hotel nearby and the two hotel stewards graciously gave us a lower cost on our room along with free breakfast the next morning.  Praise Him for giving us all that we needed to make it through that night.

My glass is half full attitude kept telling the kids that if we had not gone out that exit, we would never have seen the moose in Montana next to the road, nor would we have seen the herds of bison that continued to walk in front of our car near the exit.  It was quite exciting and made for more memories in the memory bank.

I could not help to be struck once again by the beauty of our country.  From the rolling hills, to the plains, to the mountains that stretch high into the skies.  The beauty of the animals roaming freely from one hillside to another while we sat in our cars, driving around their homeland, captivated by the activity of their everyday lives.  Made me think of a song we all once knew:

Original poem (1893)
America. A Poem for July 4.

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!
O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife,
When once or twice, for man’s avail,
Men lavished precious life!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain,
The banner of the free!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!