It was quite the adventure. The truckasaurus shows about 2700 miles on the clock and a message that it’s time for an oil change. It also picked up some ugly dirt and is in dire need of a bath.

The bikes are unloaded, the trailer is disconnected, the yard is mowed, the laundry is in process. As usual, I’m sitting on my deck drinking my own coffee. (I try not to drink a lot of coffee when I travel due to the distance to the next restroom.) Puppy treats are delivered. We are already back in the daily routine of our lives.

Some people I know shy away from the diesel engines but I am pretty happy with mine. The setup you see in this picture got 13 MPG across all the challenges of U. S. highways. The trailer lost several screws as a result of the terrible road surfaces across South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. The truck looks the way it does even though we never encountered any rain. The rain seemed to stay ahead of us. Some of the highways were wet but we never really got rained on directly.

The last couple of days were spent driving down the interstate. There are no pictures of that. The drivers in each state we passed through are getting less considerate of other drivers. I wish everyone would realize that there is no place to be that requires that much aggression or speed.

I’m still addicted to playing crane machines (also know as “claw machines”). I was lucky enough to win a cute little giraffe (stuffed of course, a real giraffe would have been harder to pick up). I usually try to pick out a small child in the area and forward the animal to them. This one was no exception. I don’t take pictures of the children for obvious reasons but here is what the giraffe looked like before heading to his new home in Iowa.

I am thankful that we are home safely. Mrs. Henry did more than her share of driving. I am really grateful. We agreed that long road trips aren’t enjoyable for us anymore. Not sure exactly what that means for our future ramblings. There are still sights in the U.S. that I want to see. There is still room on my map for more pins.

Thanks for following along. I’ll spend the rest of the days replacing screws in the trailer and washing the truck. The Rambling is done for now.