It’s been six weeks.  Did you miss me?

The one true reason I started writing in the first place was to provide my family a written document of what has taken place at this time in history. I print my blogs from year to year so some day they will have something to look back on. I sort of blew it.

It actually feels a lot longer ago than just six weeks, to tell you the truth. We got home from Montana with the final load on September 23. And then it began…as though I had never left. The real world took over and the clock (and calendar) won out! My days have been full – too full! Could we just step back and jump into that harvest world again? No? You mean I really will have to wait for six more months to be back in my Cottage on Wheels?

What I’d really like to do is jump back into blogging beginning with today. Well, maybe a week ago would be better. However, my brain would never allow me to do that. You see, to begin now with the end-of-the-harvest story never really being told, well…that’s just not right. So, I’m going to step back to the point I left off and tell the story. I suppose, because sometimes I get long-winded, I may have to break this up for you. BUT, if I stop writing, I may never finish. So, I’ll keep writing and writing and when it becomes too long for one post, I will just continue it to the next day. Deal? Deal!

After the last acre of wheat was chewed up by the Beast, Jim worked at getting equipment cleaned up and maintained for the trip back home again. He is pretty thorough when he does his end of the wheat season work and can sometimes get overwhelmed with the amount of work he tells himself he must do before the equipment can head for home, home again. In a way, though, this is probably good. We don’t usually have any issues with our equipment (even though most of it is fairly old) on the road due to how well Jim takes care of his machinery. Even the tires are watched and replaced when they start looking like they may not make it to the next destination. Sometimes I accuse him of taking better care of his equipment than anything else – including me! But…I knew that when I was dating him so it should be no surprise.

After several BIG days of cleaning and maintaining, he announced to me he was going to drive his “new” used pickup (purchased from a Jordan local) home and then would rent a car to come back to the trailer house. This left me a couple of days all to myself. I hated the thought of being completely by myself for so long but after the initial lonesomeness, I got used to it and it was ok. I did what I wanted to (which wasn’t much), I visited a dear friend of mine (thank you for the entire day you gave me, Mardrie!), I ate what I wanted to – when I wanted to – and the days went pretty fast. On Sunday after he left, I was to meet him in Billings. He would drop the rental off at the airport and we’d head back to Jordan to begin the process of getting the next trip home. This is exactly what we did except we stopped at Famous Dave’s for a late lunch before we headed back to J Town.

The next trip began on Tuesday morning. Without turning the calendar back, I think we were on the road just one night and Jim was thinking we should stop for a second. We were so close to home and we didn’t HAVE to stop so I pushed him. We did get in much later than he likes but we parked the Cottage and Frank, gathered our overnight stuff and went to Jamie’s for the night. It was so much fun getting to see everyone again and waking up to see Eli the next morning.

We did what needed to be done the next day, packed our bags and went back to Jamie and Curt’s to tell everyone goodbye again. Before we left, though, I had to play with Eli for a little while. I HAD to!

It was late afternoon when we headed the pickup back towards the northwest – Jordan bound once again. Once we arrived in Jordan, we got a room for the night at the Garfield Hotel and went over to Tom Thumb’s house to kill the rest of the day. The next morning, we loaded the Beast for the last time for 2014.

We said our final goodbyes and began the trek for home, once again. I was amazed at how the leaves had changed colors during the couple of days that we were gone. Fall was definitely in the air!

We had perfect travel weather! Since we had already been home once, I was looking more forward to being back and being able to spend time with the kids again. What I wasn’t looking forward to was the amount of work that would need to be done and the clock. My time would no longer be my time. No more days of being controlled by only the sunshine. I would miss this and I didn’t want it to end. But it did. We got home, home with the final load on September 23. And, by the grace of God, we had no problems!

A very unique and very old grain elevator in O’Neill, Nebraska. We spent our final night on the road in O’Neill and woke up to rain. Fitting for the end of the 2014 wheat harvest!

Final destination reached!

Again, we gathered our overnight bags, pillows and miscellaneous being-on-the-road junk and headed for home. It was done and it already felt as though it never happened.

Enough for now…