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us arriving at my sister's house. The van doors opened and we, dozens of Happy Meal toys, french fry stumps and shredded brochures from the Lincoln Log Cabin spilled out. We had made a fourteen hundred-mile trip in three days. Although I had come to the conclusion that the trip was a mistake after my first three hundred miles, there was a sense of being a conquering hero. I knew how Columbus felt when he finally spotted land. I beamed like Neal Armstrong when he walked on the moon. I cursed like Abe Lincoln when he learned his parents had moved out to the middle of nowhere and they demanded he come for a visit.

We spent a week unwinding with trips to the beach and meals with my family. Seafood plucked fresh from the sea and bought right at the dock. A fitting reward for the travels and travail we had suffered. My van took on the aroma of sand and sunscreen as the scent of french fries faded away. Our skin was warm and brown. The sounds of gulls and banging halyards soothed us to sleep at night and the echoing, far away blast of fog horns woke us in the morning. We stopped at the beach one last time before heading back west. The kids ran and screamed with youthful verve as I sat and looked out to sea. Thoughts of how short our time there had been was crossed only by my dread of what awaited on the road back. I thought of just walking into the ocean and ending the problem of driving back, but the joy of the memories my children and I would share for years to come made me smile. I remember thinking, as we loaded into the van and looked back at the ocean, it wouldn't be too bad of a drive. After all, it was only thirty-eight miles back home!

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