Sorry for the delay in getting this final post out there to let people know we’re back safe and sound, been a whirlwind re-entry to reality (besides, most the people reading this know we’re home anyway)...and one of the primary instigators of that whirlwind being the Wake game last night – which I’ll get to in a minute.
Yes, re-entry to reality has been a gradual, somewhat grueling process - case and point, I am actually writing a portion of this last post while standing in line at the DMV (plenty of time to fill there). But as for the last leg of our trip, it sure was a surreal experience when we first got in the car to head home from Nashville and rather than programming some hotel address in the GPS we just hit the "Go Home" button. Although we saved the longest leg of our trip for last it really didn't seem that way...Perhaps because we were traveling in familiar territory or maybe because there was the great end goal of being home (probably a combination of both, but more so the latter). I do know this too, I've never been so excited to see the likes of Gastonia (Gas-house!) as I did when it appeared on the signs for getting on I-85 for the last short stretch to Charlotte (which feels long every other time.! Another reason it didn’t seem so long (at least for me) was having the satellite radio to follow all the March Madness action on the first day of the tourney.
In an effort to get this out sooner rather than later, I’ll have to save some of the stories, pictures, and even video for later…but here are a few things to mention as I wrap this up for now:
• I should have kept a running log of this, but all throughout trip we made note of all the different states license plates we saw…So guess how many states we saw in total? Most people I’ve asked this to since we’ve been back have said around 18-20, but we actually saw 37 US States along with several from Canada! What really crazy was where we would see some of them, for example one of the first states we saw was Alabama, all the way in rural Colorado. Here is the entire list in its entirity in order of appearance...Colorado, Ohio, Kansas, Minnesota, Illinois, Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Indiana, Montana, Wyoming, Iowa, Nebraska, Arizona, North Carolina, Alabama, California, New Mexico, South Carolina, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Maine, Oregon, Utah, Tennessee, Washington, Georgia, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, & West Virginia....and then also Ontario (more than once).
• To add to the real-life drama of the whole trip, on Thursday I got a job offer to go back to work for my previous employer (Velocity Sports). So in the midst of everything else going on in our lives add employment consideration and negotiation to the list.
• The final odometer reading was 52,350 so whoever took the under on 52,500 won the bet – and for those not wanting to do the math that amounts to a total of 1,850 miles traveled.
• Now back to the Wake game last night... For once Wake Forest provided for a moment of excitement in the NCAA tourney (albeit probably short lived with having face #1 seed Kentucky on Saturday). Seriously though, for those not aware of our plight, as long as I've been a fan we've had more than our share of crushingly disappointing showings n the NCAA tourney. Ran into Big Country Reeves and Okl State in the Duncan era, then got ‘Pittsnogled’ by West Virginia with Chris Paul, and of course don’t forget getting blown our last year in the first round by Cleveland State – and that was with two first round draft picks and another this year. Not to mention the fact that in both recent years UNC has won the championship (2005 & 2009) we've beat the eventual champs in the regular season only to do nothing ourselves in the post season. But for the record, I did take Wake to win in my bracket…Not that I was at all confident but I had Kentucky advancing in the next round over whoever won our game anyway and I just couldn’t pick against us. Besides, it pains me to say this but it’s true, we always play so much better when nothing is expected of us. It’s when we’re favored or highly seeded that we fall flat on our face. Going into last night I just wanted us to make a game of it and if we went out so be it but don’t just fall flat again…And for once we did exactly as I asked – and then some. Even though we tried our best to give it away, literally and figuratively, we somehow pulled one out for a change. Who knows what will happen tomorrow with Kentucky (a school that has several “WF notches” in its belt from knocking us out a number of times before), but last night alone already exceeded expectations so you never know, like I said we’re dangerous when discounted altogether.
To wrap this up for now, the trip really did go about as best as it possible could have…procedure was promising and the travel was without incident and actually enjoyable. Whether or not anything tangible will come of it remains to be see, but we now have plenty of intangible memories to last a lifetime that are priceless just the same.
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