Welcome Home

*This was a post I did back in August. I thought it appropriate for today as I'm headed up the hill to get the kiddos. I also felt like it would be a great post for Scribbit's Write Away contest, The Great Escape as it depicts my escape to home away from home.*

As I embarked upon my journey yesterday, I thought about all the times I've traveled the same roads so often and the various stages and changes of my life of those journeys. If I had a dollar for all the gazillion miles I have driven back and forth on those familiar highways, I'd be retired by now.


I can remember being a very young mother with a young infant at my side to keep me entertained along the way, anticipating the familiarity and comfort of "home" and getting away from somewhere so unfamiliar and frightening. Stopping only for a diaper change and a bottle along the way.
A year or so later, the excitement of bringing boy number 2 "home" finally, with the freedom of no more beeping monitors and cumbersome oxygen tanks. A few years later enduring the long drive of 3 boys, the youngest not quite enjoying the ride like his brothers did at his age.

I always take the route less traveled, to get away from the heavy traffic and crazy highways through Big D, although it maybe faster, the scenic serenity of spacious cow pastures, horses and small towns, allows for a more relaxed drive. Though I travel this route so often I always find something new or changes of new growth. I can always tell when the big lake is in need of rain due to drought or when it's swelling with water from all the rain.

One of our most favorite things to see is the river red. It's a sign that it's all down hill (or up hill as the case may be) from here and that were not to to much further. When we see the Oklahoma Welcome Sign, we know it's really saying "Welcome Home..once again" it almost feels prodigal. Once we've been welcomed home the long long road is soon to come. The 90 mile stretch from south to north with nothing but rolling hills and trees. No sign of city life for 2 hours. If your lucky to travel this road at dusk you pretty much have the whole highway to yourself. Just you and all Gods beauty around you. Halfway through your journey your reassured and blessed with the simple sign "Jesus" engraved with stones on the side of the biggest hill for all of the highway to see.

Another hour from East West and home we shall be. The porch light will always be on as a beacon to let us know our arrival has been anticipated. We're embraced with open arms as if we've been gone for a very very long time and home temporarily for now, we shall be.