Now What?

We're so thankful to have had the opportunity to travel across this great country of ours. It's amazing just how big it is. Every place we visited had something unique and special about it.

It's hard to believe that we've lived on the road for an entire year. When we first planned this we hoped to do it for 6 months - and then the Peace Corps timeline changed and we extended it to a year. A few times we asked ourselves, "Can we really do this for a whole year?" I guess the answer is yes! Don't tell anybody, but we've toyed with the idea of doing this again! We didn't even get to hit the "Mountain West." You know, the big states like Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. But next time we might get a Westfalia van to do it in. We'll see.



Many times we've been asked what was our favorite place. Of course we could never give just one answer. I guess you could say these were our top 5 (in no particular order):

• Crater Lake
• The entire California coast (minus Los Angeles)
• Biking the Katy Trail in Missouri
• The Dakotas
• New York City

Our long awaited service in the Peace Corps is just around the corner. We leave on March 14th for Albania. Can you believe it? Our first 3 months there will be spent in an intensive training program, after which we'll be placed in our permanent location for 2 years. I'll be doing community development and Richie will be teaching English.

I'll leave you with one of my new favorite quotes from the Pennsylvania Civil War Trails Road pamphlet. I think it sums up our feelings well:

There's a difference between a trip and journey.
A trip has a beginning and an end, a point A to point B.
A trip is remembered in a few pictures and a handful of laughs.
A journey is different.
It has a start point and a final destination, but a journey lives outside the lines.
A journey connects you to something bigger than a photo album or a fleeting memory.
It becomes a part of you.

Let our journey begin!

Mirupafshim! (That mean "Goodbye!" in Albanian.)