Big American Roadtrip

We’ve been on the road for 3 ½ weeks now!  We left Minnesota early on a below-freezing morning.  Just 20 minutes later we were in Wisconsin and a few hours after that we entered Michigan.  We like to keep things exciting, so we managed to drive into and through a snowstorm on the first day of our trip!  After that we headed south until we hit the Gulf of Mexico in Alabama where the weather was much more to our liking, and from there we’ve been going west.  When we get to California we will go north and east until we return to Minnesota about 2 weeks from now. 
The main reason for this big trip is to visit family, friends, and people who support us in our work in Mali (who are generally also family and friends.)  It has been amazing to see so many people that we haven’t seen in a very long time, or in some cases to meet them for the first time.  Besides seeing a lot of special people and receiving gracious hospitality, we have appreciated a lot of other things about this trip as well.  Some examples are:  seeing so much of the USA, experiencing American culture in varied forms in different homes,  JP having to practice his English a lot,  the wonderfully low price of gas, spending a lot of time together as a couple, being out of a regular routine helps us step back and see things from a new perspective, trying new foods, and having that exciting sense of adventure.

A big fancy house in the snow in Michigan.

On Wolf Bay off of the Gulf of Mexico in Alabama.