more about our roadtrip

We are back in Minnesota after almost 6 weeks of traveling around America.  The trip was so amazing that it is hard to figure out how to write about it in brief.  I think that knowing people in so many places is cool and I am glad that I could visit friends and family around the country.  But it is also hard to say goodbye and know that it will be some years before we see each other again.  I know some really wonderful people!  When I am in Mali I miss certain things about America and when I am in America I miss certain things about Mali.  Sometimes I wish that all of the people I love could all be my neighbors so I could see them all the time.  Maybe it's like that in heaven.  I know it could be a lot harder and I am thankful for the ways I can stay in touch with people easily through modern technology.  For missionaries in the past it was much more difficult.  Just 15 years ago I wouldn't have had a cellphone or easy internet access in Mali.  It makes the world seem smaller to think that at any moment in Mali I can just dial up my mom and at the same time her phone rings thousands of miles and an ocean away and (for about 40 cents a minute) we can talk.

So enough of my rambling and back to the roadtrip:  JP got some really good experience driving in the states.  We were never stopped by the police.  The only car trouble we had was one flat tire (or rather I was driving on a low tire which someone pointed out to me and we had to put the spare on, no biggie.) We had to go through 3 border patrol/immigration checks when we were near Mexico.  I would have liked to cross into Mexico, but that wasn't possible because JP's USA visa is single entry, so we can't go to Canada either.  At 2 of the border control places they just looked at us and waved us through.  But at one they asked if we were both US citizens. I said that JP is from Africa and they made us pull over and find his passport to look at.  We almost ran out of gas once.  The light was on for a long time telling me that the gas was low, but we were in the middle of nowhere in southwestern Texas.  There is nothing there for a long time.  Finally an exit with a gas station appeared and I was able to get some gas, even if they were charging an extra dollar a gallon!  We were lucky because the gas prices were lower that they'd been in years during our trip.  When we left MN it was about $1.89 (it's up to $2.25 in MN now) and the highest prices were in California at about $2.59.  We enjoyed all kinds of weather along the way, but now we are back to below 0 freezing cold winter in Minnesota.  We've been inside a lot since we've been back!