After 14 months of travel in South America and Mexico, we headed home for the holidays. We were looking forward to six weeks in the U.S., from mid-November to the end of December.

We were excited to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with family and friends and to experience the comforts of home.

Although we met many interesting travelers in 2019, it was nice to come back to people who have known us for 5, 10, or 15 years. People who know pretty much everything about us. There’s a pleasant familiarity to being able to pick up where we left off.

Being home also gave us a new appreciation and insight into our own culture. Being back in America has made us realize that sometimes we didn’t appreciate all the nice places and people here. While there are many problems in the U.S., there are also a lot of great things. Americans are friendly, diverse, the food is great, and the cities are wonderful.

From the Warmth of Florida

We flew into Miami and visited Kathy’s mother and brother in Florida for 10 days. We walked along the beaches of Siesta Key where we watched artists create beautiful sand sculptures. We also visited our favorite Florida restaurants and cooked a nice Thanksgiving meal. It was nice to see her family and catch up.

To the Cold of the Midwest

We left the warmth of Florida for the cold of Minneapolis, where we rented a furnished apartment (just as we have in every other city we visited last year).

We had a wonderful time visiting friends and everyone welcomed us as if we were B-list celebrities. I ran with the Rogue runners on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday mornings. I even ran the annual Reindeer run around Lake Harriet. My runner friends and I met at our usual coffee shop hang-out and it felt great to be back home.

From our base in Minneapolis, we traveled to Iowa to see my mother and family. We then drove to Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with our sons. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant which included a drink called a Wild Turkey Bone Marrow Luge–shots of alcohol streaming down the center of the bone to your mouth. A great way to relax before busy Black Friday Shopping.

While in Minneapolis we visited many of our friends who were welcoming and supportive. We also attended a Christmas play in which one of our friends was performing. We are so grateful and humbled that so many of our friends wanted to share coffee, breakfast, lunch and dinner with us.

After another visit back to Iowa, we drove to Chicago for Christmas where we rented another apartment and prepared a traditional Christmas dinner for our sons and their significant others. We even had a fire in the virtual fireplace!

After our Christmas celebration, we saw Matt’s girlfriend, Dorothy, perform in a theater production called Holiday Radio Show, 1944. It was the perfect ending to our time in the U.S.

The hardest challenging part of visiting home was saying goodbye to our loved ones. It was difficult to say goodbye knowing that we won’t see most of them for a year and we felt a mixture of excitement and sadness. But, living abroad is an exhilarating adventure that we embrace because we know that our friends and family are supporting us along the way.

So, as we leave behind the bone-chilling temperatures of Minnesota for the comfortable 70 degrees of Mexico City, we are grateful for an extended holiday with friends and family. Thank you all for your hospitality and generosity.

Farewell to our great friends and family.