3,473 Miles Away from Home

January 8th, 2019, was a monumental milestone in our trip and our lives.  Driving to the SW corner of Key West, Florida, we both arrived at the furthest southern point of the Continental United States, and, possibility more significantly, we drove to the furthest possible point away from home without leaving our country.

Swimming in the Atlantic Ocean at Fort Zachery Taylor State Park, the furthest southwest point in Key West, we watched the sunset.

I took the below screen shot with my phone while we were there.  According to Google maps: 3,473 driving miles away from home and 50 continuous hours of driving to arrive at our doorstep.

As the last rays of sunlight painted across the horizon, the park closed and we needed to go.  Go- Every mile we now go we go closer to home.  Though we still have nearly 5 months left on our trip we are officially travelling back home.  We have reached the limit of the size of our country.  We have gone the distance, we have made it to the furthest point.  As large and vast and rich and deep as our country is- everything in this world has its limits.  Not that we have at all exhausted the limits of places to go in this country- far from it!  But one limit that our family has forever reached is the driving distance limit in our country from our home.  We can never again, in our country, be further away than we were on that day.  What other limits, I wonder, can we reach in life?

So what is next for us?  The rest of the month will be spent in Orlando, Florida.  Now most people might assume that means we will be spending days on end at Walt Disney World, but not so for us.  In fact we will not be gracing the Disney park once on this trip.  So why so much time in one place (expect of course for the sunshine and warm weather)?  The next season of our trip is full of trips within a trip.  What I mean is that for one week, I (Josh) will be traveling to California for both business and pleasure and for one week Mel will be traveling to Guatemala for one week with World Vision.  We felt it best to plan these trips back to back so that we could park the motor home in one place and put our RV driving on a two week hold.

Once back from our trips on Feb. 3rd, we will drive straight to New Orleans where we plan on staying for one week.  We plan on traveling to Texas in mid February and are hoping to visit Mel’s brother, Matt, in Kansas City, some time in March.  Much more fun to come.  Many more adventures to be had.  We love and miss you all.  Our hope and prayer is that you too reach out and touch, no matter what it takes, the outer limits of your lives and live life to its fullest.