We woke up Sunday morning ready to head home. We made short work of loading up the van – by now we are pros at this! Then we cleaned up the house minimally and headed out of Dodge. We made good time in the first few hours, everyone was mellow and settled in to the van, and we didn’t have to stop a hundred times.
Kansas was cloudy and sometimes rainy on this drive. Not the most interesting landscape to look at, since we couldn’t see very far, but it was still relaxing, and Lover and I chatted while the kids played. After a while we pulled out the electronics, which kept them all entertained for even longer.
We reached Burlington, CO, right on the border, and everyone was hungry and ready for a break. We stopped at the big city park, and the kids happily played on the playground and also cajoled us into letting them play at the splash park. I ran to the store and got chips and apples to go with our chicken Caesar salad wraps, and also touched base with the lady we’d be meeting up with tomorrow to get our keys back.
Happily, she told us that the house was vacant and ready for us to come back home! We jumped at the chance to sleep in our beds instead of a hotel, and made a beeline for Aurora. The rest of the miles fell away quickly as everyone was impatient for the trip to finally be over!
We reached our house a little early, and… it looked terrible! Part of the agreement was that they would keep up the yard, but they clearly had let things go. The kids and I emptied out the van into the garage while Lover pulled waist high weeds around the house. By the end of an hour and half, it looked like people lived there again, and the van was empty. The kids were thrilled to be home, and ran around the backyard like it was Christmas, exclaiming over every little treasure they found.
The tenants dropped off the keys, and we let ourselves in. The house is in decent shape – everything needs a good scrub, but nothing major was damaged. We did find evidence of a leak on the ceiling in the den, but it looks like it was from a onetime event like an overflowing tub or something, not an ongoing leak. We’ll investigate further in the next few days, but it looks like everything is in pretty good condition, and we are so happy to be home! I got right to work stripping beds, washing sheets and getting us set for the evening. The kids played, Lover fixed little things, and everyone was happy. It’s good to be home!