July 24th, 2021

Close to Home
A few days ago we passed that invisible barrier that automatically changes our devices' time. It was the third time this trip and it always seems to surprise us. Since then, we have been on Eastern Time, so our girls feel a sense of closeness, not only because each pedal stroke is getting us closer to home, but also because they are now in the same time zone as most of their friends. But honestly, we still felt that we were not yet on the East coast as everything around us still looked like the midwest. That really changed yesterday.

Before yesterday, we have been hearing from locals about their thoughts on where the midwest starts and ends. This discussion went on for weeks. Some people put Ohio in the mid west while others bulked it with the East Coast. But now, we are 100% on the East Coast. We entered Pennsylvania. There's no denying that PA belongs on the East Coast. I mean, can't you get to the Atlantic from Philadelphia, after all?

But really, more seems to have changed when we got into PA than in the last bunch of states. There are more trees than before. The corn and soybeans we have been seeing since Nebraska are all but gone. We saw a little bit of corn today, but definitely no soybeans. And the huge expansive, industrisl fields of corn have been replaced by mom and pop stands, and actually, there are just a lot less farms and more actual trees.

But the Changes are even more noticeable now that were in Erie, PA. We have been seeing some homes that look like the homes on Medford streets. In fact, for those from Medford, we were hosted by a family that has a colonial that could be on Governor's Ave, the house is beautiful and the street even has that center grass area as well! If only we could ride around the corner, a quick shot down Lawrence, and turn onto our street and be home!?

After we pulled into their home and settled in, got showered up, and had dinner with them, we really had not seen their home's details. Once I started noticing, it just felt like we were visiting someone in Medford. After dinner we were offered some ice cream and if all the things I mentioned above weren't enough signals for us to see that we are close to home, the Wegman's ice cream box was a definite sign telling us we're not far now.

We were still in Oregon, the first state on our trip, so we definitely didn't expect to change time zones then. We all assumed that we would at least get out of OR before a time change happened. But it came fast. On this particular day, we had 70 plus miles, with no stores or services in between, just the change into Mountain time. The other time zones didn't quite sneak up on us, but they still arrived quickly. I guess time moves like we move on our bikes. Each pedal stroke seems as slow as each second tick, but they accumulate quickly, and before we knew it, we had almost arrived back home. We're so close, we can almost feel it, almost.