Day 142 - Saturday, December 6, 1997

So, what's the deal?
Our Adventure is now over. That's right, we've decided to end our trip after over 140 days and 16,844 miles (118 miles per day). We're back home for the holidays, then we are moving to Phoenix. That's right! We fell in love with Phoenix while we were there, so we decided to make it our new home.
Why Phoenix? First off, the weather. We love the heat and sunshine and simply despise the cold. Heat may make you sweat, but cold makes you hurt!! Phoenix has over 300 sunny days per year and only 7 inches of rain. This appeals to us. Phoenix is also the ninth largest city in the USA and it's growing. Despite this, it has a small-town feel to it. The people are friendly and the service is good. Traffic is a breeze compared to the Washington area. It's a great town!

How did we spend the last nine days on the road?
Well, after Thanksgiving we spent a few days looking for a place to live. We decided on an Apartment in Mesa near the University of Arizona. In fact we'll be living on University Drive, not too far from the college. It was tough finding a place that takes large dogs, but that actually helped since we didn't have to choose from the hundreds of apartment complexes.

After we picked an apartment we stored most of personal belongings in a storage facility near our new apartment. We then stored The Den at an RV storage park and hit the road for home on Monday the second with our laptop, camera, and the clothes our backs.

We decided to drive like maniacs and get back home on Saturday. We drove about 2,500 miles in just five days. It was insane, but it was a blast!! While driving through Texas Marci developed a creative strategy for staying awake: counting dead animals. In one stretch of road she counted 35 dead skunks, five raccoons and two deer. Morbid but effective.

We made a mad dash from Louisiana back to Maryland starting Friday morning at around 11:30 and ending Saturday around 2:00 in the afternoon. We drove straight through only stopping to eat, refuel, pee, and to take a two hour nap at a rest stop. We then surprised our parents!! What a riot!!

The Big Questions
What did you like the most?
The free champagne and caviar in the nicer campgrounds!! Seriously, there's no easy answer to that. We loved every minute of the trip. What stands out the most is that we were able to lose the sense of time. It didn't matter when we went to bed or got up. The day of the week didn't matter. The month didn't matter. It's hard to explain, so you'll have to trust us!

What was the prettiest place you saw?
Probably the Hoh Rainforest. It was just gorgeous. The trees were huge and everything was green. Jim is still impressed with the Badlands. In fact all of the national parks were great. It's amazing what the land looks like when we don't mess with it!!

Why did you stop your trip?
We knew that before we left we might last only two weeks or go for a whole year (assuming the money held out). We had no real preconceptions. We just knew that we'd both know when we were done. And we did. It was funny...we both wanted to say something about it on the very same day. Then and there we decided that it was time to start wrapping things up.

Was it hard living in a trailer?
Yep!! But it was well worth the effort. We could have done things to make life easier. For example, we shouldn't have brought the bath tub. And Marci should have waited to learn the cello. Other than that, though, we did pretty good. We used everything we packed and didn't miss anything we didn't pack!!

Are you sad about moving to Phoenix?
Yes and no. We will miss our families a great deal, of that we have no doubt. We'll also miss our good friends, many of whom we've known for years. We invite you one and all to come join us in Phoenix!! You'll love it!! We'll also miss the great group of people we met on our rag-tag softball team last spring. It's not often you form a team with strangers and end up making good friends!

On the upside we're looking forward to starting from scratch out in Phoenix. We're excited about being in a new town, meeting new people, trying new stores and restaurants, and learning a new culture. Just think of all the new people Jim can knife and Marci can roll for change!!

What will you do for a living?
Jim will continue programming and will look for more consulting work out in Phoenix, something he had to let drop off in anticipation of leaving on our adventure. Marci is not planning to go back into teaching at this time. After seven years and many accomplishments, she's ready to try something new. We both hope to derive most of our income from freelance work so we'll be free to travel and visit our friends.

Special Thanks To: Chris, for taking care of our finances; Mitch, for getting us a great car; Mami, Dadi and Mom, for letting us call frequently...and collect; John, for letting us use his 800 number just to bullsh*; and to all the folks who e-mailed us - that meant a lot to us.

Thanks for indulging us by reading these web pages. We've had a blast writing them and hope you've enjoyed reading them. You can always reach us at carrtrek@aol.com. In fact we hope you'll write us soon!