Back from another whirlwind travel adventure

Well I have returned home to Kansas City.  The good things about coming home are:

• Picking up my feathered family members from the avian vet (where they actually have such a great time hanging with new flock members that they seem almost disappointed to see me – with the exception of poor Sunshine, who has separation anxiety, & is at first totally ticked off at me for leaving her there.  But then she slowly warms up, and won’t leave my side for days).
• Having the comforts of my Vitamix, dehydrator, familiar food sources, and all of the things that make it a little easier to stay on my challenging “diet”, and maintain a healthy routine.
• More time to devote to this evolving blog, and all of the other networking that I crave online.  I have taken trips where I spend too much time online, posting, sharing, etc.  And then I have taken trips where my dear significant other convinces me to “turn it off” for a while, live in the moment, and document things once we get home.  THAT is what I attempted to do this time.  I took photos, made some detailed notes on Evernote, and then lived in the moment of our adventures.  So NOW that we are home, and I have gotten past the worst part of transitioning back to the grind of the work day, I am super excited to sneak in some time in the coming weeks to blog, share, communicate, and hopefully even get a jump on planning our next adventure out of town.

The not so good feeling things about coming home are:

• I suffer from serious withdrawal and an overall feeling of being bummed out.  I MISS the places we just went.  I miss the thrill of trying so many new things, having full days of no true obligations – other than the ones I might create for myself – like checking out gluten free businesses, seeing a beautiful sunset over the beach, or having brunch with a friend who I rarely see.
• I become painfully aware of the things we are missing in this city.  This seems to worsen with each trip because while we absolutely are making strides, and I am so very grateful, other cities are also making strides, and they were already way ahead of us to start with.  So no matter what KC does to make it easier for me to live here, some place else manages to one up it in the biggest way ever.  THAT is something I deal with every time we travel, and I need to focus on how I can learn from what I experience in those other cities, and find a way to incorporate some of it back home.
• The weather – luckily this time we have had more sun than I am used to January in KC, and I AM LOVING IT.  I felt like the vitamin D and beauty of the sunny days /blue skies we just saw in California were healing me.  I dreaded coming back home to the dead winter scene.  There is still ice on our driveway from before Christmas.

So once I get the rest of our things unpacked, and some laundry done, I will start to document our lovely trip to California right here.  I am hoping as I experience everything a second time through photos and memories, that instead of being sentimental and sad like I sometimes get, I will find inspiration and motivation.  So stay tuned……….