I did something I thought I would never do again. I drove 365 miles north to see my son and daughter in law.

After going through a lot of difficult things a few years ago, it left me with a lack of confidence to do things on my own away from home. I am not agoraphobic or anything, just had a fear of being far from my home base by myself. And though it wasn't really obvious in my day-to-day experience of driving my Suzie Cube, I was losing confidence in her reliability, which only added to my anxiety of any thought of driving much further than over the hill to shopping.

But, enter Sir Isaac.

The idea of driving up to see them slowly blossomed and finally bore fruit.

I packed up and left last Wednesday.

It was an idyllic Inian Summer day. It's a beautiful drive from here to their house. The trees were gorgeous, even though I couldn't gawk at them while driving. It was just a lovely day.

I stopped at a rest stop just over the border to make a few adjustments to my mirrors and seat and took this photo to send them to show where I was so far.

Just look at that sky!

They had moved to a different apartment since the last time I was up there. They have this most wonderful balcony on the second floor of the building....

I love it.

One day while I was tidying up, I put my water bottle on the windowsill. It looked so pretty, I took a picture of it. Kinda silly. But I like the way the light was falling on it.

It was so amazing to be in their place, that is in a very big town, but looks out on this amazing woods, that they said is actually part of a park that can't be developed.

It's like living in a treehouse.

It was very soothing and centering. It felt so rare and incongruous, like a secret garden.

One day T. and I went shopping in the mall. It was SO amazing to be shopping WITH someone for a change! We walked ALL over. I was having a grand old time of it. I actually got to go to an Apple store and trade in my older iPad while it still had some value, and bought a new one. We were there RIGHT when they opened and had completed our transaction in 17 minutes! Later we looked it up and as far as we could tell, there are only three Apple stores in all of Oregon, and they are all in the Portland area! What?

On the drive home, it was a totally different experience. It was raining HARD most of the way. The highway was a fog of mist. But it was nice that people were driving in a sane way in it. It was pretty intense. But Sir Isaac is steadier on the road than Suzie. I just have to be honest about that. He's a bigger and heavier car which is nice in those kinds of driving conditions.

I'm very grateful that I got to do this trip. It was a little victory for me with God's help, to do it.

Here we are back home....

We got three inches of rain while I was gone! Everything is soaked.

Now I feel like I'm ready to tuck in for the winter. All my adventures will be inner ones for the next several months. I'm ready for them to begin.