Day 14 - Homeward bound - Wednesday, 3/8/23

Our initial views of the Durango blue skies

The last leg of our trip was flying from Dallas to Durango which was wonderfully uneventful. Leaving behind the mountainous views of Chile, I was warmed to see our local San Juan mountains out my airplane window as we neared landing. Home was sounding very good.

Anxious to get home, Garrett and I did a divide-and-conquer where I would gather our checked bags and he would fetch our truck out of long-term parking. The bags came surprisingly fast, but Garrett did not. I sent a text, letting Garrett know which door to find me. Still no Garrett. Finally, he called.

“The battery is dead. I’m waiting for a jump.”

Time to practice adaptability.

Lugging bags and joining Garrett, we took in the lovely day while waiting for airport staff to arrive with jumper cables. When Garrett determined the truck would not start without a jump, he went to the airport office inside the terminal. Apparently, this must happen often as they immediately dispatched an airport vehicle with jumper cables as a courtesy. I’m glad my husband knew this was our first option. I would have started by calling friends.

The young man an airport vehicle showed up quickly. After connecting cables and some engine revving, we were off. Easy, peasy (as Mariana would say).

Homeward bound, top of mind was our dog, Zeke. This two-week stretch was the longest we have been away from him. He did not disappoint our need to feel missed with his vertical jumps and many kisses as we came in the door.

Unpacking when we got home, I found that I had left behind my black Omaha beanie. Retracing my steps and my last photo taken in it, I likely left it in tent #2 when I doubled up my headwear while sleeping. After running into a lady on the streets of Santiago wearing a bright Nebraska Cornhuskers t-shirt (and then finding out she did not speak English and didn’t know who the Nebraska Cornhuskers were), I can only hope someone in the Refugios of Patagonia found it and are wearing the Omaha beanie proudly while climbing the mountain towers. We were just thankful that Garrett’s wallet (and his puffer jacket that was lost for a short period of time) made it home. My beanie was replaced with my Santiago purchases of local jewelry and an EcoCamp t-shirt with a great reminder message on the back: “There is no WIFI at EcoComp Patagonia but you will find a better connection.”

The next morning Tom sent a text to our group about a failed plane heist at the Santiago airport that just happened a day after we flew out. The husbands deemed it an interesting coincidence and as it was an incoming flight, no direct connection to us. Kristi and I countered, wanting to link it to the extra security and water bottle dumping going onto the planes.

Kristi’s text response summed up my thoughts exactly…

“Whoa!! Bullet holes in Delta aircraft?? They did find my hiking sticks though!! And thank goodness they emptied the poison water!“

Our extraordinary adventure was officially over and there really is no place like home.

Epilogue:

While in EcoCamp we heard the back stories of how the other members of our group met. The Victorias met while hiking the China Wall trek and hit it off. They have since traveled several more treks together. Victoria #1 and Judy (part of the ‘J’ family) have completed Ironman competitions and continue to train in the same group. One day Victoria #1 asked us the same question.

“So how do you all know each other?”

Such a great question, but how quickly I forgot that not everyone knows our backstory.

The story Kristi and I started at a 5:30 am run in 1999. I was invited by a mutual friend to join their neighborhood morning running group. Kristi and my first conversation during our inaugural run centered around potty-training our now 26-year-old children. This began our streak of 20 years of running together. Although our group expanded and contracted many times over these 20 years, Kristi and I stayed true to our 3 runs during the week (5 miles each, 5:30 am start) with a long run every Saturday with a later start time.

Our bond began from the minute we met and we continued to share life over all of these hours of running in the morning darkness. I had another baby, went through a divorce, and then began a new chapter with my new husband, Garrett…all with Kristi by my side. Through career changes, family deaths, and many more laughs than tears, we kept on running through life.

There was also one marathon that Kristi and I completed in 2005. We laughed on this hiking trip that our training and results were very similar to our one and only marathon. Kristi and I deemed ourselves the only people who could actually GAIN weight during marathon training. We basically consumed more calories than we expended. This hiking trip was similar with continuous forced feedings and muscle gain. One thing I won’t miss is the ongoing question while hiking “sandwich, nuts, or a protein bar?”

Doing the math over our twenty years of running, I estimate Kristi and I have spent over 2,600 hours together running over 17,000 miles. This averages 130 hours a year. With my move from Omaha in 2019, we reinvented our time together. Although we can’t always find 130 hours to catch up, we have gotten creative, planning adventure trips with our husbands. Note I am being liberal in saying ‘we’ planned adventure trips. Our husbands planned the trips and our bonus is that our husbands appear to be longtime friends to outsiders. Win-win. It is rare to find four people who travel and enjoy life so well together.

As for our next trip, our husbands have put us in charge. Kristi and I tease that it will include a beach but we all know that is highly unlikely. Our friendship always includes constant movement. I am so grateful for the work we put into the friendship we keep. It would be too easy to move on with our separate lives, 870 miles apart. But we have chosen not to leave it behind. It is a great gift of friendship that we keep and now share with our husbands. Our next adventure? Unsure at this point, but it sure will be fun to plan together.