The End

8/4/24

Opal-

By the time you read this, we’ll have made it back to Columbia. We didn’t tell anyone we were headed home because Oliver wanted to surprise Henry for his Birthday. We took around three days to get back not rushing our drive at all. We camped in Southern Wyoming one night at a classic RV park that had a free mini-golf course (17 of the worst mini-golf holes either of us had ever seen) and in northern Missouri the next. We stopped at the Kansas City Art Museum around noon on the third day and are now headed back on I-70. So, our summer in Yellowstone has come to a close.

Flashback to two weeks prior.

I was tired of my job, all day every day I would say “Hello, how many today? Alright, you can follow me, just watch your step on the stairs.” Over and over again. It was repetitive and unsatisfying. We also began to realize how little time we would have to transition from home to school when we got back if we left when our contracts ended. The combination of these two things weighed heavy, and then when Maggie’s flight got canceled and she couldn’t visit I had made up my mind.

Our original plan was to spend a few days backpacking in the park before we left, but then Oliver realized if we skipped the backpacking we would get home just in time for his brother’s birthday. Now we find ourselves an hour from home.

This summer was like an escape. I got away from all the stress, got to disconnect from the world, and just enjoy nature with Oliver. It was honestly perfect. What I’ll miss the most is being able to share that with him.

Oliver here, Opal is now driving so it’s going to be me now. Leaving has been bittersweet. I am leaving some really good friends, work I liked, and a place that has become my new home. On the other hand, I get to go back to a family that I haven’t seen in too long and a place that will always be home. I think it says something for Columbia that I can leave a summer as wonderful as this one and have mixed feelings about it.

When I started college, I got this unpleasant feeling that my childhood was over, and life was going to be more about work and less about fun. I think I was right in that I’ve transitioned into adulthood and work is inevitable, but I proved to myself that this stage of life can be just as fun as any other. I went from basically never having a job to working full-time and still had one of if not the best summers of my life. I was completely in the present except for about once a week I would think to myself: there is absolutely nowhere else on earth I would rather be.