Today we woke just as early as we had for the whole week. This time, however our days were not to be filled with the work of helping Iowians get back to their life, but with long hours of tightly packed vans. For the last time our breakfast was prepared for us. The bittersweet day fell only slightly to the sweet side when our last deliciously sweet meal was served. The vans were loaded as tight as they could, leaving only the necessary space that a person would need.

We said our goodbyes to Don, Evelyn, Shelley, and the pastor of the church, thanked them and drove off towards a gas station. We filled the tanks with the oddly cheaper super and said our last goodbyes to our temporary home for the last few weeks. 3 vans headed to toledo while a chevy and a little suv went to the enterprise to get the previously broken van. Travel days are all the same if they go well. Sit, drive, stop, eat, pee, repeat. No major problems or delays on day one of travel as far as i know. Im not really sure who got lost and when because 90% of the drive time i was asleep.

Lunch consisted of either some sort of meat sandwich from the work day before, pb&j, pb&b (peanut butter and bananas), and for the lucky vegetarians a humus and lettuce sandwich. There was a variety of snacks in each van...more than we could ever need. At least this time there would be no bagels to look forward to. We arrived in Toledo, Ohio after about 12hrs on the road. Luckily all vans within 30min of each other so we all had a nice spaghetti dinner then headed off to bed in anticipation for another long day on the road.

It was our first day on the trail back to New Jersey. We got on the road and took I-80 all the way through Indiana, Missouri and half-way through Ohio to stay at a church in Toledo. This was a day of straight driving.  We said our good-byes to Pastor Lynn at the church, Don and Evelyn from the Habitat House, and Shellie, our AmeriCorps Alumnus host.  We got gas and were on the road by about 9:30am. We took some short breaks but tried to stay away from the 20 – 30 minute bathroom stops like we had on the drive to Iowa. People were in and out when we stopped for bathroom breaks and lunches fit into our car swap in Davenport, because the excitement of going home was high. Some slept, some read and others conversed the entire time. Even though the vans didn’t stick too closely together (two vans had to go separate ways to return the temporary replacement vehicles to Enterprise), we arrived 12 hours later within 20 minutes of each other.  We all went to bed early since we would wake up bright and early for our drive to New Jersey tomorrow.