My mom always says there is nothing better than leaving for a vacation and nothing better than coming home from a vacation. That is where we are at. Thankful for a trip we will all never forget, but also very thankful to be back home in our space doing life the way we like to do it–including back to bread deliveries!

We had the most amazing trip with the family, seeing all the sites that that Washington DC and parts of Pennsylvania have to offer. Wow, was it ever glorious! I felt like we saw ALL.THE.THINGS. but I am sure there is so much we didn’t see. I had never been to DC before and neither had our kids, but as my husband had gone recently, he played tour guide. He is a total history buff too, so he was probably always going to be put in that role. I could go on for days, but I will say this, seeing places you have seen on TV or heard spoken about in history classes your whole life can be shocking–the Senate floor is smaller than I would have thought. The Capitol Building and the White House are just as grand. The Lincoln Memorial is honestly spectacular. Lit up at night, standing on the steps where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I have a dream speech” was breathtaking. As you can see, I have dried up my usual well of adjectives with this trip, and we aren’t even halfway there. I haven’t touched on the somber grandeur of Arlington Cemetery, or the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, or standing in the presence of the actual Constitution, Declaration of Independence, or Bill of Rights. I can’t even begin to go into all the Smithsonian museums we visited (5!). Or how about getting to share with my daughter the names and stories of some amazingly strong women who shaped and/or are still shaping our country today. Nor have I touched on the second leg of our trip through Pennsylvania. Stopping in Gettysburg and seeing the vastness of that battle. Driving through the gorgeous countryside that was Amish country, up to Valley Forge to see where Washington wintered his troops. Crossing the Delaware River (think famous painting in every history book of George Washington in a small boat with lots of ice) into New Jersey, just like Washington, and finally ending in Philadelphia which was our country’s very first capital and seeing the liberty bell and Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed.

All I can say is that it is hard not to visit those places and be completely humbled, awed, and inspired by the men and women who founded this country, who dared to dream of something different, something better. It really was at the time an audacious thought that all men were created equal. Astonishing. And while it would take more than a century more for truly all men and women to be included in that “all men” or the “We, the people,” it radically changed the world.

Amazing right? I have one more thing to share from this trip, and it is definitely a bit more in line with this blog’s stated purpose of bread, or at least food-themed. However, it is a hard left from giant monuments and soaring rhetoric. An argument could be made that it was quite a revolutionary idea though…Either way, I will post about it a little later this week!