Ushuaia to Boca Raton – not the most common flight path, and not the easiest way to re-enter our “old” lives.  Just after our passage through the infamous Drake Passage and into the calm waters of the Beagle Passage, the news of Blizzard Jonas began to trickle in. It’s been a while since we cared about the weather back home, but with the girls’ phones buzzing with the electronic countdown of only 2 days until our return, the news of the storm actually mattered. Of all the days…it hit exactly on the day of our long anticipated return.

We’ve become pretty flexible with our travel lately.  9 hour bus rides with 3 hour border crossings don’t impress us. Long horse rides in the rain with a gaucho who spent a lot too much time at the bottle don’t scare us, even if he maniacally yells “Burro viejo” every few minutes. Can’t get through the Lemaire Channel due to an unusual amount of sea ice? Just turn around and reroute. Motorcycle rickshaws? Just like riding a bike. But a snowstorm in Maryland? We were freaking.

So we rerouted to Boca. Reuniting with grandparents after 6 months away was very special, and the kids were ready with great big hugs and tales of adventure. After all the food cravings were satisfied and the penguin guano washed from our shoes (Boca has never smelled worse), we were headed for home.  It’s the pillows that we missed most, really. And being able to flush our toilet paper. And drink the water. And salad. We missed salad.

We used to talk about re-entry and what it would be like to come back home after such an intense time together. Re-entry isn’t word enough for what we are experiencing. We’ve definitely changed but we haven’t had time to really process yet. We have just enough time to repack (lighter this time) and get going to Asia. We are ready.