I return to the car, coffees in hand, and I think about the world’s other Landsberg am Lechs. How many random villages down this street hold the weight of history in their annals? How many layers of civilization are we driving over, roads so old they’re too deep to unearth? Twenty, like Izmir’s? What other ausfahrts hold secrets, hinges that alter the trajectory of global saga—not just in Germany, but in Italy, Croatia, Morocco, even in the States? How many shoulders do I stand on, their spirits whispering around me as I walk through Venetian alleys, Cadenet’s market, Kenyan fields, and little, unpredictable Landsberg am Lech?
Tonight we tuck the kids in at our new guesthouse in Uhldingen-Mühlhofen, where we watch the sun set from our backyard over the Bodensee, Switzerland waving from the other side. We have no agenda here, other than one final week to catch up on school and work before heading northwest, into northern France and onward to London. The last time we stopped for any length of time was in Cadenet, almost two months ago now. We need a breather before our journey’s final push. I can already see a pinhole-sized light at the end of the tunnel.
The kids’ grandparents are with us, and it’s our duty to let them watch the kids while we go on a much-needed date. The last time we went out was Lourmarin, eight weeks ago. Kyle opens the gate in the backyard, and we cross the street, walk hand in hand along the Bodensee. Earlier today we spotted a pub with outdoor seating in the microscopic town square, overlooking the waterfront. Our kids played in the grass while German teenagers ate picnic lunches nearby, and we eyed the pub like a beacon of light.
Tonight, we stroll down the darkened street that leads to the town square, order lagers from the smoky bar, and zip our jackets as we cradle drinks and wind whips our hair.
“Babe—we’ve done it,” Kyle says, taking a slug of beer.
“We did it,” I answer. I clink his glass in cheer.
“Around the world in one direction. Who’da thought?”
“That it was doable?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “That we’d do it without killing each other.”
“A worthy endeavor,” I answer. We clink glasses again.
He pauses. “Well, we’re not done yet. I guess there are still a few weeks to kill each other.”
Tonight, we decide it’s time to begin landing the plane. In three weeks, we’ll be back in the United States, still undecided about where to call home. We don’t have our answers yet about home, work, and postnomadic life, but we know they’ll come when we need them. Right now, we are still vagabonds. I think of the hat I wanted to exchange with Nora, and I wonder where I finally tossed it into the wind. We’re still crawling the earth and chipping away parts of us that no longer fit, but we’re molding new clay, fresh stuff we gathered on the road. The trip has changed us, but we’re so fully present, here in this Bavarian forest, we don’t yet know how.
I want to write a rough plan on how, exactly, we’ll debrief the kids as our plane descends. We’ve chatted with each of them throughout our year, asking about their favorite and worst moments of a day, what they think about nonstop travel, what they miss about normal life, their favorite things about different countries. Debriefing well is to unpack a backpack and name what’s inside. It doesn’t prevent rough reentries back to a home culture—we know this from personal experience—but it can certainly help smooth the bumps. Tate and Reed are already thinking about a return to American life, but Finn has a limited grasp of time. We need to break the news to him soon: our trip is almost over.
Kyle and I slurp our lagers and hash out what the kids will need to process: people they met, places they already miss, the aftermath and beauty of dividing your heart and leaving it in infinite places. The surprising and inevitable challenge of returning to life in one location looms. These are things we need to process as adults.
We know one kid needs to hash out thoughts about friends, and another needs his own room. One kid needs to catch up on math, and we need a heart-to-heart about continuing school during the summer. All three need serious sleep. This is the stuff of parenting. Traveling never gave us a free pass.
We toast to our three kids and marvel at their growth because of traveling, not in spite of it. We scroll back to photos from the Great Wall in China and witness how much they’ve grown, discuss how they’ve matured. Reed hardly needs his hand held anymore. Tate is solidly in tweendom. Finn outgrew shoes midway through the trip, and is already outgrowing his second pair.
We walk home when the pub closes with a game plan to start preparing for a return home in the next few days. Just before I turn out the light on my nightstand, Kyle already snoring, I pull out a pencil and add to my journal: I need to work through every bit of this too.
A few days later, we’re on our way to the French border town of Strasbourg and we slink down one last ausfahrt, this one for the town of Gengenbach. We know nothing about it, but it’s our last chance to walk on German soil. I’ve grown a fast affection for this country. Barely on the western edge of the Black Forest region, Gengenbach’s medieval town square hosts the world’s largest Advent calendar through its town hall’s twenty-four windows. It also has some bang-up lemon gelato by the main fountain. It’s home to the second labyrinth of our trip.
The kids play in the park that afternoon in Gengenbach, and Kyle watches them from the bench while he chats with his parents. I have a few quiet minutes alone.
Shoes tossed aside, I step into the labyrinth and begin my prayer from Chiang Mai: Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me. I have questions for God. What has this epically long family road trip taught me about myself? How have I changed? How am I still the same? How is God speaking to me through the sheer act of travel? I remember St. Nicholas, the patron saint of vagabonds.
I know, in my soul, that a love for travel is a gift and not a hindrance. It feels like a burden when the bucket list is bigger than the bank account, but a thirst for more of the world is not something to apologize for. Denying its presence feels like denying something good in me, something God put there. Wanderlust has a reputation as the epitome of unrequited love, something the young and naive chase after because they don’t yet realize it’s as futile as a dog chasing its tail. Turns out, ever-burning wanderlust is a good thing.
I step deeper into the labyrinth, one more step, two steps, one foot in front of the other.