Since I wasn't sure how much sleep I would be getting on the way home (since I assumed I would be in the van again I also assumed not really any) I decided to forgo getting up early and eating breakfast to sleep in until 8am. I had brought along some snack/breakfast bars so I had one of those, finished my packing, turned in my keys, helped do final checks of our rooms, and then lugged my baggage back down to meet the buses.
As the adults gathered to figure out the game plan-thanks to my wondering what time the Mall of America opened on Sundays, we had learned that going there before going to Chicago wasn't an option-I learned that the van I thought I was going to be on had already left. So that meant that I was spending the entire trip home on the bus, which would only prove better than the van ride if two things happened a) I got to sit alone and b) I got more than an hour's worth of sleep.
We ended up leaving Bethel University around 10am and didn't stop until we had lunch at a Hardee's in Wisconsin. We arrived in Chicago around 6:30pm where we headed to the courtyard of the Cathedral of St. James' to have a brief Eucharist together as the whole of Province III (mostly) before we separated to get dinner. I went with a small group and we found a Qdoba to eat dinner at then a few of us wandered around until it was time to return to the courtyard to say good-bye to one of the buses before heading off around 9pm. I did try some deep dish pizza, it was different.
We stopped briefly in Indiana twice once to change drivers in Portage and once at a rest stop around 12am. I did manage to get a bit of sleep from about 2 to 5am. We stopped in Pittsburgh around 6:30am where we had breakfast, said goodbye to the other bus and the participants from the Pittsburgh area, then found a Starbucks before heading for the turnpike. Turned out there was a fatal crash on the turnpike so it was closed. We were forced to take a different route home that included a stop in Cumberland, MD, where the nice people at Emmanuel fed us some lunch around 11:45am. We left for Ellicott City at 1pm and made it there by 2:30pm where the Diocese of MD disembarked and said goodbye to the Diocese of Easton.
All in all it was an amazing experience yet again. I maybe would have changed a few things about E.Y.E. itself but I wouldn't change what I did and how I felt. I got goosebumps more times than I could count and I was constantly in awe of the way God was working in all the people around me all at once and at various times. In addition to all that there was a sense of rightness, of my being exactly where I was supposed to be at all times while I was there. A sense that I was doing what God wanted me to be doing, and a hope that blossomed that I am continuing to move down the right path with my life. I guess only time and God will tell if I was imagining things or not. I certainly hope not.
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