After nearly 40,000 words, 573 photos, about 200 miles of walking and hiking, 18 days of remote work, and 12 weekend days (including a holiday), our month away from Arizona ends today. Our only goal is to get home as quickly as possible, and it is with dread that we leave Tonopah, Nevada, because we are anticipating a crush of traffic passing Vegas and Kingman before encountering the impatience of idiots trying to race through Wickenburg to Phoenix, making for dangerous driving.

But those worries were for naught as it was smooth sailing. Sure, Las Vegas was its usual zone of drug-fueled stupidhead drivers, and there was a backup trying to merge on Interstate 40 in Kingman, where we pulled over at Popeye’s for some spicy chicken sandwiches, but other than that, it all went well, allowing us to cover the 509 miles home pretty quickly, getting home before 4:00 p.m. Seventy-two hours later, we’d be leaving again, this time for Santa Fe, New Mexico, but only for a long weekend.