When we left the mainland for New Zealand eight months ago, we had no idea what our next destination would be. Australia? Southeast Asia? Japan? We figured we’d just let the winds of chance point us. A few months ago,when we got news that a reunion of my mom’s side of the family on the former family farm in Wisconsin would be happening in Northern-Hemisphere summer, our initial thought was “ah, too bad we’ll miss that, it would have been a good chance to see relatives we haven’t caught up with in years”. But then when we heard that my brother’s family would be flying in from Oregon for the event, our new thought was “dammit, we can’t let those guys (who, unlike us, haven’t made a Wisconsin appearance in decades) show us up!”

So that settled it: as New Zealand autumn pushed us out, we’d return to the Northern Hemisphere to experience our third summer in a row. And of course the opportunity see my brother’s family during their visit to Illinois was the actually-important factor, along with stringing together visits with other family branches.

Our three weeks staying with Mom & Dad went surprisingly fast. We’re grateful to Joel, Chika, Ren, and Noah for being willing to share one bathroom amongst the six of us, and to Mom and Dad for being willing to share one house amongst the eight of us for the week in the middle. Because that close-quarters living is what allowed us to maximize our time together.

Partly due to having the whole family together, this visit was even more of a nostalgia-fest than our other stays in Chicago over the last few years have been. In addition to the home-cooked classics like lasagna, we ate El Famous Burritos, Lou Malnati’s pizza, Superdawg hot dogs, and Kuma’s burgers. Walks through Park Ridge and a bike ride to the city’s fireworks show put me straight back in high school (though we were too late in the season to witness the mega-cicada brood).

Of the ~45 members of my grandparents’ branch of the family tree, we know of just six who live outside of the state of Wisconsin. And only two have actually leapt over the border themselves, most-prominently, my Mom, who went to Chicago as a young single woman. Four of the five other non-Wisconsinites then simply descend from her (myself, my brother, and his two kids), though apparently the leave-home mutation was passed down to us as well, since Joel left Illinois for Oregon 20 years ago, and I’ve had no physical home at all for the last three years.

Nonetheless, Rett and I have always loved the landscapes and rural atmospheres of southwest Wisconsin. The sharply-hilly “Driftless Area”, upon whose eastern edge my grandparents’ farm was sited, is topographically quite similar to the Finger Lakes area of New York where Rett is from. So we figure it’s something in our epigenetic history that makes such areas feel deeply attractive to us, and one reason that we loved the sharply-hilly farmlands that cover much of New Zealand as well.

So in a way, we’re a bit jealous of the other 85% of the family who has remained close to this area, and remained so connected to the roots of the land and the branches of the family. And we’re grateful to the members who have preserved a large portion of my grandparents’ farm within that family, and allowed the prodigal among us to reconnect with not just those parts of the family that we haven’t seen in years, but with the rich land from which our family grew and flourished.

With the “family” side of our return to the Midwest this time being significantly busier than previous visits, the “friends” side was a bit more difficult to squeeze in, so we’re grateful to all our friends who were able to make time for us in their busy summer schedules.

The last time we visited my parents, we arrived and departed via Amtrak, and in the middle, took a train to and back from New York. So this time, when they gave us and our bikes a ride to Union Station, it felt weird that it was our first trip there, and sad that it was also our last. Well, until next time, but just like the last time, we don’t know when we’ll feel called “home” again.

Luckily as we were boarding Rett heard the conductor say that the air-conditioning was broken in half of our car, so we were able to run up and get a seat in the working half (and in fact it ended up getting quite cool up there, presumably because the unit in front was trying to make up for the busted one in the back). With that save, it was an uneventful overnight trip to Syracuse, one we’ve made many times now (and we’ve biked Chicago-Skaneateles twice already, so didn’t feel any need to do it a third time). Rett’s dad arrived to pick us up in his van, and we continued our lucky lives as 40-somethings handed off from one set of parents to another.