While we traveled, Julia and Stephen had hungered for the company of their own kind, and they have nestled comfortably back into routine. We aren't allowed to shop at Goodwill anymore -- "It makes me feel like we're poor," says Julia, "and I can't find anything fashionable there." She now wears jeans that drag on the ground with elaborate laces up the sides that we bought at Old Navy. She wants to try out for cheerleading, and she is, like, ohmygod, whatever. We both know it is a game, and we chuckle about it when she sits on my bed at night and the events of the day bubble up through her chatter. We both agree that we like indoor plumbing and central heat -- amenities hard to find in Forest Service campgrounds.

Stephen, on the other hand, has returned with greater confidence and a deeper sense of purpose. He plans to join the Navy and work on airplanes. He is more aware (and sometimes less tolerant) of the narrow horizons of his peers. His teachers say he seems mature and experienced for his age.

"You know, Mom," he said to me recently, "I think I'd be in a lot of trouble now if we hadn't gone away." I think he's right, and when the dogs of inadequacy nip at my parental heels, I know that this time, for once, we got it right.

We got it so exquisitely right. There was no dark side to this adventure. No caveats. No regrets. Despite intermittent hardship; despite being robbed in Mexico and escorted by the police from a city park in Muncie, Ind.; despite almost driving off a mountain; despite an abundance of hormones and miscellaneous inner demons, we experienced a marvelous, life-changing journey together.

I wanted to be changed. I didn't want the trip to be simply an 18-month holding pattern after which I'd pick up all the balls I'd dropped. I didn't want to be sucked back into the riptide of rush and hustle, into the jaw-clenching, teeth-grinding, disease-inducing adjectives of the culture I left for a time. I didn't want to accumulate possessions or meaningless obligations again.

So far I haven't. Part of me simply has not come back from the road, and I hope it never does. I may have lost muscle tone, but I have kept my peace.

I've also lost other, unexpected things: my coffee habit, my nail-biting habit, and the headaches that used to screw my head to the pillow. And I've lost a lot of fear. After rambling thousands of miles, I've found that people generally (not always) mean well; that things generally work out; and that when they don't, I am generally competent enough to deal with it.

I've absorbed some of the world's astounding variety and beauty, and I think it's a pretty fine home for humans to share with other creatures. In fact, I think that awe is a far more rational reaction to this world than fear.

When one fear topples, a domino effect is set in motion. Now I worry less about money, about finding work, about my car breaking down (it already has). Fear is contagious, but so are confidence and trust, and they are better companions for the road.

Because I'm less fearful, I'm also less angry. I don't get mad at telemarketers or rude drivers or long waits in slow lines. I don't need to watch my back, and I don't assume that mechanics or insurance companies or the guy who just sold me a broken dryer is out to screw me. (Well, maybe he was, but I made him fix the dryer.) I haven't become a patsy; I've just decided that peace is an absurd price to pay for indulging in anger and fear. And that eliminates a huge reservoir of bad energy -- the kind that makes you sick.

In a way I'm still journeying, still without a plan, exactly, or an itinerary or a destination. I'm taking my time; I'm trying to listen to whispers that were once washed away in life's floodwater. Listening, I find, is a discipline that requires silence, faith, time and lack of clutter -- all the elements of a good road trip. And I know how good the road can be.

The autumn harvest is almost over in Michigan. Trucks drive by my house loaded with crates of blushing apples, orange carrots, sunny corn, sugar beets and onions. The two-lane I live on is a crease in the palm of Michigan's mitten, stretching from the bean fields in the east to the pristine dunes of Lake Michigan just eight miles to my west. I go there frequently to walk by our blue, freshwater sea and absorb the rhythm of the waves. I go there to look across the water and remember.

I have never been so free and fearless. I will travel again, and I hope it will be soon.

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