“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned... I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.”
-Maya Angelou

The last rays of daylight coming through the gray sky guided our way back over the Mississippi River and into Illinois. After a quick jaunt to Memphis for an early tip-off, my friend Drew and I were back on our turf headed for a familiar haunt: SIU Arena in Carbondale.