Road Trip Memories

There's nothing like a good, old-fashioned road trip across the United States to open your eyes to the wonders of this great country and create memories that will last a lifetime. We recently undertook a 5,000-mile road trip that took us through 11 states in the mid- and southwest region. In addition to spending time with family, we took in numerous sites along the way. It was incredible!

The house on the left is in Illinois and was built by my dad in the mid-1950s for us to live in. The photo on the right is the site of the first elementary school I went to for 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades. Yep, progress has turned it into a Target and a Starbucks!

 

You never know exactly what you will see at the next exit. The giant pink elephant was at a gas station and has been around for 70 years, although he has been moved around a few times. The rooster in the car was an advertisement for a restaurant.

Route 66 runs all the way from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California and was the main route to travel from the Midwest to the Pacific Coast prior to the 1970s. I remember traveling on it as a child in the backseat of a 1961 Chevrolet Biscayne with my brother. These photos were taken in Tucumcari, New Mexico.

The Route 66 slogan is, "Get Your Kicks on Route 66."  I would love to take a vacation and drive Route 66 all the way from the Southwest to the Midwest and all of the stops along the way!

 

And these are just a couple of extra photos for fun. Road trip memories--can't beat 'em!

My, Didn't it Rain?!

Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came upon the earth.  You can read the history in the book of Genesis, chapters 6-9. Noah and his family boarded the ark and God shut the door. For 40 days, the waters rose upon the earth, flooding everything and causing the ark to rise higher and higher above the mountain tops. What must it have been like for Noah and his family to open the window in the ark and see nothing but water upon the earth.  No land, no houses, no trees, no flowers, no animals, no birds...nothing existed upon the earth except Noah, his family, and all of the animals that had been taken into the ark. I can't imagine what that would be like.

Since moving to the Southwest, we have been introduced to Monsoon Season, the period of time

from June through September when several inches of rain can be dropped on the earth in a very short period of time. Here in the desert, the water has nowhere to go--the ground does not absorb the water--it just runs everywhere. We have watched our street flood while trashcans float down the road; floodwaters rise halfway up our driveway and we wonder if it will ever stop. It's quite amazing and a bit scary at times.

When the earth flooded in Noah's time, God made a promise to Noah: "Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth." (Genesis 9:11, New International Version) To solidify this promise, God set a rainbow in the sky as a sign of the covenant between God and Noah and all of the generations after Noah.  "I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth." (Genesis 9:13, NIV)

The recent flooding in Louisiana may cause us to question this promise, but we have to remember that God is still in control. Satan has the freedom to roam the earth until Jesus comes again, but God is our strength, and we can turn to Him for comfort in adversity. 

Embrace the Place

Home. The place where you live. The place where a person is born or where they grew up. Home means different things to different people. For me, home is where I am. 

I was reading through some of my old posts, particularly the one written in July of 2012 where I was complaining about how hot it was and, at the time, we were living in the Pacific Northwest. When I wrote that post, I had no idea that I would be living in the southwestern United States four years later, where the temperatures rarely drop below 100 degrees for weeks at a time. 

Life has a way of changing, and you never know where you will be going today, tomorrow, next year or in the next decade. The greatest challenge is accepting where God has planted you for today and "embrace the place". I am not particularly thrilled about where we are living right now, but I am learning to accept that, for now, this is home. 

There are some wonderful things about the Southwest--beautiful sunsets and sunrises, comfortable winters, beautiful cactus blossoms in the spring, and wide open spaces. Then there are those aspects that are not so great--snakes, dust storms, monsoon storms, and excessively high temperatures. From June through September, the temperatures soar above 100 degrees and rarely drop below 80 degrees at night. There are weeks when the temperature soars above 110 degrees for days, and it is unbearable.  

Back to my motto:  "Embrace the Place".  It's not my favorite place to be, but it is home.  God has provided a nice house to live in and a wonderful church family. I love my job and the people I work with. What more could I ask for?!

God is also preparing a home for me--a beautiful home in heaven--a mansion He calls it. Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you that you also may be where I am." (John 14:2, 3, New International Version) Jesus wants everyone to have the opportunity to live with Him in heaven. Imagine what it would be like to "embrace the place" in a mansion in heaven. Will you go with me?