January 4 – “Painted Churches … the second leg”

As we drove away from Bay City, Chris sighed and lamented, “Well, so much for Painted Churches and antique stores.”  Wait.  Antique stores?  I didn’t know anything about antique stores.  But I was determined more than ever to be able to say we had driven past at least one of those painted churches.  And it would be up to me to find us an appropriate route.

Oh, speaking of stores, antique or otherwise, we drove through some mighty small towns.  One was Morales.  At least that’s what it said on the map.  The “town” was actually a store.  “The Morales Store.”  That’s it.  Nothing else. 

And speaking of maps, since Chris was driving I was the navigator.  No problem, right?  GPS on the phone, right?  Not this time.  We had one of those antique artifacts among our belongings.  It’s called a map.  It is made out of paper and requires no batteries or electrical connection to operate.  Old school.  Really old school.  I devised a plan based on that old hunk of dead trees.  At the very least we would drive by some of those elusive Painted Churches. 

Now, speaking of small towns, here are a few of the ones we cruised through:

Kinkler, Old Kinkler, Gleckler, High Hill, Dubina, Ammannsville, Nechanitz.  Classics, every one.  At least for the wildlife.  Didn’t see any people.

Speaking of wildlife, we saw some pretty incredible wildlife on the adventure.  Chris noticed the hawks.  Numerous hawks.  Which, of course indicated the presence of a considerable critter population that we couldn’t (and Chris didn’t care to) see.  On one road leading to the middle of nowhere (which, by the way, was where every one of those churches was located – the middle of nowhere), we saw not one, but fifteen or twenty deer.  Not intimidated by the car at all, they casually grazed or frolicked around the fields.  And around the next bend we were startled when a wild turkey flew across the road right in front of us.  That was something we had never seen before, so we stopped to admire the strange sight.  He (or she – I certainly am not the one to tell them apart) landed in the field to our right, and to our surprise, there was a whole flock of them (do turkeys have flocks?).  I took some pictures, and when they realized we were there, instead of flying away in fear, guess what they did?  They attacked!  Ran right at the car.  That was a strange feeling.  We survived the encounter, though.  We ran away.  Or drove away to be more accurate.

We did get to see the inside of a few of the churches.  Amazingly beautiful.  Stained glass windows.  Ornately carved altars.  Life sized statues of saints and Mary and Jesus.  Oh, and all of them were still decorated for Christmas.  Manger scenes and garland and even a big Christmas tree in one.  Each one had a sign-in book for visitors to show where tourists had come from to see the spectacle.  Interestingly enough, at every church I signed in right under the name of none other than John Hancock from Pennsylvania.  What year is this anyway?  One particularly Czech area also had men’s and women’s outhouses outside – marked in English and Czech.  No, I’m serious.  They were outhouses.  The only thing missing on them was the half-moon on the door.  Sadly, they were no longer operational and were nailed shut.  Of course I got that close.  These were major historical landmarks.  We received a text from Luke inquiring as to the whereabouts of his dear Nani.  Yes, it was from Luke.  I know he was only born in October, but our grandchildren are quite special.  Seems he was desperately trying to settle down for a nap, and he wanted some Nani-ish arms to hold him and rock him.  As you might imagine, the Painted Churches tour ended right there.

Our driver got a bit frustrated just outside of Giddings.  We were stuck behind a travel trailer doing 55 in a 70.  Come on.  Didn’t he know we had a Nani on a mission?

Pop.  Road kill possum courtesy of the car in front of us.  Still wiggling when we passed by, but it wouldn’t be long until he was ready to be served up.

Just outside of Rockdale –watch out.  A deer was taking her sweet time easing across the road like she lived there or something.  We missed her.  Bambi still has his Mommy for one more day at least.

Stopped at Subway in Cameron for supper.  After that it was no holds barred.  Chris would get to Luke in the shortest amount of time possible.  She had to live up to my follow-up text, “We’re coming, Little man.”

Psalms 24:1-2 says, “The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.”

Father, thank you for the beauty we experienced, both the man-made kind and that special splendor that can only have come from your hand.  Amen.