May 16 – “Um … Oatmeal? Texas?”

Ponderings of life’s biggest questions … by Luke … over a donut hole …

“Oh, when we grow up, we’re going to be … umm … what are we going to be?”

Exactly, Luke.  I’ve wondered that many times myself.

Well, we said our goodbyes to Waco.  Chris decided to try driving to see if the seatbelt was any easier for her shingles to handle coming from that direction.  First stop … gas.  Sorry, no excitement there.  But then we tried to find the entrance to none other than Lake Waco National Park.  Yep, there really is such a place.  At least on line.  We drove literally the entire perimeter of the lake before we came to an entrance.  And of course it was the wrong one.  The little old guy working there explained that we needed to “go ‘bout a mile on down this road here to that other entrance.  They’re the ones that have a computer.”  OK.  One computer among them, I guess.  He was right about the computer, wrong about the mile.  It was way less than that.  But we are now official.  We have a lifetime seniors pass to all national parks.  Ten bucks apiece. 

After achieving one major goal of this trip, we headed west … ish.  Well, toward Gatesville.  We drove right past Mother Neff State Park.  See, we can be snobs now.  National parks only.  After making our way through the grand Metropolis of Pidcoke (My new favorite city name.  Only things in town, though, were a Baptist church and a Methodist church.  No sign of any people, just the churches), we stopped in Copperas Cove for lunch.  Lil Tex Restaurant.  It was obviously where all the locals ate.  Well, at least all the old locals.  Incredible food, though.  Loved my meatloaf.  Back on the road again we made our way through two of the better known cities of the Texas Hill Country, Mahomet and of course … Oatmeal.  Yup.  Oatmeal, Texas.  Now I think I blinked around there, though.  Never saw any signs of anything but the sign. 

Leaving Copperas Cove Chris must have been feeling brave, because she actually followed one of my ideas for a short cut.   That was when the unthinkable happened.  Google Siri got lost.  All of a sudden she dropped our flashing blue dot right in the middle of a massive field of … blank grayness.  It was kind of depressing, actually.  At least until I looked up and saw that we weren’t actually floating in the nothingness of The Gray.  Nay.  We were in a really beautiful countryside.  I was feeling kind of sad that poor Siri had obviously never seen any of this expanse.  But suddenly, the screen flashed to life once more.  What was the difference?  Well, I’m not sure, but it happened right after we crossed a county line.  There she was, waiting with open arms to further assist us. 

From that point we cleared the Lampassas River amidst three or four roadkill deer with a side or two of armadillos.  We were heading into the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge.  Sadly, I’m afraid those deer and armadillos might have been the only residents of said wildlife refuge.  Oh, the place was pretty enough, but no other signs of the animal kingdom. 

We determinedly continued on.  Suddenly Chris announced, “There’s a buffalo.”  OK, on a trip like this one, you don’t just announce “There’s a buffalo” and casually continue driving.  Oh, no.  That one we had to go searching for.  The very next turn was the entrance to the LBJ State AND NATIONAL Park.  We were in.  As it turned out, driving through that place was all free, so we didn’t need our special credit card-looking passes with their special hangers for the car.  We did the quick walking tour near the visitor center.  There were supposed to be people working a replica of an 1800’s farm.  The sheep were there.  Tom Turkey.  Some chickens and a rooster that reacted when I clucked in his general direction.  Even a few cows were having supper.  But no people.  Apparently at 4:30 in 1800’s farmhouses everyone went into town.  Unlike the Wildlife refuge that was so pretty but had no wildlife, this place was generally speaking ugly and flat, but there were deer everywhere.  Oh, and cows.  It was a cattle ranch, after all.

We spent the evening in Fredericksburg.  Well, that might be a misleading statement.  We went to supper at K-Bobs (great food, by the way.  Chris said her baked potato was an all-time best.  My chicken fried steak actually had steak in every bite.  I can’t remember that ever happening.  And the black eyed peas were a chef’s delight.  I would go back).  After supper we went back to our hotel room.  I know, sad, huh?  But there were two reasons.  Chris’ shingles had had just about enough of this nonsense.  My neck was beginning to ache and tingle (yes, but that’s a whole other story).  Well I suppose there were three reasons.  Did I mention that the Astros were being televised on ESPN?  Not that it played any part in our decision.  Go Astros.

Hebrews 9:14 says, “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”

Father, please do some healing work on those shingles of Chris.  And help me be careful with neck.  We’re just a couple of taped together creations of yours who want to keep this thing going for a while longer.  Amen.