October 10 - “Photo-bomb”

Welcome to the “first real cold snap of the season,” according to the local news anchor. 35 degrees with a frost warning. Ouch. 

 

Our first stop was the summer home of a guy named Gallatin. He was the secretary of the treasury for 17 years or so. He actually balanced the federal budget while at the same time buying Louisiana. No small feat. And while we were in the parking lot, we had a close encounter of the wildlife kind. A mama deer and her baby were munching on grass nearby. We slowly started taking pictures, expecting them to bolt at any moment. But they never did. On the contrary, they began to approach us. We got some amazing close-ups. They even photo-bombed us when we were doing a selfie. 

 

We finally got on the road toward West Virginia. Of course, it was only five miles away. But the National Park we were heading to was another two and a half hours beyond that. We had a fabulous lunch of crackers and chips as we drove. 

 

I didn’t know what I expected out of this particular stop. Something about a bridge. Well, it was pretty spectacular. The bridge spanned a river, but it was hundreds of feet high. The cool part, though, was the drive down to the river and back up again. Really beautiful. Not in the fall foliage sense, though. It was just the sheer magnitude of the bridge and the drive through the deep woods, which entailed a lot of switchbacks and multiple ess curves. Worth the drive to get that national park stamp. 

 

From there we drove toward Kentucky. Didn’t make it, though. Stopped for the night in Charleston, West Virginia. 

 

Our waitress at dinner was quite chatty. When she found out we live on an island off the coast of Texas she had two questions:

1.      Do you have cars there? I have to admit it took every ounce of restraint for me not to answer with something like, “Oh, no. We all ride horses.”  In fact I had to let Chris take that one. I just couldn’t. 

2.    Isn’t there a lot of weird stuff that happens down there?

I jumped all over that one. I told her that we were perfectly normally weird in Texas. It was up here that we were finding all the really strange stuff. 

 

Philippians 1:3 says, “I thank my God every time I remember you.”

 

Father, once again, you amazed us with the enormity of your creation.  And with your fun people.  Thank you. Amen.