Tuesday, November 21, 2006
ROAD TRIP
My wife and I made a 2600 mile road trip last week. As this is Thanksgiving week here are some thanks-filled reflections:
* W
hat a beautiful creation! Yes, Nevada and Utah have a lot of emptiness, but it was all actually quite beautiful. * Thank you, pioneers, but I'm glad I live now. We hit a snowstorm over Donner pass and went to Fort Bridger on the Oregon Trail with Salt Lake City and the Mormon Trail in between. The accomplishment of the pioneers is awe inspiring and makes me feel small.
There we were in a new car cruising at xxx listening to music, chatting on the cell phone with a daughter in Texas to have her check the weather ahead via the internet (remembering the Donner party) and debating which hotels and restaurants to use. We are soooo spoiled!
* "Be still and know I am God." We spent one day in a cabin in a Utah valley surrounded by the red rock formations. It was so quiet. The loudest noise was a leaf falling through a tree. It was a time to be still and be thankful. Noise and busy-ness are enemies of thankful reflection.
* Eagles are majestic and beautiful to watch.
Other reflections:
* We went through Salt Lake City and Las Vegas - both had their versions of temples. I'll take Salt Lake any day.
* Fort Bridger served the Oregon Trail and the Pony Express. In 1913 th
e Lincoln highway was conceived as the first
transcontinental highway. It, too, went by Fort Bridger. Just outside the Fort is a decaying wooden Lincoln highway "motor court." I don't
know what year it was built, but it would be approximately the same number of decades back to that motor court as it would be from the days of the motor court back to the Oregon Trail days of Jim Bridger's fort.* With all that wide open space, why would Comfort Inn build a motel next to the railroad tracks in Battle Mountain, Nevada?
* I am still amazed at bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-15 in the desert between Las Vegas and Barstow as well as a 2 mile back up at the traffic light where 58 crosses 395 IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!
* It is hard to find a good bed on the road. (I know, remember the pioneers!)
* It is hard to find a good glass of iced tea on the road.
* It is hard to find a good church on the road.
In the end, there is no place like home. Thank you, Lord, for home.
