North Carolina

I'm writing tonight from North Carolina - I'm here visiting my brother and his wife. Tomorrow my sister and her husband and two kids will join us. They live 2 hours from here. The trip down was, well, grueling would be the word that comes to mind. Don't get me wrong. I love road trips. In fact, one of my dreams is to drive cross country (2 lane roads only, please) stopping at diners (no chain restaurants, please). I have this idea to write a coffee table book - with pictures of the diners I visit with a critique of their pie and coffee (but that is for another blog). You may ask, if I enjoy road trips so much, what was so grueling about a ten hour drive? Well, I forgot that when traveling with three children there are more stops than the one for refueling and "calls of nature" that I take when I am by myself. Then there was the fact that I started an hour later than I intended. The morning before I left, I felt that one of the highest priorities was to clean my wedding and engagement rings. I'm sure there are many people who feel compelled to do this before they leave for vacation. (or maybe not). Anyway, it seemed very important at the time, but when my husband and I did the "hand off" of kids from his car to mine, I noticed that I didn't have my rings on. Of course, I had to go all the way back home because there was no way I was going on vacation sans husband and sans rings! The late start then meant that I was driving most of the trip in the dark. I like the dark. It's good for a lot of things - sitting around a campfire, sleeping, watching a movie and it even hides a lot of blemishes -- it is not, however, conducive to driving at high rates of speed with the inordinate amount of truck traffic one finds on I81. So, the trip was grueling and I arrived at my brothers somehwat road drunk, but in one piece. Being with family is great - I hope that someday my own children enjoy each others compnay as much as I enjoy the company of my siblings.

Pictures from the visit will follow -- although I didn't take the time to stop and photograph the beauty I drove through in Pennsylvania. Picture, if you can, a quarter inch of ice on every tree, shrub, and rock. Then imagine a crystal clear blue sky with winter sunshine making every surface glisten. It was like driving through a crystal world.

And God is good.