We took the day off

Today was a travel day.  Which meant we got to listen to a couple of sermons on the radio and some christian music. Later,  I got to study my verses today while Mark listen to classical music.  I got on face book and watched the video of Olivia the Olympic "nastic" girl and it made my day.   We stopped by Walmart and got chicken and Amish  mac and cheese and had a picnic near a lake. This afternoon, we found a station with a very good story teller.  We stopped by one Antique mall and was serenaded by the owner. We decided to go ahead and find a hotel early today.

 Mark got on the computer and found us a Comfort Inn for 8000 points.  He won, we take turns finding hotels and he hit a home run with this one.  Nice hotel in a pretty little town with a great recreation park.  We started our evening with a swim in the out door pool.  Then we ate supper.  Mark  made a stir fried meal with  the wok and propane grill and I made bread in our XL cooker.  Then we went for a long walk in the park full of families playing and swimming and walking and playing that Frisbee toss game. We saw a tennis court and decided to go buy tennis balls and play tennis.  Then back to the hotel  for a long soak in the whirlpool. Then we watched a little Olympics and are ready for bed.  Nice day. Tomorrow, back to work.

Listening to the radio

We heard a show on the radio yesterday that talked about the old radio jingles and I enjoyed listening to the old jingles that I remember from when I was a kid..  Now they  just use something called sweepers in between songs. When I was in the sixth grade, I had a teacher who loved old radio shows and would play them for us on Fridays,  if we had all of our work done.  Back in the day, the radio and reading and story telling gave children plenty of opportunities to use their imaginations. People don't  use radios, read or tell stories much  today.

Mark and I use the radio a lot when we travel. We listen to several sermons on Sundays,  when we can not find a church to go to.  We  listen to a game show called,"wait wait don't tell me" on Saturdays. It was fun listening to the country song "fly over states" while driving through those states.  Mark loves all kinds of music and loves to  try to get me to name that song or   name that singer.  I get it wrong about 80% of the time.  Most of the time if I don't know,  I guess James Taylor.  That way I am right some of the time.
On this trip, Mark has found several stations playing classical music,  which is perfect for chilling him out while driving  and for me to memorize scripture.

Still working on James

I  am still working of the book of James.  I finished chapter 3 was working on chapter 4 by studying and writing the verses.  While we were walking in the woods this morning I decided to say my chapters out loud and slowly as a prayer.  I started off and was really enjoying myself.  But when I got to the middle of chapter 2, I realized that I was mixing up parts of chapter 2 and chapter 3.  So, I spent the 300 miles on the road trying to go over chapter 2 and 3 again and get them  straight. Still working on it.

Small towns USA

Mark and I try to stay off the interstate as much as possible.  I'm not saying that we drive through all small towns, but I started noticing the city limit signs.  Boyd-618, Wheeler-758, Firewood-528, Ridgeland-237, and Downing-265.  There were more, but you get the idea.  When I see these signs, I wonder whose job is it change the numbers on the sign.  How often do they change the numbers, who counts and do they change it after ever birth or death.  I love small town America.

Let the kids take care of us now

For years, we took care of the kids.  Now, that we travel, it is nice to have adult children who take care  of everything  back home.  We love to come home to a clean house and the grass cut.  They sometimes borrow vehicles and we are happy that they feel comfortable doing that.  We can tell when they have had  a bonfire, dinner party or just sat around the pit.  We also have good neighbors who check on things while we are gone.  We love, appreciate, and miss all of them.

driving at dusk

Mark does most of the driving.  But, after 5:00, after supper and afternoon walk and swimming, Mark likes for me to drive around in the country.  He takes his gps and finds rivers, bridges, and lakes.  We see sunsets and watch clouds forming. Lately, we have been seeing a lot of signs about snow mobile trails.  I can not wrap my southern mind around the fact that these dirt and gravel roads will be covered by snow. Mark is always on the look-out for animals, tonight we saw 16 deer.  Most of them were in soybean fields eating the farmers profit.

sunflower fields

We are driving through sunflower fields in Minnesota and Wisconsin.  They are beautiful and always face the sun. Their heads droop at night when they can not fine the sun.  Maybe we need to try to do the same.  We should always turn our face to the Son.  Our advantage is that the Son never leaves us.  So we do have to droop our heads unless we turn away from Him.