Road Trip

I just got back from a two-week road trip with Larry and Sarah. Sarah is one of those odd teenagers that still enjoys hanging out with her parents, and even spending 24/7 for two weeks on the road! I am grateful. It doesn't matter where we went, because we have the most fun just getting there.

If you must know, we went to Pennsylvania, to "Happy Valley," as it is known to Penn State fans, to see Larry's side of the family, and to eat at all our favorite places near where we used to live at the beginning of the new millenium. It doesn't take much to entertain us! On the road, we have time to talk. Sarah and I read voraciously while Larry enjoys driving and thinking. We sing along to the radio. We eat at restaurants we don't have in Nebraska, and stay at hotels with swimming pools and hot tubs. We simply enjoy being together, with endless uninterrupted time to talk, laugh, and create memories and private jokes.

We went to a minor league baseball game in Moosic, PA, where the Red Barons used to play, and now the farm team to the Yankees play. We ate stadium hot dogs despite the recent study on the news about how unsafe stadium food often is. We stood and sang "Take Me Out to The BallGame" when they told us to, watched grown men and women do silly antics on the field, and little children compete in strange competitions to win a T-shirt. We ducked when fly balls went foul and gasped when one of those balls hit a fan in the side of the head (he was ok). We laughed at a big blue furry mascot with yellow horns on his head as he led cheers for the Yankees. We brought along Bill, an old friend of Larry's from his church there, who doesn't get out much anymore, but loves a good baseball game. Bill always thought of Sarah as his "little buddy," even though she's not so little anymore. Bill heard that Sarah is crazy about Elvis so he told his daughter who went digging through her closet and found three original tin movie posters of Elvis, and gave them to Sarah as a gift. Bill could not know what a precious gift that was, or how it made Sarah's whole vacation to receive it.

We also attended the one-day-only nationwide showing of "Elvis On Tour," in celebration of 75 years since Elvis' birth. We were crammed into the theatre with a full house of middle aged and elderly fans, some sporting Elvis T-shirts, who knew all the words to all the songs. We clapped at the end, and no one laughed when someone was heard to say, "We love you, Elvis," because we all felt the same way. That's why we were there.

We took our granddaughter Mackenzie to HersheyPark, and rode the ride through Chocolate World and listened to the whole schpiel of how they make chocolate as if we hadn't heard it many times before. We hugged chocolate bars that roamed the park, and Sarah and I rode rides that turned us upside down, right and left, and upside down again. My step-daughter Jennifer and her boyfriend Mark took me on a ride that shot out of the gate going 0-75 in 3 seconds and then proceeded to tumble us, spin us, and roll us all over. I laughed. And laughed! Like someone was tickling me and wouldn't stop!

We stayed in Larry's hometown of Lewistown and discovered that you really can't go home again. That things change, not always for the better, and it's hard to see something and some people that you love not live up to its potential. Sometimes it's best to just remember how it was and move on.

We ate at DaVinci's Pizza, which is now across the road from where it used to be but still has the best Italian food. Every chance we could we drank coffee and ate donuts at Dunkin' Donuts because Nebraska does NOT run on Dunkin' and sometimes we wish it did. We went back to Mountaintop which was a hard place for us, and went to the Dunkin' Donuts there where we often drowned our sorrows in coffee and Coolattas. We remembered the people we fell in love with there, in the midst of painful times, and remembered again that nothing is all good or all bad. We drove through Lake Winola, my favorite place in PA, a place on the side of a mountain, a place that gave me hope and healing during a tough time of my life. The people there have a very special place in my heart for reasons I can't really put into words. You know how you go through something hard or wonderful or profound with someone and those experiences bind you? That's how it is. We had many of those experiences together, not least of which was 9/11. We cried together, we prayed together, we tried new things together, and we celebrated together. Those four years were the most memorable and gracious of my ministry.

We went to the Falls Church and ignored the "No Trespassing" signs and climbed through the trees and over the rocks and fallen trees to find the Buttermilk Falls. It was a hidden gift. A place of peace and solitude. A place of incredible beauty. Hidden in the trees.

When we turned our car West again, we were all ready to come home. It was good to get away, to get a break from work, but we all agreed, finally, that there really is no place like home. And particularly no place like Nebraska. We all ached to be back in the flatland, to see the corn, the wide open sky, flat, straight roads, and to wave to strangers on the way. Being on the road gives you time to get perspective on your life. The stuff that stressed us out before seemed so silly suddenly. As we talked about our lives to others faraway, we realized just how much we love our lives, our jobs, our little family and home. And we are grateful. We couldn't wait to get back! To hug our friends, to go back to work with our awesome co-workers, to sleep in our wonderful little home that belongs to us. To harvest our little garden, can the produce, and even mow the lawn. Simple pleasures that make our lives so precious....

There's no place like home.