ON THE ROAD-DAY ONE…I have completed the first 450+ miles of my 800 mile trip to Dallas, TX from IL. It is an adventure of sorts. I have never driven this far alone. I’m not the one in the family who likes to drive. Since Ron loves to drive, the most I’ve ever done is an hour or two here or there when he got tired. The day went much better than I expected today (Friday). Of course, I have been planning for it for weeks! I had the car stocked with audio books and miscellaneous CD’s. For starters, I listened to Romans…yes, the whole book of Romans! Something hit me on chapter 4:15. Hearing it made it more powerful. “…but where there is no law there is no transgression.” I realized that the reason people want “no laws” is not because they just want to “be free”, it is because God has put inside each of us a realization that our hearts aren’t right (see Romans 1-2) and He has revealed enough about Himself that no one is without excuse before Him if they have rejected Him. The problem isn’t laws, it is our hearts. The laws show us that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Our hearts tell us there is a God but we want to run the opposite direction. How wonderful that God intervened (5:8) by showing His love for us “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” And that was where one of my rambly thoughts went for the first hour!

After that I listened to an audiobook called I Wish You Well (dont have the author handy right now). I didn’t finish it today, but enjoyed it a lot. It was set in the mountains of Virginia, not far from where my mother grew up, in the 1940’s. The characters are interesting with a lot of “real life”action. Actually, it is harder than real life. A lot of sad things happen, but there is also plenty of humor and beauty as well. It is the kind of fiction I like…about real people. It could easily be a biography of someone growing up in that area in that time period. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and hearing “the rest of the story”.

My plan was to travel more than half way the first day and Joplin, MO was more than half way. On top of that, there weren’t many large towns after that over the border in OK, so Joplin looked like the best place to stop. Ron made the reservation for me at the Super 8 there. I wouldn’t recommend it. It wasn’t so awful that I felt my health would suffer for staying there or I feared for my life during the night, but it was borderline. I think the bedspread was the oldest, shabbiest bedspread I’ve seen in a motel in a long, long time! I kept my valuables with me. My problem is I have certain areas where I am sort of tight. When I am just spending the night and not using any amenities, I hate to pay for them at a nice motel even though I do enjoy them. I took a sleeping pill so I would sleep really well during the night. I woke up at 2:30 AM and didn’t get back to sleep until about 5 AM! That is the story of Friday (great!) and Friday night (Ugh!).