It's Vacation Time

My husband is amazing…11 hours and 15 minutes on the road to get from Scottsville TX to Gulfport MS.  We left Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m. and arrived at 9:45 p.m. Google Maps said it was a six and a half hour drive. Of course, that’s by car and we have found that everything takes longer in a motor home. Another one of God’s ways of slowing me down. One issue, again, was all the rain; so we took a little bit of a longer route to avoid some of the flooded areas. We think we could have made it in eight or nine hours but we had several places where the traffic came to a standstill. I’m talking seven miles took an hour or more.

Once we knew we would be arriving after dark, I contacted the motor home park in Gulfport to be sure they would have a place for us. Oh my, they were so very very nice and accommodating. They gave us an extra easy site to pull into and told us not to worry about registering or paying until morning. Kisses from heaven!

So let me go back for a moment. Before leaving Scottsville, I admit, I was feeling a bit nervous (again). But, Praise the Lord, I didn’t have knots in my stomach…just butterflys. Once we were on the road, I started to get excited; the fear was gone and the adventure had begun. There are so many of you out there praying for us…thank you, thank you, thank you…I know your prayers  helped turn my knots to butterflys.

Did I mention, not only were we travelling at night, in highly congested traffic through road work areas, it was also, you guessed it, raining some of the time. I have found in this new season of life, my hands get real sweaty when I’m feeling stressed. Needless to say, there were plenty sweaty palm moments, but our God is faithful and Bill kept on a going.

I know we’re supposed to be free from time constraints and we wouldn’t have had to make the whole trip from TX to MS in one day, but once Bill knew we had an easy pull-thru spot to park in Gulfport no matter what time we arrived, he pressed on. He is really excited to show me where he spent part of his military life, visit some of his old stomping grounds, refresh memories, and make new ones.

In the months, even years before embarking on this journey, Bill would often talk about how nice it would be when traveling long distances (like visiting our granddaughter, Rhiannon, in Florida) for me to be able to make him a fresh sandwich right from our own kitchen. Well, now it is reality. This allowed us to keep on trekking. We made only one stop and that was to gas up right before crossing into Louisiana. I felt bad for Bill as I was able to get up and stretch while he stayed behind the wheel the whole time.

Needless to say, we were both relieved and very grateful to have made it to our destination. Of course, I must share one oops and that is just 500 yards from our turn that would lead us into the motor home park, we turned into a wrong driveway. That’s not good. You can’t back up a motor home pulling a car.  Nor is making a u-turn always a possibility. Truthfully, you can’t make a u-turn with a motor home pulling a car, it’s more like a “round-about turn.” Just to be on the safe side because it was so dark and we were in very unfamiliar territory, I asked Bill to let me jump out and scout out the area. Bless my husband for allowing me to do that and Praise the Lord, there was plenty of space for us to make the turn safely. Whew!

So here we are…I’m feeling like we’re really doing this thing. (I have had moments when it still feels kind of dream like.) Got up this morning, slowly. Got dressed, slowly. Made breakfast, slowly. Meandered down to the park office with Bill, slowly. Looked around, surrounded by other motor homes and RVS and realized, I’m not dreaming. I’m living in a motor home, moving about the country as Bill (yes, I really am letting Bill make those decisions) and the Lord leads. I’m still adjusting to not having a schedule of what the next day holds, but I’m surrendering that part of me little by little. Each day, I’m trying to focus on enjoying the journey one day at a time.

We spent the day today, exploring the Gulf Coast. Beautiful sandy white beaches. Big homes. Homes on stilts. Lots of restaurants. And I think, some remnants of Katrina. Tomorrow, Bill is going to show me New Orleans.  We’re going by car, of course. That’s why he wanted to park the motor home in Gulfport, besides it being near the base where Bill was stationed, it’s kind of in the middle of all the places Bill wants to take me.  I’m thinking this part of our journey gives us the opportunity to do the type of vacationing we couldn’t do when we were both small business owners.  Can’t wait! Never been to New Orleans.

Once again, I'd like to thank everyone who has been and is praying for us. Please continue! Still a lot of adjusting to do.