We're not in Oregon anymore and don't know when we'll see anything like this again. Hopefully next August. Right now we're sitting in another Motel 6, this time in Vallejo, CA, an hour north of S.F.
We were up at 6 a.m., got the campsite packed up and were on the road by 7. With a 30 minute stop for lunch and another 30 minutes at a rest stop we got here a little before 5 p.m. Long day of driving, but Google Maps pegged it at 10 hours, so I guess we did OK.
Tomorrow morning we'll leave here about 7 to get Pam to SFO around 8. Then I'll drive south two hours to....
I'm going to spend Sunday and Monday at Bob & Marla's. We've been good friends since I pastored the church in Prunedale, CA (just north of Salinas) from '76 to '83. Bob and I ran together five or six days a week for most of that time, and because they lived just a couple of miles from us we hung out together. They live in Hollister now, 30 miles east of Prunedale. Depending on how the morning goes I may join them at their church or drop in unannounced at the Prunedale church. I don't think many people there attended back in the day, but just being in the building again might be fun.
Steve will preach again for me at Pathway tomorrow morning, and this week Todd will take the adult class during the second hour. That is VERY good. Todd is an elder, and he's never taught an adult class before. He's going to do a great job, I'm sure, and I told him this is the first of many such assignments. I love opportunities to put people in positions that stretch them. Getting an elder into teaching rates pretty high on any list of those opportunities.
Reproducing.
Lots of people seem to think we're crazy for taking a tent camping vacation. They are particularly surprised Pam enjoys it. Something about our age - and her gender - apparently doesn't fit with sleeping bags and a trail to the bathroom.
Turns out the tent sites at Washburne State Park included other campers our age.
So there!
Draw a dot on a piece of paper and then a circle around it. Now imagine that circle as the deviation from your ideal.
We set our thermostats at 76 degrees (or whatever your chosen temp is) and the HVAC system keeps it within two degrees of that setting. Pretty small circle.
Our food for each meal falls within a set of parameters we've defined over the years. No lima beans, coffee that tastes good (however we define good), hot foods hot and cold foods cold. A small circle.
Our favorite TV shows, a comfortable bed, comfortable chairs and the car in the garage. A small circle.
I think that's one of the things I like about tent camping. It forces me to enlarge my circle, expand my parameters. Life is too easy in our carefully controlled environments - until we go out into the woods and learn our circle can be much larger and things still work out. There's something liberating, invigorating about a bigger circle. Bad freeze dried coffee tastes pretty good when it comes served in a plastic cup at a picnic table surrounded by 80' pine trees on a 57-degree morning. Going to bed...er, sleeping bag...with a long sleeved T-shirt and a sweatshirt is OK. I still manage to get a decent night's sleep. I can even crawl out of the tent in the middle of the night and stand next to a bush without dying of exposure (yes, pun intended).
You may be thinking, "Yeah, he's fine with it for a week as long as he gets to go back to his soft bed, hot shower and climate controlled house."
Truth is, I'm not particularly eager to go back to civilization. Color me crazy, but having a big circle seems somehow better, more righteous, less self centered.
Try tent camping. You might find it expansive, in the best sense of that term. And you'll get scenery like that pic up there.
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