waterswaitingforJesus: An eventful week: full of blessings

We left Waynesville with our trailer full and headed for Lexington to pick up Andrew. We drove through a huge traffic jam in Cincinnati and on to Xenia. We all stayed in the same room the next 3 nights. The rest of the family didn’t arrive until the next evening, so we ate lunch at the Taco Bell. We met everyone at the farm where the bride lived and enjoyed meeting everyone in the family. Weirdly, due to divorces, there were 4 sets of grandparents. No wonder I can’t remember any of them. Noah and Abby paid for everyone’s dinner at a restaurant in the country. We weren’t impressed with the offerings. Stephen joined us in our bedroom for the next 2 nights. In the morning we met for breakfast, dressed for the wedding, and went to the Christian hall where the wedding was held. The rehearsal was around 10 and the wedding around 1. It was not a traditional wedding but was deeply spiritual. There was a sermon about Christian marriages and a dedication of their lives and marriage to Christ. After the ceremony we enjoyed light snacks and desserts before going to the motel for another gathering with the family minus the bide and groom. The interesting thing was that I had lost my money clip containing all my credit cards. I looked at the Taco Bell, and even drove back to the restaurant thinking I might have left it there. We couldn’t cancel the cards because we had to use Evelyn’s copies to travel south. We turned Andrew over to Stacy and Tom headed for Atlanta, so we went on to Elizabethtown where I had reservations for the night. I also had a coupon for a local restaurant but it was not open on Sunday evening. In the morning we left for Birmingham to spend the second night. It turned out that we were too far from the restaurant at the motel so we ate some left overs we had from lunch. Both motels were very clean and modern. We left there around 8:30 and ran into a huge traffic jam on I-59. We were blessed to be near a rest area and crept a quarter mile to the entrance. It was shortly after 9:15 (I had reset Evelyn’s watch to central time) and were in the rest area by 9:30. We could walk around, use the rest rooms, and avoid burning our fuel. Around 1:30 the highway patrol allowed the rest area crew to open an escape gate. I was first in line because I had heard the officer give permission. By now the traffic must have been backed up to Birmingham. We were routed to a secondary highway that took up past the wreck of 2 18 wheelers and 3 cars that had wrecked in a construction zone. We also heard there were multiple fatalities. I had reservations in Lafayette, LA and we had to make it. We had to drive 5 more hours, arriving after 8. We stay at the same motel in Scott, LA twice each year, and the manager had promise me a Jacuzzi room when we left last year. Evelyn used it the next morning. We had a coupon for lunch at a Poorboy restaurant and had crawfish. I invited Roland to meet us, but he never responded. We did meet Jimmy and Betty for dinner at Randol’s where we visited and danced for a while. It had become cold and rainy during the first night we were there and was raining most of the time we were there and when we left. I picked up some boudin, crawfish tails and Andouille. We were blessed again to find some jars of roux to use for making gumbo at home. We drove on to Galveston where I had a coupon for lunch and then on to Corpus Christi where I thought I had reservations. I guess I had made a mistake but was again blessed to be able to stay there anyway. I also had a coupon and was surprised that we had driven past it on the way to the motel. We drove back and enjoyed an Italian dinner. We drove on to the Valley and were here by 2 PM. as we were unpacking the trailer and the suitcases, I was blessed again when I found the money clip in the suitcase. I had been checking each evening at the motels to see if anyone had been charging anything and now know why no one had used them. We were blessed all the way here and thank God for His blessings.