Pilgrims at Oak Ridge

Day: 14 Trip Odometer: 3,824 Books Aubrey has read: 327 (estimate) Location: State College, PA, Jackson's house. We have made it to the final stop along our journey. We got into State College last night around 7:30, just in time for dinner. Jackson was already in bed so we didn't get officially introduced until this morning. He's very cute. Hannah had a doctor's appointment this morning so Aubrey and I are babysitting. Jack is snoozing so we're mostly just sitting. Tuesday was a great day in Chicago. We only got to see downtown by quick driving tour, but the highlight was our trip to Wrigley Field. We got to the stadium about 3 hours early. So we found a parking spot and still had 20 minutes before the game started. Well not quite, but close. The cheapest parking we could find said $15, but $15 only got you a spot were you would get blocked in by the next car. One of the spots you could pull out of cost $20. What a racket. We ponied up and walked arou...

After our marathon car ride of Day nine, we awoke on Sunday and decided that we just didn't have enough driving. So we hit the road about 8 am to drive for another 1.5 hrs to go and visit Jeff's seminary roommate and good friend, Mark Jicinsky. Mark is the pastor of Ebenezer Reformed Church of Leighton , IA. Just in case some of our readers have never heard of Leighton (which would be a complete shocker) it is located Southwest of Iowa City, about 1.5 hrs from there, and about 45 minutes from Des Moines. The "town" is about 5-6 streets wide and 3-4 streets wide, and is surrounded by farms. It really is a beautiful area, and Ebenezer Reformed Church was a great place to visit. I finally got to meet a few more of Jeff's relatives, his cousins Lois and Arlan, which was a treat for me. Everyone at church was quite friendly, and introduced themselves to us, making us feel very at home. The area around Leighton is full of people of Dutch descent, and here is listing ...

Day: 9 Miles: 2,723 Books Aubrey has read: 7 Location: Iowa City, IA, Andrew and Melanie's house. Today took us from Mom and Dad's house in Colorado to the rolling hills of Iowa. It was a long day in the car. The big question on the table all day was the perennial debate: Which state is worse to drive through, Kansas or Nebraska? We wanted to make a contribution to the state of the question, so we scheduled our trip to take us West through Kansas on I-70, and then back East through Nebraska on I-80. We must start by admitting that both states were pretty boring, but still there are many issues to consider. On the one hand, Nebraska is slightly longer than Kansas, which would tend to make it worse. And believe it or not, Nebraska is flatter than Kansas, is this a pro or a con? Both states take good care of their roads, and construction was minimal on both interstates. The Sunflower State has Kansas City and Topeka, the Cornhusker State has Lincoln and Omaha, so I think...

Our week in Colorado is going altogether too fast. Just one more day tomorrow, then on Saturday we'll head to Iowa. The air here is as dry and thin as I remembered, more so perhaps. But the mountains are just as beautiful, and I would love to spend the whole summer here exploring them. We got a tantalizing taste on Tuesday when we camped up in Rocky Mountain National Park. Today we were going to hike up to the punch bowls, but were thwarted by a late start and an early hail storm. We're gonna try again tomorrow, with a little earlier start. Also we have had fun seeing friends. We got to see friend Stephanie on Monday, who is spending her summer in Paonia, and tiny little town on the western slope. She seemed to be doing quite well. We have seen Connie, who we will also see tomorrow night for dinner. (At our house, so no meatballs.) And today at the Glen we hung out with Megan Dunham, who Aubrey had never met before in person, although we read her blog a lot, and she has read ou...

Day: Three Trip Odometer: 1,740 Number of books Aubrey has read: 3 Location: Colorado Springs, Mom and Dad's house. Today was the longest day of driving yet, about 13 hours, most of which were in Kansas. In Kansas we passed through Manhattan "The Little Apple", Hays "All American City 1996", and Russell, the birth place of an astronaut. We passed up the opportunity to pet the baby pigs, and see the world's largest prarie dog. Since we were skipping church we started the day with a Tim Keller sermon, and listened to another one in the afternoon. Today was also the best public radio day yet, we heard a good This American Life, and almost all of A Prarie Home Companion, which is impressive to get one radio station that long when you're driving. As we came into Colorado we listened to The Thistle and Shamrock. The best part, of course, was getting here. We'll be staying here for the week, doing some hiking, and generally enjoying ourselves.

Day: Two Trip Odometer: 920 Location: St. Louis, Sara "Fiesty Fireball" Allen's house. Day two took us from Atlanta to St. Loius. We slept through our alarms this morning, so we weren't on the road quite as early as hoped, but we were still driving by 7:15. We passed through Chattenooga, Nashville, Paducah, and crossed several big rivers. Today we listened to a bit of Car Talk with Click and Clack, more Psalms lectures from Phil Long, and some good St. Louis radio. St. Louis has such good radio stations. After meeting up with Sara we tried to get tickets to a Cardinals game, but to no avail. Only high dollar tickets were left, and even the scalpers we talked to we selling pretty pricey tickets. So we walked around the new Busch stadium, and sadly left without seeing the inside. We got food for a picnic and watched Shakespeare in the Park instead, which was somewhat cool in its own way, although a lot different from watching a baseball game.

Day: 1 Mile: 316 Location: Atlanta, Kim and Kristin's house. Day one of our roadtrip extraordinaire was routine and uneventful. I worked a full day at the Credit Union, then we finished loading the car, grabbed dinner at Arby's and got on the road. We made good time, and got to Atlanta in about 4 1/2 hours. We listened to Says You, and This American Life on NPR, then part of St. Anne's Pub on CD. Then we just talked the rest of the way. I drove, Aubrey worked on crafty projects. So far, so good.

Tomorrow we leave on our road trip! That means, today we pack! (Not quite as much fun.) But I have loaded our car up with lots of drinks, snacks, and cookies. :) So we definitely won't starve while on the road. Even if we got stranded and ran out of gas. We could survive for days on cookies alone. On our agenda: Atlanta, St. Louis, Colorado Springs, Iowa, Chicago for a Cubs game, State College, PA (our new nephew is there) and then back home. Does anyone have any favorite car games for Jeff and I to play?

Since finishing seminary three years ago, I have spent a good amount of time looking for churches in which I might like to minister. Its really not all that different from looking for any job, and so I made a list of church qualifications... 1. The Senior Pastor must be a committed, reformed, presbyterian, evangelical, semi-liturgical, covenantal, bibliophile, with the same interests as me, who also challenges me to grow. 2. The staff must be good looking and agreeable. (Craig and Kevin are exemplary on this count!) 3. The structure and make-up of the church must be explicitly biblical. 4. It should be in a good part of town, the members shouldn't sin too much, or too greivously. All the children should be well-behaved, and generally pastor themselves. Everyone should get along swimmingly, know and apply the Bible consistently, encourage and exhort one another regularly, dress in a style that makes me comfortable, and live happy middle class lives while still taking risks f...

I have had an exceedingly productive weekend. I love the feeling of getting things accomplished. It started on friday, when I didn't have to go to work. I also love 4 day weeks, and they definitely help me be able to get things done and therefore have the feeling of getting things accomplished. So I worked all day friday on this project I have to do for my rotation. I put together a powerpoint presentation. I also on friday visited a patient, another project I have to do for my rotation. Friday night I got started on refinishing some chairs for our dining room. I got these 6 chairs from a friend of our family who has this whole huge barn filled mostly with cars, but also with some furniture. A few months ago, I took 2 down to charleston and refinished them, since 2 was all that we could fit in our car. But I finally got started on doing the other 4. I also worked on them all day saturday, putting the first coat of stain on saturday night around 9. After that, I came inside and did...

I was working at the Credit Union today, as I do every day. It was a normalish day. Pretty slow, I was getting a little bored in the afternoon. Then Earl came in. Earl was a nice guy, 24 years old. Just a simple request, really, was all he had. He wanted to change the beneficiary listed on his account. Ok, simple enough. And my usual policy is to ask as few questions as possible about people's personal business. I don't like to pry. Except that he phrased his request a bit oddly. Namely, he couldn't remember the last name of his current beneficiary, who was only 1 year old. I thought this a little odd, that he had chosen an infant to recieve all his money should he pass, and yet he was not so well acquainted with the infant as to know what family he comes from. Earl remembered the last name momentarily and declared his intention to replace Tayjon with Dameree, his son. He placed a curious emphasis on saying that Dameree was "MY son," so I allowed mys...

sorry to any who try to read this blog regularly. Now that I'm in seneca and Jeff is in charleston, it has been harder to write blogs. But only two more weeks and this rotation will be over. And then hopefully it will be back to business. Things have been good, since the last two weekends we've been at two different lake houses. Lots of boating and swimming. And yesterday or saturday, I really sunburned two small areas on my hands, where I apparently didn't put sunscreen. I even have a blister. I guess that means the sunscreen definitely works. I also have been doing some serious sewing. I made two aprons, one purse and am almost finished with a second purse. Photos will follow soon. I must say I am kind of proud of myself for sewing these things since I don't really know what I'm doing. It's been fun.