Day 3 through 4-ish

It’s 3 am. Janna’s asleep in the passenger seat beside me. We’re parked in front of a rest area, just outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. I’m wide awake and want to keep driving through the night, but we need to stop in a little town called Seward in the morning. It’s the town my oldest sister, Heather, was born in and I can’t, in good conscience, pass it and not stop. So we’re waiting for daylight. The rain has let up some, but it has been a torrential downpour since Wyoming.
Our plans and routes are very fluid, changing often depending on the weather, our moods, or what our atlas tells us. Thankfully, we don’t have a set schedule and are enjoying the spontaneity of doing whatever we want.

The Rockies and western Wyoming were absolutely beautiful. Breath-taking. Awe-inspiring. When we first entered eastern Wyoming it seemed very stereotypical, in a cowboy Western film sort of way. But as the brown, treeless hills rolled on for miles and miles, we quickly grew tired of Wyoming. And Wyoming is a wide state. Very wide. Instead of camping in southern Wyoming like we had previously planned, we decided to continue on into Colorado. Unfortunately, there was a huge storm just waiting for us – it seemed like a flood. Rain, snow, hail, wind, and lightening. We really wanted to be hard-core and camp anyway, so we took the Boyd Lake State Park exit and followed the signs to the campground.

The campground ended up being in the middle of a new housing development. Literally. It looked like an old, abandoned playground, with no playground. Concrete slabs were the campsites. And it cost almost as much as a motel. So we decided to drive through the night.
We bought some books on c.d. to listen to including my favorite, Shel Silverstein, "I'll tell you the story of a silly young King, who played with the world at the end of a string, but he only loved once single thing. And that was just a peanut butter sandwhich."

Each passing minute brings me further away from my family, my close friends, my home. Part of me feels as though my heart is being pulled out of my chest and I don’t know how to fix it. Even still, I can’t help but feel that each sunrise and sunset, each snow-peaked mountain, each moment of laughter with Janna are subtle ways the Lord is trying to get my attention. I know Him and love Him and worship Him. Yet often, I worship other things too. I turn people into gods and believe they can fill this void in my heart. As I’m surrounded my God’s amazing, diverse creation I’m reminded that only He can satisfy and give me the peace I long for with my whole being.

On a different note, we’re really enjoying the various signs we see along the way. I’d have to say, my favorite so far was in Ft. Morgan, Co. And not just because the town has my last name in it. We pulled into the town and on the left side saw this sign: