Making The Most Of A Road Trip

 AAA projects 38 million Americans will take a road trip over Labor Day weekend…

These are snapshots of a world that opens to you on a road trip. Ten-foot walls of snow beside and canyon of blacktop before us, we ascend the road to Glacier Point, high above Yosemite valley on the first Spring Day it opens to vehicles.

Sandwiches at roadside stops hidden beside waterfall and alpine flowers; pink Mountain Pride and yellow Butterweed. Seals in San Francisco, dining with my daughter on Pier 39, summer hailstorms and the best build-your-own salad stop ever outside of Visalia (thank you Yelp!).

My first car was a white AMC Hornet, an oblong piece of steel with a steering wheel and crisscross olive upholstery that my dad purchased at a L.A. County used car auction. You could still see the shadow of a circle on the doors where the county emblem had been peeled off. To seventeen-year-old me it was the portal to adventure. It was a straight shot down the boulevard to the Hollywood Hills (cue Bob Seger), Ventura Freeway took me to the canyons and onto the coast. Always wondering what was beyond the bend. And so it began.

A warning about road trips. They are a doorway to adventure and a catalyst to heated arguments. The best man at my wedding nearly jumped out of the passenger door while we were driving through East Texas. My wife and I had our first fight (on our honeymoon) because of a wrong turn. Cooped up in a small space necessitates your ‘shot-gun’ and you get along better than most. Friends that require lunch at noon and dinner at five, the always sober and serious, those who choose schedule over serendipity will not be accompanying me.

The idyllic Instagram moments won’t happen if you stay attached to your phone. Ironic. Leave the highway. Look out the window. Eat at hole-in-the-wall places. I was first introduced to Peanut Butter whiskey at a roadside stop. I’ve had the best beef-barley soup ever off the beaten path, and the best breakfasts. Yes, you risk having the worst Tex-Mex meal of your life but it’s well worth it for the story.

Solo trips are worth it. Great bonds can be formed with family and friends. Don’t be the guy that won’t pull over until the destination. Plan for the big things like where to sleep but buffer that Google travel time for sightseeing. Take the old highway. If a girl at a roadside shop asks if you have neat handwriting; help her letter the sandwich board.

Sir Richard Burton once said, “The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” Departure begins at the end of your driveway or at the car rental booth at the airport. If you let it, I promise you, the road will bring you to magnificent beauty, sumptuous road side stops and unique encounters with other human beings. Gas up the car!

 

 

Book Review The Frequency by Randall D. St. Claire

 St. Claire had me quick to turn the pages from the outset. Once that bell rings on the door of Bronx Rousselle’s pawn shop questions and collateral escalate quickly. A woman shows up at his door accompanied by her mental-hospital escapee brother and a box of Inuit relics. Bronx seeks out answers in old friends and a new flame. As cold bodies stack up faster than interest on a bad loan Bronx will question his life choices as well as his ingenuity. It’s an adventure that leads from an elderly decrepit Inuit translator to the works of a ground-breaking Serbian scientist, from Minnesota to Greenland and from city hotels to a tent in the Tundra. Can old friends be trusted? Will new bonds hold when all else gives way?

St. Claire is a master of dialects, with quirky and idiom cracking characters pervading the book. The dialogue is terse, believable and humorous. Bronx Rousselle is a hard-boiled, stubborn, physically strong character much in the mold of protagonists in the same genre. The narrative style, as well as Bronx’ words and commentary had me convinced of his fierce and lonely heart. The accompanying characters’ banter brought me many a smile.

This was the first time reading Randall D. St. Claire and he hit all the right notes. If you like gritty fast-paced books this is a solid choice. Where it touched on arctic survival and scientific skullduggery, I found it well researched and believable. A ‘page-turner’ of a book, he had me up to the last paragraph.

I received a free copy of this book from the Lone Star Literary Life Campaign in exchange for my honest review.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Struggling With Sovereign Sufficiency

Two weeks out and I’m hoping the anchors will hold. The anchors holding my tendon attached to my shoulder, tethering me to six weeks of living one-handed. Not driving, struggling to put on a shirt, the wife helping to button pants.. Massive tear they said. Small rips are more common. And despite the wonders of how the shoulder works, with the rotator cuff and all it seems God should have built in an easier repair mechanism. Like when bones break. Cast them in plaster of Paris and they grow back. Rotator cuff involves attaching tendon to bone. A slower slipperier process.

When the refrigerator went out this week, I could only help my wife empty it one or two small items at a time. Uph. Life is making it clear that I believe my worth is predicated on how much I’m doing; let me help you with that, let me build that, plant that, carry that. When Jacob wrestled with God, he was doing something at least. It’s the inactive quiet I’m finding difficult.

There are over 700 verses where God tells us to be still. The most well-known perhaps, “Be still and know that I am God.” A friend who found Jesus in her teens told me she’d just come to the end of her rope, “You go through rough things and you realize there’s nowhere else to go."

“Trust Him for His grace, behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.” We know this in our bones, God does His deepest work in those places our strength can’t reach. Difficult to be still though, to rest in Gods’ sovereign sufficiency. A drowning man thrashes about violently.

I’m not finding it easy relaxing at home, putting plans on hold and giving up control. A lazy river ride is relaxing initially; but what if you couldn’t get off?  I went walking, to get out of the house, break the monotony. A woman pulled up next to me and shouted (I’m wearing a sling), “I had that done 2 years ago. Keep at it! It’s worth it!” I’m thankful for surprises, for Uber and my wife’s patience. I’m working on letting go. Getting glimpses of that smiling face as I ‘surrender to divine providence.” My anchor holds within the veil.

 Photo by Art Institute of Chicago on Unsplash