Yes. I did. I promise. I went to church AND I did not burst into flames.
I am not religious but I consider myself a spiritual person. I don't have enough information to make an informed decision about a divine Deity and I was brought up in a very scientific household so I never felt a desire or need to go to church. For some church is about community, for some it is about having a direct line to God. I think that there is something beautiful about the ceremony, especially at a Catholic mass.
That is until the Deacon started talking about how a wife should obey her husband and how it was bad to go to nightclubs because that will lead directly into temptation. He kind of lost me there.
I've been thinking a lot about spirituality and destiny lately. Why we are put in the circumstances that we are in. Do we make our destiny or is it preordained? And if it is preordained are we given our life to test us? To see how strong we are?
Whether it be God's plan, my plan or destiny. Bring it on... I can handle it.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
The Middle of Nowhere
When I told people that I was driving to Texas the typical reaction was that it was going to take 30+ hours to get there. They also assumed that we would be sticking big interstates which would mean having to either go through Denver or Sioux Falls to find a big enough North/South thoroughfare down to Texas. Well, my mother and I are of the same school when it comes to road trips. Why would we take a big, boring highway when there are cool, interesting back roads to explore? Now, with my mother's penchant for getting lost (she's been almost to Yellowstone before she realized she was headed West instead of East) it can be kind of daunting. I usually have Heidi, my sexy GPS lady, with me although she has been known to take me down closed and non-paved roads. Back roads are an adventure and you end up seeing beautiful country that you would never see from the interstate.
Once we got headed South out of South Dakota we had a relatively easy trip. We almost turned on the wrong Highway 26 in Nebraska but as soon as we started heading North I got us turned back the right direction.
I had never been through Nebraska, Kansas or Oklahoma, I had only heard horror stories about how boring the country was. Well, Western Nebraska was incredibly beautiful. There were buttes, bluffs and crags that made for a terrain different then any other part of the US.
By the time we got to Kansas it was dark but the thing that got me was that every single town we passed through was lit to the hilt with Christmas lights. There were whole nativity scenes in blue, red, green and white on almost every lawn no matter how small or even smaller the town was. I just kept thinking that electricity must be really cheap in Kansas because there were a lot of lights.
By the time we got through Oklahoma my eyes were starting to swim from trying to focus on lights so far away on the horizon. I would turn of my brights for an oncoming car that didn't end up passing me for a good ten minutes.
The last leg of the trip reminded me of the beginning. When we passed into Texas a fog settled in and the roads got slick and icy. It was two in the morning and we'd been on the road since 11 am. Mom was trying to sleep so she could drive the first leg in the morning but the conditions were such that it made her nervous. I was just trying to keep myself awake by practicing songs for RENT auditions in January.
Finally at 4 am we got to our destination of Shamrock, TX. We checked in and settled down for a few hours of sleep.
Once we got headed South out of South Dakota we had a relatively easy trip. We almost turned on the wrong Highway 26 in Nebraska but as soon as we started heading North I got us turned back the right direction.
I had never been through Nebraska, Kansas or Oklahoma, I had only heard horror stories about how boring the country was. Well, Western Nebraska was incredibly beautiful. There were buttes, bluffs and crags that made for a terrain different then any other part of the US.
By the time we got to Kansas it was dark but the thing that got me was that every single town we passed through was lit to the hilt with Christmas lights. There were whole nativity scenes in blue, red, green and white on almost every lawn no matter how small or even smaller the town was. I just kept thinking that electricity must be really cheap in Kansas because there were a lot of lights.
By the time we got through Oklahoma my eyes were starting to swim from trying to focus on lights so far away on the horizon. I would turn of my brights for an oncoming car that didn't end up passing me for a good ten minutes.
The last leg of the trip reminded me of the beginning. When we passed into Texas a fog settled in and the roads got slick and icy. It was two in the morning and we'd been on the road since 11 am. Mom was trying to sleep so she could drive the first leg in the morning but the conditions were such that it made her nervous. I was just trying to keep myself awake by practicing songs for RENT auditions in January.
Finally at 4 am we got to our destination of Shamrock, TX. We checked in and settled down for a few hours of sleep.
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