Memories of "Dixie-land"~

At long last, here is the promised post!!!  

 

February 4th (a Tuesday) was sunny and bright when we left our homestead on the plains of North Dakota, heading out on an adventure to a warmer climate.  I'd never been further away from home than to Montana, Minnesota, or South Dakota, so going to Kentucky really was an amazing experience for me!!

 

It was my parents and I who went on this long excursion.  

(Thanks again, brothers, for all the work you did at home so we could go off

and have that time together!!!!!!)

We each took turns driving several hours each day, making the trip down in 2 days,

then doing the same on the way home.   

We stopped in Watertown, SD

to look at a tractor that my dad had seen advertised and was interested in...

We also stopped on the way home to see if they could get it running on that slightly warmer day---which they couldn't.  Dad later purchased this tractor too, although it hasn't arrived at the farm yet.  They think it will come on Monday!

I think this big pile of ? was in Nebraska...

Iowa was very, very flat (the part that we saw of it was anyway).

A neat-looking bridge...

Once we got out of the north, the roads got considerably worse!  We ended up stopping at

Council Bluffs, IA for the night, as the roads were just getting too treacherous.

After a fair nights rest (the heater in that room was very loud and it was hard to find a comfortable balance between too hot and too cold with it), we headed out on the road again, this time starting the day with sunshine.  :)

Then, we began to count vehicles in the ditch as we went along our way...

Most of them were obviously (from the amount of snow around and on them) there from the night before.

My dad drove us through Kansas City (we were extremely grateful to have GPS!!!).   It seemed like the city kept going on and on and on and on.  I did enjoy seeing the sky-scrapers, but still cannot even imagine desiring to live in a city of such a size!

There would be so many ways to get lost!

Semis in the ditch...

Another semi in the ditch...

...and yes, another semi in the ditch.  We counted a total of 44 vehicles in the snow that day,

 and several had apparently been pulled out already by the time we went by.

These bridges were humongous and reminded me (structurally)

of something my brothers have built with Legos in the past. 

My mom drove through St. Louis...

We were, once again, thankful for GPS!

At long last, we made it to Kentucky (it was dark by that time) and, yes, we were thankful for the GPS which took us right to the lake-cabin we were to be staying at!  It was so nice to get out and walk after sitting for that long---and to see our friends again too, of course!  I don't know how truckers can drive and drive and drive as they do though, without getting completely exhausted?



Do you remember back in December, when our "friends from the South" (Melva and Dustin) came to visit us?  Well, this time, we went down to visit them----plus to just have a vacation together, seeing a part of the U.S. we'd only read about before.

After meeting Jimmy (Melva's husband/Dustin's dad) and getting settled in, we ate an evening snack; visited for a while; then headed for bed as we were pretty tired!

Instead of giving a day-by-day review of what we did, I'll just share some of the highlights here and then will share some pictures that fit with what we did...  I actually took more pictures while we were on the road than when we were in Kentucky, but I do have some to share. 

 These are some of the fun things that we did that I will remember as long as my memory keeps working--- :)

• My dad and I saw/met some Amish men and saw their homes/workshop.  The one man was
• making a buggy for his son...
• Dustin and his folks took us to my first drive-in movie, complete with burgers and popcorn!
• We went for a long walk to see the lake and the surrounding cabins and spotted a bald eagle
• soaring high above us.
• They drove us to see a huge dam one night.  It was amazingly enormous!
• We met some of Dustin's best friends (a young man and his wife and their little girl) and I
• became good friends with the young mother as we talked 'til 2am one night.  We found we have
• lots in common.
• Dustin got a campfire going the one night for roasting the hot dogs.  Yummy!
• They took us to their favorite restaurant, (Toms') for supper one evening.  :)  Also yummy!!
• We helped them celebrate Jimmy's birthday (complete with his favorite food---fried chicken
• liver!)  Yummy???
• We met Melva's mother one evening, after helping them load some things from the place Jimmy
•  grew up at.
• Dustin showed us properties he's invested in and also the places that he grew up at in TN.
• My dad and I went to church (in TN) on Sabbath with Dustin.
• We saw their sawmill and the one that they help operate--and saw more logs than I've seen in my
•  whole life!
• AND, we just talked a lot too....and marveled at God's beautiful creation of cardinals and TREES!

Now, here are the pictures!!!

 

Mr. W. (Jimmy)... 
(I'd call him Mr. W. all the time, except he liked Jimmy better and Melva just wanted to be called Melva too.)  You can tell by riding with him that he's very comfortable driving! 

Melva, waiting in Dustin's car while he took care of some business...

If you look closely, you can see something in this picture that you don't see around these parts!

The roads in Kentucky were very CURVY!  It was pretty...

There were trees almost everywhere you looked!

Many of the houses and buildings there are made from brick.  (They have termites down there.)

We saw a LOT of houses.  It was actually hard to tell when we were in or out of a town, as there seemed to be houses all along the way...  Occasionally, we even saw fields.

Another pretty home...

Dustin did almost all of the driving when we went places...

*Smile*

More driving...  We spent a lot of time on the road, going from place to place.

Yep, we were here:  

It resembles a small hometown of mine with all of that white stuff on the ground!

Jimmy LOVES dogs, especially his "Happy" (aka: Tutu)...

A beautiful Amish homestead...

Logs...

Dustin---taking care of some business at the Amish sawmill...

This was also in that office at the sawmill!!!  I was glad it was very much dead.  :)

Wood...

Wood...

And more wood...

I'll call this one, "Logs"!
 Dustin named all the different kinds of logs that there were here and it added up to quite the list...

A truck full of logs...

This is the sawmill that Jimmy and Dustin help the Amish operate by driving the loader...

Aren't all these logs amazing looking?   :)

In this picture, you can see the sawdust pile off to the left there...

Now THAT is a big saw-blade!!!!!

Thinkin...

The sawdust auger...

 

This is the church that we attended in Tennessee... 

My daddy...

The wiper-fluid was low/empty, so Dustin used the next best thing to clean the windshield off...

This picture is hard to see, but it is of the huge outdoor movie-screen...

Playing pool at the lake-cabin...

Melva...

Needless to say, we did not return home with a suntan...  ;(

The dining-area at the cabin...

I took this picture on Jimmy's birthday... 

(Yes, my dad and Dustin joined him in eating chicken livers.  Uggg)

Our cook, Melva... 

I wish I'd taken a picture of the biscuits and gravy we had, as they could hardly believe we'd never had that before---so made sure we had it while down there!  Even the hotel in Iowa served biscuits and gravy!  Hmmmm....   (BTW:  It's tasty.)

Dustin....

Dustin's good friend...

Dustin's good friends' wife and little girl...  :)

Smart-phones are really nice and helpful!  (as I may have mentioned a time or two before...).

 We began our long drive home on Wednesday morning---after eating the breakfast Dustin had prepared for us.  This time, I drove first and pretended to be brave as I drove through St. Louis (6 lanes of traffic going one way in one spot)!  That is not something this country girl would like to do very often!!!  God kept us all safe though, and for that, we're very grateful.

A beautiful church...

And lastly, a giant flag...

"Thank you, again, Jimmy, Melva, and Dustin for all of your Southern hospitality! 

God bless you!"

 

The weather outside is frightful...

...compared to where Paula and the girls are at now (AZ) anyway.  :)  Inside, it is very delightful!

My brothers helped my dad load corn this morning off our pile, then they both headed for a place north of Bismarck to buy a used snowblower.  The blower needs minimal fixing and hopefully they'll be able to use it to clean off our ice-skating rink before Sunday when we hope to have a little skating party!  Hooray!

The guys loaded another load of corn when they returned (my dad was already shoveling by then) and the pile is gone now.  Next, they have to get the auger working (it broke this afternoon) and start emptying grain bins....

Please pray for the safety of people driving on the roads these wintry days, as just in the last 3 days, 3 of my friends have had sliding-off-the-road type of accidents.  Thankfully, the Lord kept them safe!!!

Speaking of friends, I had a very pleasant phone call this afternoon and talked to my VERY "old" friend, Kjersti.  She and I used to be 3 year old best friends, along with our other friend, Lindsay.  We've stayed in touch somewhat through the years and now have hope of seeing each other at Lindsay's wedding this fall.  It was just so good to hear Kjersti's laugh again after all these years.  :)   

Conglomeration of phone pictures!

 

I may eventually get the Kentucky-trip post done, if I keep working on it a little everyday, but in the meantime, I wanted to share some of the pictures I took with my new phone. They were taken sometime in the past month...and are quite mixed up! Hope you enjoy them anyway...

 

Cows:

 

 Cow:

Andrew and my mom doing ___?

 Blizzard!

 Growin' girls!

 Tired girls!  ---   Can you find them amongst all the babies and stuffed animals?  ;) 

 Blind-hem stitching the edge of my quilt...  (I'm a little over a 4th done now.)

 An apple muncher!

 A suspicious lookin' cowboy!

 Reading ? on the Internet...

 OH, and here's Lauretta at Sarena's baby-shower...

 I think this is my favorite picture of Johanna in this post, although she's pretty cute in other ones too.

 Tracy Jo in a "tutu"...  I had fun dressing the girls up and doing their hair so they could go to a Valentine party with their parents later in the evening!

 This day was sunny and bright, so I took the girls out for some fun in the snow.  Tracy Jo was eating it here...

 Stash...the dog.

 Johanna found a tree branch and was breaking little twigs off of it to throw for Stash...

 Swinging in the snow!

It was snowing again today...big, beautiful snowflakes!

  My dad went to town for more mineral lick-tubs for the cattle.  That was after hauling a load of our corn to an elevator about an hour away.  My mom kept busy with sessions for clients.  I was working on cooking, reading, and studying some things God put on my heart...  Andrew and Jacob helped load corn and then Andrew worked in the shop and Jacob did schoolwork.

'twas a good day. 

OH!  I have one more picture to share!  I was so happy yesterday to receive my first-ever letter from Michael B. in Assam, India!!! 

Here it is:   

Wasn't that interesting???  :)

You wish to know who Michael is? 

Well, alright.  I guess it's no secret. 

 He is the little 6 year old boy that I sponsor through Gospel for Asia's "Bridge of Hope" program. :)  I pray for him and his family whenever I see his picture on my piano to remind me to do so...  

Last day of babysitting...

....for the week.  :)   Paula and the girls are going on a little vacation to visit her parents, so I have a vacation too, in a way.  I spent most of the day with the girls, until Zach came in early so I could drive home, pick up my mom, and head for Hazelton to attend a friends' freeze-dried food "Party" at 6:00. 

My dad and brothers, well, I'm not sure what they worked on today.  When I got home, they were moving an auger around and driving the water truck too, but I never heard why?  Hmmmm....

  Before I end this blog-post, I wanted to share a link to a really neat video that a friend shared recently.  It runs for about 20 minutes, but I think you'll be blessed if you have the time to watch it.  (FYI: It talks about "singing" stars!) 

 http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=louie+giglio+stars+and+whales+st+louis&qs=n&form=QBVR&pq=louie+giglio+stars+and+whales+st+louis&sc=0-0&sp=-1&sk#view=detail&mid=A1AC0ED68AA1C5110457A1AC0ED68AA1C5110457

 

"How Great Is our God!"

"Am I the kind of person the person I want is looking for?"

I'm still working on that lengthy blog-post I've been promising, but in the meantime, I thought I'd point some of you in the direction of Raquel's blog tonight, as I thought that this post (http://god-sdaughter.blogspot.com/2014/02/meeting-your-own-criteria.html) was full of good things for young (or older) single people to consider and pray about......

May the Lord bless and guide you in this new week!  I'm going babysitting tomorrow.  Hooray!!!  :)

Oh, and....