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MDX Report

Here are a couple pictures of our trip - the first is just a general overview of the US but the second is a detailed map of our drive.  You can zoom in on it to see the cities we drove through.  It was quite a few!  We also figure we drove through 16 different states, but we'll let you count and verify.  As we mentioned in the last post, we ended up driving around 6800 miles (the itinerary was around 6500 and then we obviously did quite a bit of driving at each of our stops).  You can see a few pictures from our trip in the all-new Summer Trip 2009 photo album.

The MDX did magnificantly!  We were curious while still in Hawaii to get it to the mainland and see how it would do during long drives on open roads.  We never drove it for longer than 30 minutes at a time on Oahu!  Anyhow, the MDX was great.  It ran like a deer, was comfortable and cool, was perfectly sized for our mobile kitchen in the back, and got much better gas mileage than we're used to.  Just to be sure, a day or two before we left for our trip I took it to an auto shop here in PDX and had it looked up and down, all the fluids topped off, and even had new brake pads installed.  Then I took it to a car wash and had it cleaned inside and out before we started living in it for a month.  So, we started out in top condition.  Then along the way various family members topped fluids off and give things a quick inspection to ensure we were still runnning well.

The only issue we had with the MDX was the car battery died a couple times.  It died three times in Virginia and then once more in Colorado.  We suspect it's because we had so much drawing off it - both our GPS and our XM satelite radio - because we didn't have problems with the battery as long as we unplugged those things before we tried to restart the car after a stop.  So Kathy's dad put in a new car battery while we were staying with them in Bayfield and we haven't had any problems with it since.  The old battery was 5 years old so it was time to be replaced anyway.

The other close calls we had with the MDX during our trip were all results of operator errors, specifically how often we waited to gas up until the last possible minute!  In fact, the closest call we had on our entire trip was only 11 miles from home on the last day of our trip!  We couldn't believe that we had made it thousands of miles only to run out of gas 20 minutes from home!  To make a long (and stressful) story short, we eventually found a little country store with one rusty old gas pump with 0 miles left on our odometer!  We felt like Kramer test driving that new car until it ran out of gas to see how far below "Empty" the needle would go!  Fortunately we filled up and made it home without ever having actually run out of gas!

While We Were Away...

When we left for our month-long road trip life was a little bit crazy.  The last week before we left Zak and I has several meetings with individuals, Zak had a sermon to prepare for Sunday, the day we left, and I had snacks to finish preparing to get us through the month (other than the cold items, of course).  Our sweet friends, the Cousers, were staying here until their house was available for them to move in, but they had left for camp for a week.  So, we also had to coordinate who would water the garden while they were gone.  Oh, yeah, and then there was packing...

Needless to say, some tasks went undone.  One of those was trellising our beans and tomatoes.  I knew this could be an issue, but really, how much can plants grow in one month, right?  Well, here's my answer...

  

 

 

Before

After

Yes, those are the beans taking over the tomatoes and the tomatoes taking over the red cabbage.  Oops.  Thankfully the corn did not need trellised...

Before

After

And this is the bounty we gathered just on the first day...

17 Cucumbers!

Holy Moly!  So the next few days we spent some time straightening things up a bit and getting tomatoes off the ground so they don't rot!  It's not the most efficient way, but we kind of surrendered that idea when we abandoned our poor garden in trellisslessness.  Here are some of the improvements that have been made and why we still have a bag that has not been unpacked...anyway I'm blaming the garden...

 

Before

(See the red cabbage playing peek-a-boo)

After

(from both sides.  Who knew that romaine lettuce would turn into a Christmas tree when left to its own devices and why didn't those silly Cousers make a salad or 16?)

Our little pumpkin patch needed some tidying as well...

 

Before

After

Now our pumpkins, carrots and zucchinis can do their thing unencumbered by rogue yucca plants.

Can you believe that our peas are STILL producing?  In fact they are still blooming!  I thought they were done before we left but we are still snacking on fresh peas.  Here is a picture of things to come...there are going to be millions!

 

And here is one of Koa's red sunflowers that he picked out and planted just for fun...

 

And while I was belatedly trellising our garden Zak was working on his own project...

 

Now we have plenty of split firewood for our very cool fire pit!  Bring on the homemade ice cream!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

We got home last Wednesday to a frenzy of wedding festivities.  In fact, we hadn't even unpacked the car when I took a little jaunt to join some friends for part of the bachelorette party for our friend, Tracie.  I didn't stay for very long but I wanted to at least make the effort to be there for some of it and share in her joy. 

We had our dear friend, Rebecca, staying at the house with us from Virginia (she had actually gotten in the day before we did).  Our friends, the Bahms were here from Germany and Chanda came from Florida and they all stayed with the Cousers in their new house.  (Remember, the Cousers were still staying in our house when we left and made the transition while we were gone).  All of us had been friends in Hawai'i and have since gone our separate ways.  It was a great opportunity to reunite and support Tracie and Doug as they start their new life together!  Congratulations, Tracie and Doug!

All of that is to say it was a busy and very fun week upon our return.  In fact, I think if we didn't have all of that to return to we would have continued our "vacation" just a little longer.  Since Zak got to speak about 10 times along the way, it was a "working vacation" and we were pretty tired by the time we headed home.  We even joked that when we got home we would need to turn around and go on a real vacation!  I think we would have liked to take the last leg a little slower or stay in Colorado a little longer to relax.  I am pleased that at the end of a month on the road we weren't all just fed up with it!  We really enjoyed our time together and seeing family and friends.

Over all the kids did AMAZING until the last couple of days.  Things really started to break down during the four hours from Albuquerque, NM to Bayfield, CO on day 22 of our 30 day trip.  When we tried to stop for dinner we couldn't find a single place to stop that the boys could get down and play.  In fact, we couldn't even find a picnic table or park to stop for a picnic.  We finally found a picnic table in a less than welcoming area of Cuba, NM and ate a late lunch and hit the road again.  Those last few hours were antsy for all of us.  I think that was the day Koa didn't take a single nap, too.  Boy were we ready to see Papa and Grandma! 

We had a great time visiting them and seeing the farm!  While we were there, Zak was the keynote speaker for Reign in the Rockies, a spiritual renewal weekend for the Four Corners area.  He spoke five times while we were there and I got to teach a ladies' class on Sunday morning.  All of our sessions were recorded and a CD is being produced so folks who didn't attend could hear what they missed.  I know I'm a little biased, but I thought Zak did a fabulous job.  Attendance for the weekend was pretty low, but we got a great response from those who were there.  It's amazing (but not surprising) how the struggles that we're addressing are everywhere.  In every church that we spoke at we always had people lining up to speak with us afterwords about their personal struggles.  One of the things we definitely got to see all along this trip is that when we talk about addiction and abuse there is always a grateful audience and a great response.  We just pray that whatever was needed to be heard from God was heard. 

Our whole trip was a great opportunity to share what God is doing in our lives and our ministry.  We were also grateful for the opportunity to say thank you to some of the people who support us throughout the year financially.  That was one of our main goals for this trip and we did get to do that for the most part.  There are still a few people we haven't been able to thank personally, but we hope to be able to do that at some point.  All told we drove around 6400 miles, slept in 10 different places, spoke at 3 different churches and visited a couple others, and had a wonderful time seeing family, friends, and supporters over 30 days on the road.  This country is filled with such beauty - both in it's scenery and in it's people.

Thanks God for a wonderful, safe trip!  We hope your will was done.

Next Stop...Home!

Snake River Canyon, Twin Falls, Idaho