Vacation Day 2 - The Family of God

The family of God.  You know at church how we talk about being the family of God, but until you walk outside of those church doors, you only experience it on a small scale.  These last few years, I have truly been blessed to meet more of God's family.  Last year, I got to meet DJ (the Holt-Korea social worker).  Before that I met some missionaries from Taiwan and a pastor from Belarus.  Before that I met several children within our church's association that were from several different churches.

Sometimes you meet very special people over the Internet.  I have met several, and will get to hopefully meet them in person soon (like at the Holt picnic).   I don't remember what it was about Cindy, but her Spirit just speaks to mine. 

When Shawn told me we were going to drive to Florida to the beach, I asked if we could swing by Kentucky to meet Cindy and her family.  He said, "Yes." 

We started off our second day driving to this lovely family's house.  Cindy and Nat adopted their daughter, Ella, from South Korea.  Ella was born in the same month as Faith.  Nolan her son was also there.

We had a wonderful short visit.  What a wonderful blessing to have met them in their home (Nat and Nathaniel were not there.  They were on a father-son trip.)  Thank you, Cindy.

I wish I could have stayed longer.  Their neighborhood is beautiful and I would have loved to have met Cindy's friend Brittany.

A few hours after we left Cindy's house, I needed a bathroom break and the car needed some gas.  As soon as I got out of the car, this is what I saw:

I said, "Seriously?  Out of the all the gas stations, we had to come to the one with the bathrooms outside?"

For some reason, when you go to stations with the bathrooms outside, they seem to ALWAYS be disgusting.  These were right up there in the disgusting category.  It was so awful, I didn't even want to wash my hands in there. 

We went into the store for something to drink and a snack and some hand sanitizer.  They didn't have any hand sanitizer, but they did have a bottle of peroxide that had been on the shelf what looked like 100 years.  We left that store and went across the street to wash our hands.  Hours later, Shawn realized that he had lost his credit card at the "NASTY" gas station.

That wasn't fun, but hey it happens.

I took a few pictures today that looked like this:

I told Shawn that I took a lot of pictures of trees today.  They were the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.   Experiencing the Appalachia's are much different than the Rockies.  You can see the Rocky Mountains for a long time before you arrive, but you drive through many hills before you arrive at the Appalachian Mountains.   I feel so blessed to have experienced them both within the last 5 years.

Cindy had recommended that we go to Applewood Barn in Pigeon Forge for supper.  We  ate there.  Their apple dumplings with apple butter were DELICIOUS.  Then we drove on to Gatlinburg.

We spent the night in a hotel that looked like it was something out of the 1970's.  It was expensive for only being there less than 12 hours. 

We like to go to places that are less populated and not so touristy.