SHEs Organized

Can I just say how delightful it is to NOT have to do work paperwork on a Sunday night.

Amen to that, Cathy!!!

Well guess what! DMOM may want to take dh's ticket! -- sigh --
She would really like to see him and dh really doesn't care.
She will pay for her ticket -- but -- sheesh -- I'd really rather go with dh. HE would do the majority of the driving AND he would not talk too much during the concert! (Which dmom is prone to do!) but dh said not to worry about that -- it will be too loud for even dmom to talk!

Anyway -- the concert is not till March. Who knows what shape her feet will be in -- or her mouth -- or her stomach! So I guess if March arrives and she wants to go badly enough to pay dh for his ticket.... Then it'll be a good thing to take her with me. So I won't worry about that tonight....

Oh -- and dh doesn't care if she pays him or not. I just acted like he would to see if she really wanted to go.

Safe and fed in Tucumcari.

The drive was uneventful. Actually, that isn't quite true. But thanks to the good sense of the police officer who recognized genuine error vs arrogant disregard of speed limits, the 68 in the 55 zone received a warning, which was duly (and gratefully) noted.

I have lots to say but am still processing. I'm looking at a handful of cotton that we picked up off the side of the road. When I was a little girl, my Daddy brought back a post card with a piece of cotton from a plant for my post card collection. But I've never seen cotton growing in fields before today.

We've driven into another time zone but our bodies are still telling us it is late. Actually, we'd believe 10 or 11, not 8 or 9.

I was trying to write while we drove along but I need a new laptop battery and was distracted by scenery so ran out of battery power.

Helia no school here tomorrow bc of vets. Day.

K in C I used to have a post card collection of 200 post cards.

I have put away laundry dishes are going.

I have made good progress on the rainbow afghan after ripping it back to where I could start with other colors I wanted to use.

Here's a quick summary of my last two days.

We pulled into Medicine Park by 4:45 and met up with OKay at 5:30 at the Old Plantation Restaurant for dinner. Dh got to try chicken fried steak. I'm glad I don't like gravy because the few bites I had from the edges were delicious and I would have eaten more of his leftovers but for the gravy.

After dinner we headed off to Friday Night Gang, a group of members from her church and enjoyed their hospitality and bible study. People are people and we felt completely at home as if they were members from our own churches. The accents were different but we just felt as if we were among friends.

After FNG, we headed back to the inn on our own, stopping for milk and fruit along the way as a bedtime stack.

Our day started early this morning. Medicine Park has a few restaurants but none are open for breakfast. I knew that so we went on the recommendation of OKay's dh and headed to a nondescript place. The packed parking lot is the sign it is a great place to eat.

Ann's was definitely the place to eat. We expected a good breakfast, and got it, but there was entertainment too as we listened to the group of regulars at the next table tell tall tales and tease each other. Oh, and since I'm in the South, I remembered to order hot tea and biscuits. Didn't expect such a big biscuit, though.

We ate, guilt-free, because OKay was meeting us at 8:30 and we were headed for a 'family friendly' guided hike at the Refuge.

It was a fabulous hike, about 90 minutes long (and 15 minutes drive with the guide to the hiking trail.) The refuge has elk, buffalo, longhorn cattle and prairie dogs, roaming free. We saw all of those (but only got pictures of three of them) but not while we hiked.

The hike was wonderful. On Thursday when I went to pack my back suddenly went out. I had known about the hike and had been faithfully doing my knee physio but suddenly I needed my cane just to walk. Even without that limitation, I think this hike would be at the limit of my ability, but it was well worth it and, since I had my poles and used them liberally, I managed with just a few twinges along the way.
After the hike we went to Holy City, a set of cobblestone buildings and a chapel. A Passion play is performed here each Easter.

From there we took a circuitous route back to Medicine Park. OKay went home for the afternoon. We took a walk along Medicine Creek after having a light lunch at the bakery.

We then walked back to the hotel and I did a round of physio, we took a nap and then headed off to OKay's home for dinner. We are just west of the dividing line of the horizontal centre of the lower 48 states. Driving the 20 minutes to OKay's took us to the eastern half of the country.

Dh completely charmed LO and they spent time playing duplo while we sat around chatting after dinner. Before dinner I got to go into the storm cellar to see what it was like.

We went to sleep last night listening to the coyotes.

Today's been a whirlwind.

I've been looking forward to going to the Cowboy Church for a really long time. OKay had sent me a link to their podcasts so I had listed to services in the past and was curious what they would be like in person. Today I got to experience it.

We got out of the hotel by 7:35 and drove into Lawton for breakfast at Jimmy's Egg, an Oklahoma based chain of restaurants. Another good meal, although this one was a tad more healthy with me choosing the egg white western omelet, raisin cinnamon toast and fruit along with my hot tea. I was going to share dh's biscuit but he opted for 3 small pancakes (small my arse, they were much bigger than the ones I make at home!) so I missed out on that. Service was quick and there was free Wifi, so we stayed until 9. By then the almost totally empty restaurant was almost completely full so others obviously thought it was a good place to eat.

The Cowboy Church was only 10 minutes from the hotel but almost 25 from Lawton and we arrived good and early. We'd driven past the day before, knew exactly where we were going so didn't miss any turns, which, if one was looking for a regular church, would be easy to do.

Cowboys were everywhere. Big, small, young, old. Hats on all the time, except during prayers. The preacher wore his hat all through his preaching.

When you arrive, there's coffee, hot chocolate and doughnuts waiting to warm you (the arena's seating area has heaters but is still chilly.) Our reception was especially warm because, although OKay and her family weren't there when we arrived, others from Friday Night Gang, pulled in while we were still outside and took us under their wings and showed us around.

The service was quite different from ours. No bulletin. No projector. About 1 hymn book for 3 people (our ratio would be the same if our church was full but instead we end up with more hymn books than congregants!) A worship leader opens with announcements, then music, then prayer, greeting each other, then a special song, then the preacher, then the worship leader closed with a prayer.

The preacher is a kinetic preacher, pacing all over, off and back onto the stage. It's southern preaching with lots of calls for an Amen! No set text. He had a rough idea of what he wanted to say, gave us an outline, and expressed the beginning of it but then he didn't get where he was heading. In fact he did just 1/7th of what he said he'd be doing. It was a great set up ('save the date' needs to be done for God's special dates and Billy intends to preach on the 7 dates God wants us to save listed in Leviticus and started today with the Sabbath) but then he was going to list and comment on all the times recorded in Mark when Jesus worked on the Sabbath and only got through the first one, running way over time in the process.

It was a great premise but not fully delivered and I'm not sure exactly what the intended message was. The church seemed to appreciate his sermon and he's entertaining but I want to the text to be ripped from the pages of the bible and put into today's context. He touched lightly on that at one point ("don't talk to cowboys about needing to take a day off work to keep the Sabbath") but then he didn't reconcile it (leaving me with questions like what does Sabbath look like in today's society? how do we reconcile going to church in the morning and then picking up our groceries at Walmart on the way home, thus forcing some other person to have to give up a sabbath? is it okay to work on the Sabbath since Jesus did?)

Regardless, it was interesting to see how the service flowed. This was not a slick, professional, big church experience, but worship provided by many dedicated volunteers who are letting God shine through them, reaching out to others. It is an interesting way of doing church for those who don't want to get caught up in the trappings of traditional church. After the preacher was saying some of the members have come from traditional and others start their church life at the Cowboy church but move on to traditional churches. As a small community (still 10x larger than my church), they are struggling with their growth and need for better space. They have a great fellowship hall now so have a place to have meals together and it doubles as a place for the Sunday School and nursery so they are not longer among the horse stalls.

It was an interesting contrast to my summer project of interviewing United Church congregations who have more building than they know what to do with. Here I am focusing on taking worship to where the people are, and this church, which does just that, is slowly adding the trappings of traditional church buildings.

We got on the road at 1:30 after lunch with OKay and it was an uneventful drive to the southwestern edge of Oklahoma, then on a diagonal up through Texas to New Mexico.

I got to see cotton fields in Oklahoma and we stopped and picked up some cotton from the shoulder of the road.

The landscapes were beautiful. I got my big sky and since we were driving west, we were treated to a gorgeous sunset.

The speeds on the roads are surprising. The divided highways are all 75 (which is about 20% faster than Ontario but reasonable since they are straight and flat most of the time.) But at one point it was 75 mph on a two lane road. Sure it was flat and straight but still, speed kills. The sign saying "2697 deaths so far this year on Texas roads" wasn't a big shock, just a sad commentary.

We are staying tonight along Route 66, in a vintage motor inn at Tucumcari. We broke up the 7.5 hour drive by stopping after 5 hours.

I updated OKay's thread with more pictures:

http://shesorganized.net/phpbb/viewtopi ... 188#p97188

Wow, you need a good night's sleep after all of that K & K! Cowboy Church sounds interesting.

I found my flats. They were in a large suitcase. I'm sure They enjoyed their trip to Cuba last May with Mike when I stayed home.

All 4 cases are out and have the basic stuff that they will have in them. Due to the scare that someone else had on Cruise Critic earlier this year, each case has 1/4 of all the necessities. Just in case one of the cases goes elsewhere. The 2 carry ons only have clothes in them.

Mike is still watching tv. I am almost ready to go to bed to read.