From the road....part 1

We're still in Missouri, but I thought I'd try to upload some pictures of our adventures....Crossing my fingers I've figured this out....


Ok, this is a tunnel through a mountain! Yes, through the mountain...I was a bit jittery going through here. I think it had something to do with the HUGE 18 wheeler truck behind me, the equally big truck next to me and the idiot in the little car that changed lanes in front of me and SLOWED DOWN!!!! All I can see in the rear view mirror is grill and bumper of the HUGE truck and this pipsqueak in front of me slows down...I nearly wet myself!!!!! Fortunately, we survived this adventure....and down the road we went.


This is at the Holy Land Adventure in Eureka Springs Arkansas. (For those of you from Loma Linda, that's still in the US) It's a wonderful place and you go from spot to spot, listen to the park employees tell their part of the Bible story and then go to the next spot. It covers about 1 mile or so and you walk it all. It was wonderful! I thought I'd gotten a picture of some of the other spots, but would have to search through my whole 450 pictures to find them.....this is Little Critter at the Moshe (Moses) spot. He's helping hold up the 10 commandments. I just knew I had a great picture of Kefa (Peter).....he's my favorite desciple. I just know he was a red head....how else to explain his mouth so often outrunning his good intentions?!?!! grin.

Well, on to our hotel and our spot in Branson, Missouri....and yes, that's still in the US. We've know gone through Texas, Oklahoma (nothing exciting to share from there), Arkansas and are now in Missouri. Roughly 750 miles from home. Whew!!!


The following morning (Wednesday) we had breakfast with Mark Twain and Norman Rockwall. Now I realize both these men are dead....but the impersonator of Mark Twain was wonderful! He even looks a LOT like Mark Twain!!!! This is a picture of Little Critter and Mr. Twain after the show. He was impressed Little Critter had read both Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer and had also read The Jumping Frog from Calico County. Little Critter loved the jokes (that he caught, several went over his head) and seeing the pictures Mr. Rockwall had painted for the second edition of Tom Sawyer. (I personally love Norman Rockwall's paintings!) I also didn't realize he'd done the pictures for the second edition or that the two men knew each other!! THey did! And enjoyed each other's company quite well...according to Mr. Twain that is. Little Critter enjoyed this show so much he wanted to spend the money Grandma had given him to buy a copy of the show on DVD for PawPaw to watch. He just knew Pawpaw would love it. (He's right, but Momma paid for the DVD....that money is for Little Critter to buy himself something.)


After that show, we stayed downtown on the landing and snooped around. Not much to see unless you wanted to eat or shop. But did see the Paddle Boat go by as the water works started spouting water. Then suddenly the Star Spangled Banner is booming from the speakers down at the pond, and wham! Fire is bursting from these tubes in the background. Boy, howdy, it was fabulous!!! Talk about getting your patriatism stirred up!!!!! I grabbed this quick picture to share. WOW! I was almost in tears when it finished, it was so beautiful and made me so proud of this country!!!! Thank you Branson, for reminding us what a great place this is! Ok, let's move on now....


Our second show for the day was at the Sight and Sound theatre. We saw the musical Noah. This is Little Critter outside the theatre in front of the Lion and the Lamb sculpture that doubles as a small water fall. Once inside, no cameras allowed. Pooey. If you ever get the change to see this....DO IT!!! It's a bit pricey, but worth every single dime in our book. Our only quibble was they used the name Jehovah quite often mixed in with Hebrew names and Greek words. There's no J in Hebrew or Greek....so Jehovah is not a correct translation of His name. Oh well, it was only slightly bothersome. The rest of the show was incredible. Especially when we're inside the Ark...yep, they build the set all around you in the audience and you're in the Ark with them. And they bring the animals into the Ark right through the audience. It was great!!!!! This was Dodi's favorite for Wednesday. I was torn....I liked both the shows we saw. Little Critter, well, he just liked being surprised all day.

Well, I'll try to post some more pictures from our day on Thursday later this week. It was a full day with LOTS of fun stuff! As we went to each show and explored the town of Branson, we were grateful to be born in this country, to see SO much of Papa's love for us in the friendliness of wait people, ticket takers, showmen and even just other tourists, and to be able to enjoy all this great adventure. I pray you take the time to see His love for you in the people around you. He really does love you like crazy! And He sends you people and events to show it to you. Be sure not to miss them. It makes life so much more beautiful! Well, gotta get to bed, we have another big adventure on the books for the morning. Shalom, from the road......Spitfire

On the road......

Well, we left home Monday morning around 11:30 to head for Grandma's house. Over the river, and thru the woods....well, OK, there's no woods, but we did cross a couple of rivers! Six hours later, we arrived at Grandma's house. I love my mother-in-law! She is truly a jewel!!! She's always thrilled to see us, even if it's the middle of the night. (It wasn't this time, but one year we showed up around 2 in the morning....she just left the doors open for us in the little house and had a note for us. Then cooked a huge breakfast for us later that morning! No complaints about our being so late or anything! We had to wait until after work to leave....funeral, no prior warning. Oh well. We got there!) And this time she even knew we'd be using her as a Motel 6....meaning we arrived Monday around 6pm and left Tuesday morning around 10am. What a bummer! But we'll be back to her house late Friday evening...and get to stay for about 3 days.

We're now in Missouri. (For those of you unfamiliar with the US, that's another state...in fact, we drove thru 3 states today!!!!! ARGGG!) We left Texas this morning, drove thru a good portion of Eastern Oklahoma always on the lookout for Indians! I thought sure I saw smoke signals a couple of times...giggle giggle. (Oklahoma is the state the Federal Government sent all the American Indians to live in in the 1800's. There's Indian reservations all over it.) Little Critter had his nose buried in the DVD player thru most of Oklahoma, so Dodi and I had fun making up stories about the scenery....and the Indians.

Once we crossed into Arkansas (another state) we pulled the plug on the DVD player and made Little Critter look at the scenery with us. By now we were driving thru parts of the Ozark Mountains. It was beautiful....at least the parts I could actually take my eyes off the road to see! We went to Eureka Springs. To be honest, from about Fayetteville on to Eureka Springs I saw little of the scenery...something about 75 million squiggly hairpin turns up and down those blasted mountains at 65 and 70 mph.....gulp! I got seasick just before we actually got to Eureka Springs...the road did so many switchbacks! That's when the road turns back almost opposite the way you just came. And after being used to Texas roads and highways.....well, let's just say Arkansas and Oklahoma dont' know what a highway is!!!!!

Once in Eureka Springs, we went to the Holy Land Tour. We got there 30 minutes before closing (google maps was not accurate about the timing from Grandma's to Eureka Springs.....must have been all those mountain switchbacks!) so they didn't charge us for tickets and just let us run thru the tour. It was great!!!!! I hope to be able to post some pictures tomorrow of what we saw. We got to talk to "Hannah", Kefa (Peter), and Moshe (Moses). Imagine our surprise when talking with Moshe to find out he was born in our hometown and went to school 17 miles from our house!!!!!! Talk about a small world....and boy did he look good for being 3000 years old!!!!! Smile. (One day I'll have to figure out how to get smiley faces on here......oh, some other day.)

After our whirlwind tour of the Holy Lands, we got back in the Trooper, and drove the last 1 1/2 hours to Branson, Missouri. Tonight we're in our hotel room getting ready for tomorrow.. We have breakfast with Mark Twain tomorrow.. I can hardly wait and Little Critter can hardly go to sleep. He's read 3 or 4 of Mr. Twain's books, so can't wait to meet him in the morning....wait till he finds out we go on the Titanic our last day here! Hehehe. Mom can still surprise the little beast! Well, will try to post again tomorrow evening. We eat with Mark Twain in the morning, then later go visit with Noah and help with the critters. (Good grief, that could be a lot like being at home!!!!! I've got dubs on feeding the unicorns!!!)

We saw more of Papa's gifts to us today than I can recount in one entry....the mountains, the hawks, the rivers we crossed (I think there were about 30), the friendliness of the folks we met at meals and gas stops, the sharing of His love with us by the actors/actresses of the Holy Lands. I pray you each have found some of Papa's gifts to you today. And may you find more tomorrow. Shalom, from a long way from home.....one tired spitfire.

We did it!

Each year for about 10 years now, Dodi and I (and Little Critter since he was about 5) have held a biker's rest stop for those bikers going to Austin for the ROT Biker Rally. Now, if you don't live in Texas, you have no clue what this is. But it's a huge (like about 70,000 bikers) Motorcycle Rally held down in Austin each June. It's a secular rally which means we've never actually gone to it because it's mostly drunk, scantily dressed and/or hung over bikers. (For those who don't know we've been bikers for over 10 years....with the Christian Motorcyclists Association. And yes, I do have my own Harley and have logged more miles than Dodi! In fact for over a year I was the road captain and led our group on all rides....which was totally unheard of at the time...for a woman to be road captain! And that's where the name Spitfire originally came from.....the bikers.)

Well, this year, we opted to do 4 days of rest stop. Usually we only did 3 full days and sometimes part of a 4th day. But this year, Dodi really felt called to do all four days....whew. We got up between 6am and 6:30am each morning, loaded 6 ice chests with ice, drove 40 miles to the nearest Harley dealer, unloaded the canopy, table, ice chests, chairs, tracts, Bibles and our selves and proceeded to water, juice and witness to hundreds of bikers all day. The weather was between 90 and 100 degrees with humidity levels from 50-75 percent. It was miserable the last two days!!! The first two days it was cloudy so wasn't too horrible....just humid! But we got to share with SO many folks looking for a way to feel better about themselves and their lives. It was incredible! And the folks at Horny Toad Harley are the best!!! We've known them for over 10 years, and each year they just treat us like royalty. It's great!

But it's over for another year....and to be honest, I'm glad. Staying outside in the heat, the wind and the noise for 8 hours or more gets tough. I love visiting with folks, although explaining my voice gets old (I don't have one....it sounds like I have a bad case of laryngitis....but that IS my voice. Sigh.) And I LOVE getting to talk about Yeshua, the Kingdom of my Father, and prayer with these people...but. Of course, we've already started working on ways to impact more folks next year...and I'm sure I'll be right in the thick of it again...but I can honestly say I'm glad we're finished for this year. (What a baby I am, heh?) I just pray some of the seeds we planted will get watered and come to fruition.

Well, I've gotta get to bed, we leave in the morning on a trip I won as a new partner in our H & R Block office, and then to see Grandma. I'll post as I can on the road but fair warning....Internet is tricky at best at Grandma's! So if I'm quite for the next 10 days, it's just that I can't get Internet access at Grandma's. So be blessed this next week, and be sure to listen for Papa's voice asking you to fulfill His Great Commission. Tell the world how wonderful He is! They need to hear it!!! Shalom, Spitfire