We’ve had really great weather this week--perfect for being outdoors.
STAYING AT THE HORSE TRAIL HILTON. Our Sunday school class has scheduled a camping trip at least once a year for the past several years, but this was the first time we’ve been able to go. Vicki packed all day Friday. When I came in from work we loaded the van. Vicki commented that she was going to follow some advice and not take any make-up. With a glint in my eye I asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to rethink that?” I quickly ducked after saying this.
We stayed at Long C Trails which is a few miles east of Westmoreland, Tennessee. It’s about an hour’s drive from home. As the name suggests, this place has many trails for those wishing to spend a weekend on a horse and one family in our class brought three horses. Our campsite was really pretty and was situated in a river bottom. Those with tents stayed next to the river while we stayed in a rustic cabin just up the hill a bit. There were six families who camped out and several more drove up to join in on the fun.
We got there after supper Friday evening and had a good time visiting around the fire (and enjoying s’mores). It was pretty late when everyone turned in. The next morning after hearty breakfast we went wading in the river (a few of the kids went swimming). All the kids had a blast catching minnows and crawfish as well as skipping rocks across the water. Our kids even helped wash one SUV in the river. In most places the river was pretty shallow and it was nice to just turn the kids loose and let them play. Some of the adults and teenagers played a few rounds of Hearts.
Saturday evening found us back around the camp fire. The conversation slowly gave way to telling Bell Witch stories which had a few of the kids pretty scared when they went to bed. About midnight a very intense storm blew up. The thunder woke up everyone except Ben and Nate. A few of the campers abandoned their tents in the lightning. An hour later the storm was gone and rumbling far off in the distance.
Long C Trails has Cowboy Church at 8:30 on Sundays so we rose up early to attend this service (Mt. Carmel was represented by 23 people and 1 dog). As we were eating we heard harp music from the river bottom. Sharon Robinson plays the harp (her husband, Rick, is our teacher) and I made the comment that I thought she was playing that morning. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy and said it must be a CD, but I knew something they didn’t. Sharon is a home health nurse. While she does have a full size harp she also has a lap size harp that she carries with her. Sometimes when a patient is really sick or close to death she will play the harp for them. I insisted that she get her harp for Cowboy Church. The camp pastor said he had heard guests play a lot of instruments over the years but it was the first time anyone had played a harp. After church we headed home with tired and dirty bodies and many wonderful memories.
YOU LEARN SOMETHING NEW ALL THE TIME. While up at the main barn at Long C Trails I noticed they had plastic zipper bags filled about two thirds full of water hanging with twine all around their little grill area. When I asked about them I was told they are there to keep the flies away. They said they had hung the bags up about a year ago and they seem to do the trick. What happens is that the water in the bags refracts the light from the sun. This drives flies nuts because of their compound eyes so they stay away. The fellow I was talking to said another guest had told them that placing a shiny penny in the water makes it work better but they had never bothered to take the bags down to put pennies in. This was a new one on me.
STAR GAZING. While sitting around the camp fire our conversation drifted to the stars a few times (and trying to identify constellations, planets, planes, satellites and high flying fireflies). This made me think of a few things you might find interesting. I haven’t downloaded one in quite a while but you can find free star maps online. They publish one each month (Kathy, they put out a Southern Hemisphere version too) and you can even submit your email address to their list to receive a reminder when a new map is available.
One of the coolest things I’ve seen is a program called Stellarium. It is a planetarium program and is free to anyone who wants to download it. It is very easy to manipulate allowing you to pan around the sky, zoom in on objects and even move forward and backward through time. Stellarium paints its sky with digital pictures from telescopes so you can zoom in to see Jupiter’s red spot or Saturn’s rings. The program pays attention to details like the phases of the moon, solar and lunar eclipses and the positions of other larger moons in our solar system. Some schools are even getting a projector with a fisheye lens and setting up a planetarium with this software.
Another cool piece of planetarium software that is also free is named Celestia. Celestia is a bit harder to drive than Stellarium but it offers one interesting feature: with Celestia you can fly through space to see what things look like from other places inside or outside the solar system. It’s just amazing what’s available these days.
G-FORCE PARTY. On Sunday evenings during the past school year our church has had a class for kids called G Force. Ed and Connie Coleman, who are both very popular with all the kids at church, hosted an end of the year party/cookout Sunday afternoon. They had a great turn out and everyone had fun playing games which sort of degenerated into a water balloon fight. We heard that after we left several adults got tossed into the pool. When we left Ben said, “But I want to spend the night here!”
THE FRUIT LOOPS. Monday evening Vicki’s missions group met at our house. Vicki had barely recuperated from camping and the G-Force party when she had to get the house ready for this. After eating supper at Pauline’s I came over here to work on the computer. They were having fun as I’ve never heard so much cackling in all my life.
PIANO LESSONS. Jenna has started piano lessons. She is really excited as well as Vicki who hopes to learn along with her. Her teacher is Ann Morris, our church pianist. All this reminds me of when I took lessons for two or three years when I was about Jenna’s age. I knew my music career was over that last year when Mrs. Chaney assigned me Taps to play for my last recital. (No, I’m not making that one up.) At least I went out with a dignified funeral dirge.
YET ANOTHER CHURCH FUNCTION. We usually have meals at church on Wednesday evenings but this week we had a cookout. We fed around 200 folks. One fellow who attends our church plays in a band and they performed for us. The younger kids enjoyed a scavenger hunt while the older kids and adults played a game of wiffle ball. I think God smiled on the event as the clouds were rumbling when we said the blessing but we never felt more than a few drops.
Joe
