March 19........The Day That Just Wouldn’t End……. We drove through 3 states today!!

Good morning Phoenix (the little kids keep reminding me that Phoenix IS the capital of AZ…)where is the Starbucks???

Pam and I have chosen Matthew 6:33-34 and Phil 4:6-7 as our theme verses for the trip….little did we know the wisdom of these words for today………

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.  Math 6:33-34

  Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Phil:6-

  …..Awwwww after a refreshing night of 4 hours of sleep (Are you kidding me???) courtesy of the W. Indian School Rd. Super Walmart (yes, we actually found one that graciously let us sleep in the parking lot…Did you know that overnight sleeping has been outlawed at most Walmarts?), Pam and I quickly threw on our clothes and nixed the previously planned idea of running into Walmart to grab the couple of things that we forgot.  Upon trying to start the RV, we were greeted with the easily recognizable yet equally undesirable sound of click, click, click……….NOOOOO…..we were so careful to make sure that we turned everything off at each stop except when we, under the heavy veil of sheer exhaustion, parked for the night.  OK, so being the problem solvers that we are, we both whipped out our cards and decided to forgo AAA and call Good Sam to come jump the RV.  We were confident that this would be the quickest resolution since it being a Monday morning might find AAA a little busy.  After all, we had signed up for the Good Sam Roadside Assistance specifically for this very reason and they specialize in RV care, right??  Feeling a little smug that we were SO prepared, we were quite surprised to learn that we had signed up for the wrong plan and could not, in fact, get help from them at this time.  Back to the drawing board, AAA it was.  I called and scheduled a service call and we returned to the previous plan of shopping for our forgotten items.  While we were in the store, Dave called and reminded Pam of a way to start the RV in the event of the battery not working.  OOPS, in our tired condition, we had both forgotten about this.  So out to the RV we went and, happily, our trusty vehicle started right up….  Finally, after an hour and a half delay, we were off and DRIVING for what would seem like forever.    When we got to a straight stretch on 10, I know that sounds like an oxymoron, I took the wheel (literally) for my first trial run at driving the RV.  So, of course, a few minutes after I started driving it starts to SNOW…..in AZ!  Wait, isn’t this the desert??  OK, high desert but it isn’t supposed to snow is it??  Well, yes it does and for the next few hours I white knuckled it while Pam took a much deserved nap.  Madison was my co-pilot and navigator.  At one point, it had stopped snowing and I was talking to the kids about things that we saw as we were driving and out of nowhere a huge shlop of snow hit the front windshield and scared the hooha out of me!!!  I guess it had frozen to the overhang of the cab and when it started to defrost, it fell down to the surface below.  Well, I was awake for sure after that!!!  We stopped for gas at the lone gas station on that particular stretch and met a couple from San Francisco…..small world.  It was a trading post and I took some pics of the kids with the Indian sign outside in the freezing cold wind and snow.  Who would have known we would need snow parkas in AZ in March…..

Arizona desert.....pretty, huh.......maybe a little boring

 

.......entering New Mexico while it begins to snow......brrrrrrrr

braving the wind and SNOW for a picture.....

............gassing up at the trading post in New Mexico

Soon, we crossed into New Mexico and then the Texas border.  YEAH!!  Almost there, NOT.  We still had maaaany hours to drive.  Texas is HUGE!  But, it was still fun to know that we were in the state where the real fun would finally begin.  Believe it or not, we would actually be stopping for more than gas and a potty break.  As we were driving along, I saw what looked like a rundown ghetto on the right side of the scenery and a huge city on the left.   It dawned on me that this was Mexico, actually Juarez, Mexico.  Since I had never been there before, I did not realize that you could actually see houses and a town in Mexico from the freeway on the US side.  The kids were fascinated to see the extreme opposite of the left and right sides of the scenery out the windows.  It is very easy to understand why so many brave the Rio Grande illegally to escape such poverty and conditions.  It saddened me to think of the affluence of America and the less than desirable living situation of the Mexican people.  I appreciate where we live and the blessings that God has provided for my family.  There but for the grace of God go I…….seeing these conditions definitely gave us all pause for thought……The kids worked on their American History Timeline books that they are making while we drove the interminable distances today, this is why I homeschool…..How awesome to learn a language lesson on plurals because we are driving by huge unending landscape of CACTI (not cactuses) and to see rock formations (in AZ) and notice the different colored dirt in AZ (red) and NM (tan)…..We talked about the reason that we were in the middle of a snow storm in NM (high desert elevation), the way that the Interstates are numbered (2 digit even numbers run east to west and the odd numbers run north to south) and time zones across the USA…….About 9:00 pm, I relinquished the wheel to Pam and took a much needed nap, wow that felt good but I did not want to wake up.  The kids all went to bed and we were back to just the mommies and our late night foray into the darkest and most desolate parts of road …..God decided to light up the sky for us as we drove the last 240 miles to San Antonio with the largest strikes of lightning I’ve ever seen!!  WOW….His artwork is AWE INSIRING and His hand so POWERFUL….It is BRIGHT when it strikes across the whole sky, looks like day time…..As we got closer to San Antonio, the lightning kept getting closer and closer and we could see the huge strikes and not just light……scary but so COOL….I’m not, however, going to become a storm chaser!!  We felt a little more than concerned that we might be a target for this mighty electrical force that was striking fear and awe into our hearts and minds……..looked awfully close and right overhead!!!!  A quick phone call home to Tim, who PTL was awake at 1:30 his time, gave us some reassurance of safety.  But that was followed by his instructions of what to do if it started to hail foreshadowing the onslaught of a tornado.  Wait, I wanted him to make it all better.  Of course, being California girls we are definitely not familiar with this kind of extreme weather phenomena!!!  On the BRIGHT side (literally), we are choosing to see this as God’s way of keeping us ALERT!!!  It felt like a whisper of “follow the yellow brick road” with the lightning being the “yellow brick road” to San Antonio……we passed a sign along the way that said “Scenic View”, got that right!!   Wish the kids could have seen the spectacle but being that it was 3:30 am we felt it would be cruel and unusual treatment to wake them up.  Checked the weather for this area for the next two days and it looked like we would be still experiencing rain and possibly more lightning so maybe the kids will get to see it still……we’ll have to see what tomorrow holds…….

 

Arrived at the Dahlingers in San Antonio at      ……what wonderful hosts.  They left the light on and an extension cord out for us to plug in……see you in the am……..