Dec. 31, 2020, was relaxing for us because from 2011 through 2020, we had been home on New Year's Eve only four times. And as I write this reflection, we are, again, on the road.
Several friends ask, "Can't sit still, can ya?" My response is, "You find no moss under my wheels." And we've driven almost 30,000 miles in 2021. The following is why we were sometimes hard to find.
In February, our daughter from Denver came to spend a week with us.
In March we went to New Mexico to attend the funeral of a long-time friend. While there, a second cousin on the west coast died, but I couldn't get there in time. In the last week of March, we visited our daughter and a cousin in Texas.
April was quiet, but we did visit Branson, Mo., with some long-time friends.
In May, we visited Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park in Utah. We then stopped for a while at the lowest spot in the western hemisphere, Badwater in Death Valley, which is 282 feet below sea level. We then went through the Sierra Nevada Mountains around Yosemite National Park. They are magnificent, almost beyond description. We filled in for a pastor in San Diego and spent 10 days visiting relatives in California before leaving to see more family members in New Mexico and Colorado.
In June, we saw friends and family on the way to Maryland, where we filled in for a pastor for two weeks. My brother is a chaplain at the U.S. Naval Station in Annapolis, Md., so we stopped there for several days. We enjoyed seeing the replica of Noah's ark in Kentucky again and the Arch in St. Louis, Mo. Visiting family on the way home, we were pleased to have one of our granddaughters stay with us for two weeks.
In August, I wanted to see a sister who had recently moved to Utah, so we made a trip through Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, then back home.
In September, we returned to Maryland for a church conference, and visited my brother in Annapolis again. On the way home, we stopped by our son's home in Indiana, but I got into poison ivy while there. That wasn't fun.
In October, another granddaughter came to visit us. While she was with us, we toured the Roaring River Fish Hatchery in Missouri and watched the Passion Play in Eureka Springs, Ark. We then received a call from Kentucky that a member of the USS Yorktown CV-5 Survivors Club passed away, and I was asked to officiate over the funeral. We returned home in time to attend a family reunion in Dallas.
For half of November, we relaxed at home. However, we went to see our daughter in Denver for Thanksgiving before heading west again. In Wyoming, the wind was roaring! We saw trucks laying on their sides and RVs that were turned into piles of rubble, so we decided to settle into an RV park for two nights and wait out the storm.
On Dec. 1, we got on the road again. We visited my sister in Utah again and planned to stay in an RV campground near Salt Lake City, but two things changed our minds. One, the western portion of our nation had received so little rain, and Salt Lake has evaporated quite a bit. The shore is now hundreds of feet away from where we planned to camp, leaving large salt flats where we had expected water. But also, Salt Lake Valley was covered with a thick blanket of air pollution, so we continued west.
Driving through Nevada, we stayed a night in both Elko and Fernley. At Lake Tahoe, the water level is very low, but nevertheless, beautiful. However, it was crowded, and all camping areas were full, so we tootled on toward San Andreas where one of our sons is pastor.
I taught Wednesday evening Bible studies until Christmas. A week before Christmas, we attended a multi-church Christmas meeting and dinner, and our son's family sang a concert for another community-wide event on Christmas Eve.
As of this writing, we left California for New Mexico where we'll visit with friends and family and fill in for a pastor for three weeks. This is another year that we will not be home before New Year's Eve.
Perhaps this next year we will sit still a little more ... perhaps.
Happy New Year!
-- S. Eugene Linzey is an author, mentor and speaker. Send comments and questions to [email protected]. Visit his web site at www.genelinzey.com. The opinions expressed are those of the author.