Good to be gone, good to be back...

I know I've been gone and while and the blog world must have seemed a little dull and dark without the sunshine that is me, but vacation was just what the doctor ordered. He said it was either that or a mental hospital, to which I replied "doc, you gotta have mental to be in one of those!" He agreed that I was definitely lacking mental and said vacation would have to do. Besides, I wanted to wring every last drop that there was from the precious time with my family and treasure it in my heart.

I must say that vacation was fanfreakinfabudangawesomous! (Okay, maybe I went a teensy bit overboard with that...but I was searching for just the right adjective. That oh, so, perfect combination of letters that encapsulates the whole week that was...and alas they all fall short. By themselves they just didn't live up to the real thing. So there you go.)

We left the house on Wednesday and drove far into the Hill Country. The trip should have only taken about 5 hours, I think it took us 10. We had so much fun. We found this one part of the road where if you went really fast it felt like you were on a roller coaster, I think we must have turned around and flew down it about 10 or more times. If the people could see us from their ranches I'm sure they were wondering if they should call the police. We went down another road that had the funniest fence. I wish we had the camera out, it always happens like that. They must have had a 100 pairs of boots of all kinds. Cowboy, go-go, army and so on. All turned upside down on and stuck on the top of the fence posts. Only in Texas baby, yeah!

At every turn of the road you had your breath taken away by the scene that would unfold. The Guadalupe River winds all over the map and the various roads we took chase after it in a seemingly playful way. One minute you would see nothing but fields and ranches and cactus and with the hills far in the background, then you would follow the curve of the road and come upon the river and cedars so tall and these huge rocks right in the middle of the whole thing that looked like they jumped in because the river's call was so inviting...At some crossings it was too much for us and we had to jump in ourselves. Then as quick as a turn you were surrounded by mountains on either side. Nothing I could write here, no picture that I could post will give you an idea. It's one of those you have to experience for yourself.

It had the effect that being outdoors in a place like that always has on me, it makes me worship. It makes me to lift my arms and sing praises. It makes me to bow my heart in humility and in wonder at the awesomeness displayed by our God and Creator. It makes me smile at His creativity, laugh at His sense of humor and weep at His beauty and I've never been less than absolutely amazed. During our trip I saw several things that repeatedly caught at my heart. This post is already pretty long, so I won't write home about it today. I have started this same line of thought in another post for another day. But I will say this, the sunset, the field of flowers, the trees and the simplest rock...

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Psalm 19:3

So we took a few pictures, some I've posted here: Vacation 2007

I hope you enjoy!