Today’s the day!  Hitting the road in the RV with my crazy family!  We got a late start because we had to take care of some things at the DMV before we left, so our target destination was not reached.  The great thing about not having plans is that stuff like that doesn’t matter at all.

The kids took to RV life quickly and we had some great moments listening to them talking and laughing together.  Makes a mama’s heart warm.

Here are some highlights of our first day on the road.

Best things about road trippin’ so far:

5. Driving Away

This was a very exciting moment.  Can you tell?  It was like the first step of a grand adventure.  With a little nose picking on the side, apparently.

4.  Giant Windmills in Eastern Oregon

These were amazing.  Absolutely amazing.  Graceful and beautiful and absolutely enormous.  We would drive around bends and up ridges and get glimpses of their huge arms swinging up over the hill tops.  No picture can capture how small they make you feel.

3.  Stopping at the Scenic Overlook near Pendleton

2. Our Kids Doing Stuff Together

This saved our sanity Kyra.  THANK YOU!!!

Looking out the window together.  Talking about stuff they’ve never seen before.  Laughing.  This is why we chose this trip.

1.  My husband playing guitar

When we finally stopped at a Walmart near the border I started cooking dinner and Colin pulled out his guitar.  He plucked out a song we’d been listening to all day.  I think it gave him comfort.

You see, there was an accident a few days before we left.  Students he knows and cares about were hurt.  Some were hurt terribly.  And though we can’t make sense of these kinds of things, and we know God didn’t cause them or allow them or have any part in the awfulness of them – we know God takes terrible things and makes good out of them.  And whenever we find ourselves in these places we can have faith that though this awful, sin-filled world deals out destruction, we are in the hands of the One who makes beauty.  Beauty from destruction.  Beauty from pain.  Beauty from mess.

I didn’t take a picture of this moment.  It wouldn’t have been right.  But if you need a bit of hope, if you know these kids, if your hearts are broken for them, then listen to this song that found it’s way to my husband’s guitar as he tried to make sense of it all.