First Iowa....Then Illinois....Then Indiana........

When we were out East in CT I found it both fascinating and frustrating that some people did not know where Iowa was located.  I began explaining where we lived by saying.....Iowa........then Illinois......Indiana.....Ohio....Pennsylvania...... New Jersey.....New York....and finally Connecticut!   I love maps and globes.  If I hear about a place I have to look it up. Geography was one of my favorite subjects in school, so I find it difficult to accept that little ol' Iowa is so hard to locate. (more grace, Renee....show more grace).   I confess at times I get some of the small states out East mixed up, too!

So, where did we travel?  Through ten states!  Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont, having gone through some states more than once! 

Corner of the hotel and the tollway!

After leaving peaceful Shipshewana we headed through Ohio to the east side and a hotel I had booked ahead of time.  I was very disappointed to find it was only 200 yards off the tollway.  The traffic was so loud I wondered how we would sleep....and the room smelled strongly of air fresheners.  It did not take long before my glands got huge.  Around this time I had a mini- meltdown.  Awful hotel location..........no place to walk............stinky room.......BUT Joel reminded me that the Lord said He would provide..... So we reminded God too, and when Joel prayed with me I felt my glands go right down, and when we went to open the window we discovered our first floor room faced a small patch of woods!  Delightful....AND when we turned on the air purifier we did not even hear the road noise.  The Lord definitely provided.  And the reactions?  I never had a reaction to a hotel room again.  MCS, over and out!  Yay...

View out our hotel window

The next day we headed into Pennsylvania.  I had to laugh because we were still in Ohio when I saw this sign below.  Never saw another one for hundreds of miles, but this made us smile!

New York City sign.....in Ohio

Northern PA is beautiful!  It was all trees, bridges, and trucks according to Joel.  I could not get enough pictures of the trees showing off their vibrant colors! 

View from Delaware  Water Gap Scenic Drive

We headed to the east end of the state, staying in a nice hotel in a questionable area.  Before we left home I had researched locations where we could walk the Appalachian trail. I kept hearing about the Delaware Water Gap so we took time to search for that area and found a scenic drive that was out of this world with beauty and only a few miles away.  At first we found a very steep portion of the trail and I tried to go up it with Joel a few feet, but we decided it was going to be too hard for me to come back down so I sat in the car while he went for a short walk up the steep incline into a flat area.

As far as I could go

  Later we discovered another area where you could actually park and walk.  They had walking sticks leaning against a log for anyone who wanted to go on the trail.  We walked about half a mile, coming upon a marshy area where we could sit.  It was great fun to be able to walk on the famous Appalachian trail, even for a short distance!

If you noticed, I was wearing white tennis in the first photo and my hot pink tennies in the last.  These hot pink shoes represent freedom for me...when God told me to walk out my healing, we felt He meant in the literal sense too.  Physically walk it out!  So my pink tennies went with me and I continued to walk most of the 14 days we were gone.   

We feel so blessed to have been able to walk on the Appalachian Trail and experience God's beauty there at Delaware Water Gap.  It was breathtaking to see the Poconos and put our feet on a trail where so many have gone before us.  We had left Iowa far behind!  And just in case you don't know where Iowa is in our big country...it is right below Minnesota in the center of the map....first Iowa....then Illinois.....Indiana...Ohio.....Pennsylvania....New Jersey.....New York....Connecticut....(giggle).