Speaking of calming the soul, Joel and I both felt the need for that after a roller coaster week with lymphedema challenges at rehab and in my body. By Friday when rehab unexpectedly canceled my appointments for next week, we felt the need to "get out of Dodge". (An old Gunsmoke reference). We decided to see what was available to us......and low and behold our daughter and son-in-law graciously said their cabin was free...."start packing". We decided this at noon and by 2:30 were on the road. It was not all smooth sailing and makes for a few funny stories to tell.
The first part of the drive was easy peasy...........then we hit construction. No big deal just put us behind a half hour or so. By this time I needed a bathroom and Joel needed coffee...........But my phone GPS had us going the "quickest" route, which turned out to be a lot of twists and turns through wooded areas on 2 lane roads. No bathrooms. No coffee. Once we got on the main two lane road heading east we were good....but still no bathrooms or coffee. A local bar and grill was packed so we opted out of that. We came to a town of about 900 people and thought surely there will be something. There was...........a dingy little A-frame station. I think the guy behind the counter was about as dirty and the bathroom I stepped into. Desperation has you do desperate things and i covered the seat with tissue pretending not to see the dirty floor OR door I had just come through. Would it sound judgmental to say the clerk looked like he just got out of prison and was into illegal substances?! I came out of there praying for protection from germs, Joel got his coffee which turned out to be old and lukewarm but we kept going. Here's the kicker! Just 2 blocks further.......2 blocks...........and we saw a beautiful brand new Quick-Trip station!!!!!! An oasis in the desert! Seriously?!?!?!?
We headed to the cabin in the dark and were pretty proud that we found it on the first try! Joel headed to where the keys were to be hidden.............and only one key was there. It did not open the cabin. Joel searched the hidden location and no other key. We finally called our daughter who was in the middle of driving 20 confirmation kids to a retreat....so we called our son-in-law who was out east on business. He made a couple of calls and told us the key was put back after the A/C guy had been there, so it must have fallen on the floor. Joel spent the next half hour unloading the hidden area and searching the floor to no avail. Then another few minutes putting stuff away. Another phone call had us in the car driving to their friends cabin on the other side of the lake where our son-in-law talked us into the house,,, we put a code into their side door and went inside where we were instructed to go to a place where spare keys were kept to each other's cabins. Can I just interject here and say how weird it felt to "break in" to someone else's cabin and dig through a bunch of stuff to find the keys to our daughter and son-in-law's cabin??? And can I then tell you how grateful we were that they had spare keys for us?! I do confess that we were both more than a little tired after this mini crisis.....
An hour and a half after arriving, we entered the cabin. YAY! When we finally got in we found the keys we were originally looking for on top of the fireplace! Not exactly accessible from the outside and not where they were supposed to be! The A/C guy.........Ha...... We sat down to a quick supper at 9 pm and then crashed for the night. What a day!!
So today we woke up to a new day and we are really hoping that all the chaos and craziness is behind us for a few days. We are just grateful to be here. The year itself has held too many challenges and a lake view just soothes the soul.
Last week and weekend our days were full. First our oldest grandson came for a two day visit on his way back from Utah. What fun to spend so much one on one time with our grown up grandson! Then our middle daughter and her kids came and our house was full to the brim that night for sleeping. Thursday our oldest daughter and son-in-law came, along with our second oldest son and his son, our grandson arrived and while we were at the wedding rehearsal our granddaughter arrived from college. We came home to a full house and lots of chatter! What fun! They were all here because our youngest daughter got married, and most moved to hotels Thursday night. The wedding was outdoors at a beautiful country venue, and the day was warm and beautiful! There were a few last minute glitches just like at most weddings, but we are very happy for the newly married couple. Praying for God to bless them on their journey together.
As I look out over the lake this morning I am seeking that peace I see before me.....letting it soak in and soothe our weary souls. I'm grateful today for that view, our youngest getting married, a new son-in-law, the option of heading to Mayo for the lymphedema, dappled sunshine, funny adventure stories, the generosity of our daughter and son-in-law, phone calls from friends and family, trees showing off their fall colors, crisp fall mornings, safe travels, laughter, tears, my amazing husband, hot coffee, white grape juice, country stores and so much more........
Enjoy your weekend!
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