Anyway, the most frustrating thing about the first part of our journey to Georgia is that my camera wasn't working. ALL of the pictures on Day 1 were fuzzed and I was UPSET. Later Andrew told me to check if somehow the flash had gotten turned off and that was it. As long as we were relatively still, the pictures were only mildly fuzzed but almost all of the ones in the Atlanta airport were hopelessly flawed. So these pictures from day 1 are NOT perfect. SORRY!
Well, Jacob and I woke up at 4:30; lugged all of our stuff out to the old Chevy car; hugged Cora; kissed Robert (well, at least I did); and took off for Bismarck. Andrew was a sleepy head so only got a toe-pull before I left.
I was a little miffed when we had to wait for the train up in Steele but, praise God, He always has a reason. We decided to cut through town to get to the end of the train sooner. As we pulled up to the flashing lights, my eyes were drawn to the town's billboard. It was brightly lit in the darkness of late night and suddenly all of my fears about the trip vanished.
I have been accused of writing on the side of emotionalism but, you tell me, if you knew that you were leaving the safety of home for 6 days to travel almost 2,000 miles without your husband, would these words shining in the darkness, bring peace to YOUR troubled soul? It read:
WE CANNOT BECOME WHAT WE NEED TO BE BY REMAINING WHAT WE ARE!!!!
As you can tell, I wrote these words down. I tapped them into my heart and prayed a prayer of praise to my God who sent the train so that I wouldn't take the back road and miss the point entirely. I showed the sign to Jacob who was as amazed as I was. We both knew that God had put those words there for us; sent the train to show them to us; and we went on our way rejoicing.
Well, we got to the airport in time and went through security without any trouble. Later I will tell you about the security in Atlanta because it is a much more interesting story. Here we were cleared for boarding (as Jacob reminds me constantly--you LOAD cattle, Mom, and you BOARD people on airplanes.)
I was having trouble with my stress levels even with the words of the sign encouraging me to go on. My father taught me to dread flying on airplanes and I found myself dealing with extreme stress symptoms. I hated to do it, but I had to take some Loratadine, as that is what keeps me from going into shock. If I had it to do all over again, though, I'd have been like those smart people in the restaurant behind those lovely doors and eaten something substantial.
I am VERY grateful, though, for my bottle of lemon essential oil in my purse. We bought a bottle of water and I put in 2 drops which I kept drinking on the flight. Even Jacob found it helpful on THAT flight but that story will have to remain for another day. I decided that I'm not stressing myself out here by trying to tell the whole story all in one day.
Anyway, here I am in the Bismarck terminal enjoying the beautiful sunrise. What a view that was. I was admiring the gorgeous colors over the surrounding countryside while Jacob was admiring the AIRPLANES--of all things. :) I wear my glasses to see clearly from distances and I found myself wearing them a lot on our trip. I just feel better when I can see what's going on around me when there are LOTS of people whom I don't know.
A fuzzy shot of Jacob but he was ELATED at the prospects of the day. What would I have done without his enthusiasm?????????
They told us that the flight to Minneapolis was leaving from Gate 3 so we went over to check it out. Sure enough this sign told us that we were at the right location.
This door opened up a whole new world for me. I conquered my fear of flying on airplanes by taking the first step through this door. I kept telling Jacob throughout our 6 wonderful days together (when I was feeling frightened, you understand), "You can know how much I love you, Jacob. The fact that I am conquering my fears to be with you on YOUR dream-come-true journey should say SOMETHING to you." :) He'd just laugh or put his arm around me and say, "Thanks, Mom." It was worth everything to grow so close to him throughout all of the challenges of the trip.
This is what the ceiling in the Bismarck terminal looks like. I remember looking at it that morning and thinking, "I wonder what it will be like to be higher than the clouds." I soon found out but that is the story for another day.
I hope that you don't mind my breaking up the trip into bites that I have time to write about.
It's either that or not write at all and I definitely do want to share about all of the wonderful adventures that Jacob and I shared together in the past few weeks.
More later,
Dawn
1 comment:
Oh, Dawn, I laughed and I cried! What a lovely post. And no, I don't mind at all that you break up the trip into several posts. I look forward to reading about the rest of the story.
I particularly liked "you load cattle, Mom, and you board people."
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