Events of Monday, September 6, 2010

          Time. It is an interesting concept and very difficult to wrap one’s mind around. For most, hearing that we are taking a year to travel, sounds like a long time. Yet in the moment, there never seems to be enough time to take in all we want to see and do. Yet it is such a gift to be able to spend all this time with my family, 24/7 for 365+ days of this crazy adventure. I have found that each of us is dealing with time a little differently. Ben likes to be in the front seat of the RV when we change time zones so he can announce it to all and race around changing clocks. The girls don’t seem very aware of time and saunter through this experience, enjoying the moment. Jim has decided to not wear a watch for most of this journey. And while this is very healthy and freeing for him, it does place an additional burden on me, the watch wearer. Yes. I wear a watch. And I keep track of time. After all, as a good mother, I need to make sure my kids are eating at meal time and sleeping at bedtime. But routines are hard to come by in this daily changing adventure. And so often, we end up with a day like today. Where NOTHING happened on TIME!

          Ben (with great excitement and anticipation) and Jim both realized that today we would be moving into the Eastern Time Zone. So Jim thought it would be good to get us up a bit earlier in Central Time to lessen the shock of Eastern Time. (This brilliant idea was met by groans all around.) However, last night, after spending time as a family planning our next few months, we opted to play games as a family even though it was past bedtime. So Jim relented and let everyone sleep in to 8:00 given our late night. That was fine. We decided to take full advantage of the four hours we had left at the campsite. We enjoyed breakfast, had our bible study of the gospel of Mark - manuscript style (and Abby was much relieved to learn that she could not accidently commit the unforgiveable sin), the boys got haircuts and we all enjoyed a brief swim in the pool before taking showers, and packing up the RV and heading out for our day.

          It was noon before we were on our way, but that was OK as we had had a late breakfast. We were headed to the Dickerson County Fair in Norway, Michigan. We had discussed going the night before, and for the most part, there wasn’t much interest. However, when Jim went on his morning walk to pray, he felt like God was saying we should give the County Fair a shot. And so we did. Initially it was a little hard to find. You’d think that in a tiny town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that was hosting a County Fair, the signage would be much better. Eventually we found it and decided to have lunch before going in instead of having Fair fare for lunch. As we approached the ticket booth we found it was our lucky day. As this year is the 100th year of the Dickerson County Fair, it was Dollar Day. All entry fees and rides were just a dollar. The kids selected a few rides to go on (from the few that were available) and I talked Jim into joining me on the swings that rose high above the fair. We toured the livestock barns, the commercial exhibits, viewed a magic show and then all found a little bit of fair fare for dessert (although Jim had soup which wasn’t really dessert…) Then we headed on our way.

          It was about four when we headed out and Gypsy (our GPS) said we’d be arriving at our next campsite around 8:30. However, about an hour into the drive, much to Ben’s delight, we crossed into the Eastern Time Zone and got an hour behind schedule without even trying. We stopped at a rest stop around 6 pm central time, dinner time according to our bodies’ clocks, but no one was hungry due to our fair food. So we drove on. Around 7:30 pm old time, 8:30 pm new time, we pulled over to eat. Dinner was to be left-over tacos, heated in the microwave. Everyone assembled their plate and the rotation through the microwave began. We made it through two plates before the generator faltered and died. The microwave cannot run without the generator, and the generator cannot run unless we have over ¼ tank of gas and we were just below. So we put all the full plates on the table to be secured by the kids (lest they go flying across the RV when we hit a bump) and headed off in search of gas. A quick search showed us that we were 14 miles from gas but that in another 14 miles or so we’d be at our campsite. Since it is easier to cook and eat dinner when we are hooked up, we decided to drive on to our campsite.

          Now time seemed to crawl. We were getting hungrier and hungrier and the campsite seemed farther and farther away. We drove through town, passing gas station after gas station of overpriced gas. We saw where our campsite was, but drove past in search of gas. Gypsy started to act crazy, trying to drive us into the lake. She indicated that we were to turn right when we could see the gas station 500 yards ahead. We went in to fill up, but Jim was only able to get half a tank before the machine refused to give him more gas. So we drove on to the campsite, arriving at 9:30 eastern time. (Gypsy missed the mark here too, saying we had a ½ mile to go when we had arrived.) The office was dark; there was a sign to drive to a tan house to check in. We crawled through the dark campground, looking for said tan house. Finally we found it, got ourselves maneuvered out of a tight spot, found and backed into our campsite. After leveling off, putting out the slide-outs and hooking up, it was finally time for dinner. We warmed up the leftovers and sat down to dinner at 10:15 pm, Eastern Standard Time, (9:15pm our body time, way after dinner time and even now after bedtime.) I made the kids pull the shades as I was so ashamed of feeding my kids dinner so late. It was after 11 pm EST when my kids finally went to bed. So as you can see, NOTHING happened on TIME!   

          Well, actually ONE thing did happen positively that had to do with time. Ben first solved the Rubik’s Cube in Oregon. It became his goal to solve it in every state we pass through. As a result, he has gotten faster and faster, even wearing out a Rubik’s cube in the process. Today, while solving it to fulfill his solving in Michigan goal, he solved it in 1 minute, 24 seconds; his fastest time ever. He was so pleased. He is such a geek, proudly so, and we love him for it.