Tuesday, October 31, 2017
October 26 - October 30
October 26,
2017
Our first excursion for the day
was Luray Caverns. Dave and I have been
in many caverns, so our expectations were low – but we were shocked to see
these were the best caverns we have ever been in. They were magnificent! Stalagmites and Stalactites everywhere. There were shallow pools of water scattered
throughout that made a mirror image so it appeared there were even more! At the bottom was a stalactite organ – this is
an organ that was made by having a rubber hammer bang a different stalactite
for each different pitch. It played “A Mighty Fortress is our God.” Unfortunately I thought I was videotaping,
but somehow didn’t get it! They say
these caves are 450 million years old and they know this because the stalactites
grow 1 inch per 120 years. What is interesting,
is Dave said there are were 10-12 foot stalactites under the Lincoln Memorial
when he was there as a kid, produced in less than 100 years. When I asked how they know the rate of growth
they say it is based upon the rate they know these grow at. So then I asked where they have seen them
grow recently and charted it to come up with this rate. They stammered, and said they weren’t sure –
then made some comment about some people believing the world is only a few
years old so it’s all based upon opinion.
We then headed up to Shenandoah
National Park. We quickly began
ascending the mountain into beautiful fall colors. We have noticed there are several things that
make their fall colors different in the NE compared to the NW. In the NE 99% of the forest is deciduous –
only 1% being evergreen. (this is my
scientific opinion though of course. But
I can show you evidence to back up my opinion.) So the NE has a lot more trees
changing color, a further drawn out fall which causes the trees to change color
over a much longer period of time, and their large population of sugar maple
trees erupt in the most brilliant red.
However, this causes leaves to begin to turn brown and fall early with
different trees turning colors and falling at different times. The forest here is also much less dense
because there aren’t blackberries here like the NW and without the evergreen
trees the forest is much more “see through.”
It makes it look like a playground of fun to run through – brings the
stories alive of Native Americans running through the forests in their moccasin
feet. The road runs along the crest of
these mountains for about 100 miles – we have to chuckle knowing that no road
could run along the crest of Cascade mountains!
The terrane gradually changes maintaining an elevation of about 3400
ft. To the east there are beautiful
views of hill after hill and to the west there are valleys with small towns
nestled down in them.
October 27,
2017
Today is an exciting day we have
looked forward to for many years. We are
headed to see our cousins – the Dale family - in Summersville, WV.
God must love orchestrating cool
things. It all began December of 2012
when our family, along with my mom, went on a mission trip with Maranatha to
Panama. While riding on the bus, my mom
began chatting with the gentleman sitting beside her; she asked where he was
from; he said West Virginia. She asked
asked him if he perhaps knew Wesley Olson.
The gentleman said he was married to Wesley’s daughter. Wesley Olson was my mother’s cousin. He had brought his oldest two sons on the
trip as his wife had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and had stayed home
with the younger two sons. The Neuharth and
Dale boys were thrilled to be 3rd cousins and they spent a lot of
fun time together. Last year, the Dale
family was on a family roadtrip and they spent one night at our home. For years we have been saying that someday we
would come and see where they lived, but realistically didn’t know when that would
ever happen. So today is the big
day! On the way there we drove through
beautiful fall colored “mountains.” I
say “mountains” because for us West Coasters – they are more like hills.
We arrived, and what a fun time
it was! At first as always, kids were
silent and awkward – I said “Get playing!
Don’t waste the moments! You know
at the end you will have wished you had spent every moment together possible!” So they quickly went outside and started
playing soccer, football, and riding scooters, skateboards, etc.
October 28,
2017
We had a wonderful church
service at their little country church.
Reminded me a lot of Startup. We
all at lunch together at Wes and Judy’s house.
Wes is my mother’s cousin. They
own large acreage here and the Krista,
my second cousin, and her family purchased a little section and built
their home. It was interesting talking
to Wes and finding out about his mother, grandparents, etc. and comparing what
I have heard of the family from my grandma.
There are definitely a lot of similarities and Wes confirmed a lot of
what my grandma had told me about her childhood.
Wes and Judy have an amazing
testimony. He finished medical school at
Loma Linda and was ready to enter into a prominent pediatrician assignment,
when they got a random letter about doctors desperately needed in Guam and God
lined up events and suddenly they were headed to Guam with their two small
children. As Judy put it “God sent us to
Guam to save us.” She said they were
actively involved in church at Loma Linda and attending Sabbath School classes
that seemed very advanced in deep thought and philosophies from the Bible. However, in Guam she started reading and
listening to other things and found a personal relationship with a personal
Savior. When they finished their time in
Guam, another doctor friend and Wes decided they were going to return to the
U.S. together and start a practice together.
They were looking for a good country lifestyle to raise their children. They wanted to go to a community that needed
but didn’t have medical providers and they wanted to go to a place that did not
have an Adventist church and they wanted to plant a church. Wes had the impression that when they found
the right place “the bells would ring.”
They returned to Southern CA where they had grown up. Both doctors purchased little camper trailers
and these two families started driving looking for the right place. They really wanted to be in the
Northwest. They drove through Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, Montana, but no place seemed to be the right place. One place they stopped the previous doctor
had quit because a patient had come in threatening their lives with
weapons. They quickly left there! They kept driving wondering where God was
sending them. When they stopped in the
Washington D.C. area to visit Wes’s parents, a conference president spoke to
them about this little valley in West Virginia that matched their
description. So they drove to this
little spot in West Virginia and it seemed to line up. So both doctors rented homes and began and
emergency room. But no bells rung. They took turns working every other night. Before long one of the other doctor’s house
had the pipes freeze and break and both family moved into Wes’s house: 4 adults
and 6 kids in a 3 bedroom house. The
rest is history – they eventually purchased large acreage, built homes, had a
thriving practice, and a thriving church.
One set back was after a few years the other doctor decided to move away
and Wes was discouraged – but he saw the Lord’s leading as a few years after
that the doctor divorced his wife and left the Lord. The funny thing is a year after they moved
Judy was sharing this story with a coworker and the coworker said “Wasn’t the
house you rented across from the Methodist church?” Judy said “Yes.” She said “Then I don’t understand why you
didn’t hear the bells ring – that church’s bells play a hymn every hour on the
hour.” It was then they realized the
bells had been ringing every hour on the hour – they just hadn’t recognized
them as their sign from the Lord until a year afterward. Wes and Judy have began a free medical clinic
for the working poor who don’t have any insurance in this area and they have
also began a Christian daycare center that now has over 200 children in it ages
6 weeks to 13. God truly uses those who
give their lives to Him!
We went back to the church in
the evening for a Shawn Boonstra series called “the pale horse.” It was very interesting – about the groups of
people through history who God has led to keep the truth. Did you know St Patrick was never a catholic –
in fact opposed the Catholic church and that he was a Sabbath keeper and took
the gospel to Ireland? He was kidnapped
as a child out of his room in the middle of the night and was a slave in
Ireland to ruthless people – like pirates.
He worked for them for many years and then escaped back home. But he kept feeling the Lord’s calling to
return to the barbarian people in Ireland and take them the gospel. He returned, and amazingly enough the
accepted the gospel truth – learned to read – and studied the scriptures
themselves and followed the teachings they found in the Bible. God is so amazing! It wasn’t until 200 years after Patrick’s
death that the Catholic church claimed him as their own and turned him into “St.
Patrick.” God is just amazing how he
uses those who are willing to submit to Him as miracle-workers for His kingdom!
October 29,
2017
Sunday Jon worked and the rest
of us found work to do. Kids did some
schoolwork, filled potholes in their mile long driveway, did a garbage run,
etc. Dave looked a broken equipment
throughout the “farm.” We of course had
lots of fun too – especially when the snow began to fall! We specifically came here this week instead
of the end of November so we could avoid the snow. The Lord has a sense of humor!
October 30,
2017
Monday we woke up to several
inches of snow on the ground. It was
beautiful! West Virginia is gorgeous all
seasons! Dave worked on a broken
four-wheeler with Jon. One of the boys’
cousins, Nathan asked Levi if he wanted to try to play the trumpet. I was thrilled because Levi has wanted to
play the trumpet for years, but I don’t want to buy an instrument that then
sits around. So I figured Levi would see
how hard it was to play and change his mind.
Nathan showed him how to blow and taught him a scale and within a few
minutes he was playing hymns very well and loved it. So we now need to purchase a Levi so we can
have another budding musical talent in our family develop. We all loaded onto fourwheelers etc. and
headed through an expedition through the woods.
We had a blast! Krista made “Thanksgiving
dinner” – mashed potatoes, gluten steaks, corn, etc. She spoiled us rotten!
Please keep Krista and family in
prayers. Her sons, Zachary 16, Nathan
15, Micah 12, and Caleb 7. Krista was
diagnosed with breast cancer 4 years ago and not given a good prognosis. She did experimental treatments and was doing
extremely well. Last year they
discovered tumors in her brain. She has
undergone more experimental treatments.
It is by God’s grace Krista is here.
Because of the cancer in her brain a lot of things can be a challenge
for her and there doesn’t at this time they seem to have exhausted all human
intervention possible. It makes me
realize we truly need to thank God for every day of life and live it 100% for
His glory and to be a blessing realizing how frail life is. May we live each day truly doing what is
important in light of eternity with no regrets.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
October 21-25
IT BEGAN IN
THE HEARTS AND THE MINDS OF THE PEOPLE
I forgot to mention last week
that when we were at Independence Hall, we were told the British backed down on
their taxes before the Revolutionary War shots were fired. However, “the war had already begun in the
heart hearts and minds of the people.”
It reminded me of how everything we do begins in our hearts and
minds. It is a powerful place that
determines what we do, which determines our destiny. How often our hearts become embittered and determined
on something and it costs us greatly.
How many lives did the Revolutionary War cost? At what price did we gain
“liberty?” And liberty from what? We still pay taxes. Other territories that were under Great
Britain didn’t lose any lives and still rule their own government. We must be careful what we let begin in our
hearts and minds.
October 21,
2017
We went to an African American
church in St. Leonard, MD. During church
a member whispered and asked us if we would do special music – 5 minutes later
we were called up. A very sweet elderly
lady in the church made lunch for us and had it warmed up and ready to eat when
church was finished at 1:15. The church
was so hospitable!
After church we went to Calvert
Cliffs. It is famous for finding a
variety of fossils. We hike 2 miles in
and started digging through the sand. We
found all these fragments of sharks teeth and began to collect them. As we left we looked at the sign and realized
they were shell fragments, not shark teeth fragments…. Bummer…. But we were able to see the layers of masses
of shells buried at the bottom of these cliffs.
It is neat to think we are touching shells that existed before the flood
about 4,000 years ago.
October 22,
2017
Today is Lucas’ 15th birthday! We started out by having him make a pancake
breakfast by himself – he had never done that before and we figured at age 15
that would be a good thing to learn. He
was surprised at how watery the mixture was supposed to be since he is used to
making bread – but he made some yummy thick pancakes! We then went to Frog Pond park just north of
Calvert Cliffs to try our hand at finding shark teeth there. We were told by several people you just walk
along and see them in the sand and pick them up. We walked along the beach… nothing…. A local told us to walk way down the beach
where it is “closed” for avalanche danger.
So we walked down there. We found
some other locals with over a dozen sharks teeth a piece so were encouraged and
kept looking. After 5 hours of looking
Levi had found an alligator tooth, Serenity 1 shark tooth, Dave 1 shark tooth,
and Lisa 2 shark teeth and 2 stingray teeth.
We really enjoyed our time at the beach though. We laughed and said the comments about the
shark teeth everywhere were like the comments that lead to the gold rush. “There are big gold nuggets everywhere! You just bend down and pick them up!” We finished up the birthday celebration by
going out to eat for Mexican food and then bought pumpkin cheesecake and
peppermint chocolate chip icecream. We
then drove into Washington DC. We were
looking for a subway station and got lost.
Dave pulled over on the side of the road and within 60 seconds there was
a unmarked cop behind him. He told us
where to go and when a few minutes later we were lost again, he pulled in front
of us and with his lights on escorted us.
So we parked in the subway parking lot so ready to embark on Washington
DC tomorrow.
October 23,
2017
Monday morning we ate pancakes
in the subway parking lot, locked up the motorhome well, and headed towards the
subway. We figured out how to buy cards
and load them with value and headed onto the Subway. 45 minutes later we were in downtown
Washington DC. We came out of the subway
and asked somewhere where the Smithsonian museum was. They said “Which one?” I said, “Um, the main one?” They laughed and said there were dozens all
of Washington DC. Uh oh…. Within half an hour we had talked to a local,
got a map, already gone through a security check (required for about every
building in Washington DC), and headed into the American History Museum. While dad likes to read every sign, and mom
likes to read 90% of the signs, we quickly realized the Smithsonian history museum
only covered about half of the information we have learned on our roadtrip the
last 6 weeks. Because we have been to
the individual places battles have occurred, and studied each incidence in
detail at each museum, the Smithsonian did not present all the information we
had learned. But we did learn that the
Smithsonian loves to pride itself on having originals. We did get to see the actual original flag
that Francis Scott Key saw when he penned the national anthem. It was pretty tattered, and reduced in size
because early Americans would tear off pieces and sell it. We ate our sack lunches beside the Washington
DC mall.
Afterwards we headed to the
Museum of Natural History. We quickly
realized this was a small scope of what we have seen at the gigantic museum of
natural history in Houston, TX. But we
enjoyed walking around. We then went to
the National Air and Space Museum. We
saw A LOT of original planes. It was a
lot of fun! But after seeing Boeing
Museums in Seattle area and NASA in Houston, TX, again – we didn’t see much new
information. However, it was the first
time we learned about the personal lives of the Wright Brothers and the family
they came from. That was really
interesting.
We had no clue how HUGE
Washington DC was. And there are police
EVERYWHERE! Every few minutes a police
goes flying through town with its sirens on.
The locals don’t even look – its normal I guess… At the days’ end we were exhausted, feet felt
like they were falling off, and so we took the subway back to the motorhome,
ate supper, and went to sleep there in the parking lot.
October 24,
2017
Tuesday morning we got up and
headed to Arlington Heights Cemetery. Security was insane and our beet humus
for lunch that was homemade and placed in a peanut butter jar caused a deep
questioning session of Benjamin who happened to be the one carrying it in his
backpack. As Benjamin put it, “Why are
they guarding all these dead people?” It
was a gorgeous place but sobering to consider all the thousands that are buried
there and throughout the earth. I
wondered, how many of these were ready to meet the Lord when they died? How short life is, and for what purpose? We were told the land was Robert E Lee’s and
because of his heading up the Confederate Army the Union took his land and
turned it into a cemetery as a reminder of how many lives his decision
cost. Interesting natural consequences I
have to say…. We were able to watch the
“changing of the guard.” It was amazing
to me how in sync they were – without watching they would tap their feet
together and perfectly mirror each. It
reminded me of Pathfinder marching. As I
looked at their procedure – I thought how impossible! - to be able to perfectly march in sync like
that – to be able to stand in perfect attention for an hour. And yet with the heart and mind to do it, a
purpose and vision in mind, and much practice I am sure, they become perfect in
their job. I thought this a good example
of us as Christians. It might seem
impossible to have perfect self-control, but if we desire it, realize we are
living for a purpose, and practice, and connect to God’s grace – we can walk
perfectly in the Spirit.
We then walked across the bridge
to the Lincoln Memorial. We grabbed a
taxi quick and held on tight while he drove us to our Congresswoman’s office so
we could have a guided tour of the capitol building. We learned the president only comes to the
capitol building 2-3 times per year and he can only come to Senate if he
received an invitation. The president
happened to be in the building while we were there. It was a busy place and had so many beautiful
things to look at. Everything is either
granite or marble. There are beautifully
painted dome ceilings. One is of George
Washington and all these women escorting him to heaven with other men trying to
fight to keep him on earth. Each state
is allowed 2 statues for the whitehouse and these are moved throughout the
whitehouse at different times. They have
to be bronze but Hawaii is known for not following the rules – their’s is
Hawaii’s king and much of it is painted gold.
We saw the best view of the capitol mall – it was from the Speaker of
the House’s balcony. It was incredible!
After another picnic lunch
seated on the lawn of the Mall, we headed to a bike rental place to try and
save some walking. But everyone had to
be at least 16 to rent. As we were
standing there suddenly a black SUV pulled up right beside us and stopped. It had its windows down and was full of
secret service guys with big guns. One
of the guys was really putting on a show smiling at us and posing. Behind it was a big armored car. About the time it hit us we should be
snapping pictures because this was the president of the U.S. right beside us
the light turned green and away they drove. No pictures – but seriously – we were right
there! As we walked up to the bus stop a
couple minutes later the couple standing there was talking about how they had
also just seen the president’s car.
Next we went to the holocaust museum.
It was very sobering – nothing new from our reading. Once again it was interesting to note the
history of Hitler coming into power.
Once again they showed it was because of the depression and so people
were upset at their condition. The value
of money plummeted to no value and the people even used it for wallpaper. Hitler presented himself as one who would
give them hope and a new life. He lost
the election, but the officials decided to make him chancellor so that they
could give him a position and control him/keep an eye on him. Within 6 months he was dictator and with
force gotten rid of all who opposed him and began to annihilate the Jews. The museum had thousands of shoes in a pile
from holocaust victims. It was also
inspiring to see the names of thousands who risked their lives to save the
lives of Jews. Many died for their
stand, but thousands of Jews’ lives were saved.
We then walked over to the white house and got as close as possible –
which was far away and with 5 gates between us.
There was a team of secret service on the roof. We then walked around a bit and got onto a
bus to help us get back sooner. The
driver was a fun character on his last round for the day and so he was a
blast. He kept stopping and taking our
family picture at some great places. He
said that the printing press for money there prints 3 million dollars a
day. WOW!!!! And where does that money go considering the
world uses plastic these days instead of cash?
Scary…. I don’t think I really
want to know… Pretty soon we will be using
the money we have to wallpaper our walls.
But until then, it isn’t actually paper money – it is 10% paper and 90%
linen. After getting back to our parking
spot we found a laundromat, ate supper, and drove to the Seventh-day-Adventist
General Conference Office so we are ready for their 9am tour tomorrow without
driving through rush our DC traffic.
October 25,
2017
So last night we got the first
knock on our door in the middle of the night!
It happened at 11:15pm at night and we were parked in the SDA General
Conference parking lot. Dave got out of
bed and explained to them we were parked there so we could go on the 9am tour
the next morning. They let Dave know we
should stay for lunch in the cafeteria the next day and that haystacks were on
the menu. So we woke up and took the
tour. There were beautiful paintings
over walls that gave the story from the garden of Eden to eternity. They were some beautiful paintings! We went to the EGW estate below where they
had a REALLY nice tour. I had forgotten
that Smithsonian had listed EGW as one the 100 most influential Americans of
all time.
In the afternoon we drove to Mt.
Vernon and toured George Washington’s beautiful plantation on the Potomac
River. We learned all about his love for
agriculture and the thousands of fields he had growing along with over 300
slaves. His slaves he released in his
will, but half of them where slaves from his wife’s deceased husband’s estate
and so were split up among the descendants.
We learned that George was heavily involved in the French & Indian
War and then went home. For the
Revolutionary war he was gone from home for the entire 8 years but his wife
would join him on the battlefield every winter.
George Washington was a very courageous man who would go into the heat
of battle without fear and thus his soldiers admired him and fought in the
worst of conditions. As Britain put it
George didn’t outfight them, he just outspied them. George refused pay as general of the army saying just as Britain
did not deserve their money, neither did he deserve their money. When elected president he refused to be
overpowering and after 2 terms refused to be president any longer because he
did not want to become as a king. When
he died the country wanted him buried in Washington DC, but according to his
wishes, his wife had him buried at Mt. Vernon where along with his family. There are two locked bar gates. We are trying to figure out why they guard
and lock up dead people over here. What
are they afraid of?
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