Journey's End

(Isn't this the sweetest photo of Thom? You can see his 12 y.o. self in it can't you?!)

~We opened the front door with excitement and hesitation, (once we actually go through the door vacation is officially over isn't it?) familiarity washes over each of us along with the stuffiness of a house that's been closed up for 6 days. Six days? Is that all? There's a rush to empty out the rented minivan which must be returned tomorrow morning. It's a chore no-one wants to undertake at the moment but everyone tries to keep the mumbling to themselves and just do it as no-one wants to get up from sleep tomorrow to do it either!
~Over 1,600 miles have been put on the vehicle and 8 states have been traveled through. We started off with a destination to The Creation Museum in Kentucky. It's about 10.5 hours from our front door. I usually have a bossy need to do most of the driving, unfortunately I had my pupils dilated the previous day and they stayed that way for more than 24 hours so Thom had to do all the driving that first day. Up and down mountain roads; when you're passing emergency ramp after emergency ramp for trucks that lose their brakes you know they're steep! ~Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, West Virginia again...(who broke up the states in this part of the country, they did it in a very strange manner>!) We stop for the night in Ohio in a town called Cambridge, how appropriate.
~ Day 2 and we arrive in Kentucky and work our way to the museum. I've waited 2 years to visit here. For me the book of Genesis is truly the foundation of my faith. Yes, I take it literally. I look around and see the artwork of God in everything. Trees, mountains, rivers, animals, each other, snow storms, thunderstorms, rainbows, ocean tides, the cycles of life.
~In order to believe in evolution one must believe that a spark of life spontaneously combusted somehow...and then split and procreated with itself...then from that one spontaneous combustion came every blade of grass, every flower, bug, animal, tree, fish,the list goes on and on. If it is alive and growing, it ,according to the theory of evolution, had to come from that one spark of life in the beginning. REALLY? Isn't that a bit hard to swallow? Doesn't it just make more sense, difficult as it is to comprehend a great Spirit out there in the void of nothing, that a creator did all this? Because if you believe in the one spark of life creating everything ,accidentally, you must then also believe that it all, unplanned, came together to work sybiotically don't you? Trees & plants make oxygen, animals breathe it in and send out carbon dioxide, which the plants then absorb and send out more oxygen. Well, isn't that handy?! Of course that's very simplistic. Start adding in the perfection of the balance of gases in the atmosphere etc. and it is mind-boggling! The saline in the sea is perfect. The moon does it's dance with the earth to provide tides to keep the oceans in balance with the sea life and so on and so on.... Am I really to believe this is an accident? A mutation?
And when that first woodpecker banged himself to death on a tree and died from his stupidity, successive generations of woodpeckers, who would have also died banging their heads, kept have accidental mutations which helped them in just the right way to allow them extra padding around their brains and a wild tongue that wrapped throughout their head so they could keep banging and no longer die. But, mind you, with no design, it was all mutation and just happened to work out nicely...Well, isn't that handy!
Giraffes mutated a sponge at the top of their necks to absorb the blood flow when they bent their heads down for a drink so they would't have a rush of blood to their brains and pass out, thereby becoming a target for a hungry lion to come along and eat them. I wonder though, how it did that without a design? Could some evolutionist please enlighten me?
(~By the way these things I learned not from the museum but from reading about the design of these animals while homeschooling kids. I learned more from my homeschool teaching years than I ever did in school. Including my pricey little boarding school.)
I don't mind when evolutionist laugh at we creationists for our "ignorant beliefs". Because what they don't realize is that during all their "brilliant superiority" over my belief, I'm pitying them for their ignorance. Throw all the big words of evolution you want my way...it still holds no logic.
~ So, anyway onto further vacation stuff...When we got to Tennessee we found a lovely family suite and then booked reservations for Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede. This was something else I was really wanting to do...I know you might be snickering...but you're probably just to cool to confess you want to do it too.
~ My family all sighed in disbelief, "We have to go where?!"
The Dixie Stampede is the southern version of those Medieval Dinner places where you sit in rows around an arena and knights on horses come out and joust, and wenches serve you food without utensils. (can't wait to go there! seriously...I can't wait!)
I choose to have them seat us on the side of the rebels since we were in the south. My children consider themselves, for some unknown reason, as Yankee northerners. We live, and they were born, south of the Mason-Dixon line. They are southerners, I am the only official Yank in the household. But I digress, we get to the "pre-show" where men in over-alls are playing banjos, fiddles and basses. My feet are already tappin', my kids look horrified. They bring us out lemonade in white plastic cowboy boots for an exhorbitant price. Thanks. After the finaly, (where a roll of toilet paper was placed on a fan which was laying on its side, thereby making the paper fly spectacularly upwards sheets at a time, ...I'm trying to imagine an event where I might try this at home) it's time to travel into the main arena. The show opens with a buffalo stampede and cowboy round-up. There are cow-girl and -boy trick riders whom Jedd and I thought were being dragged to their deaths for a moment but then they ascended back onto their horse's saddles and we cheered them on. There were ostrich races (being ridden by female jockeys), pig races(no jockeys), dixie dancing, fire jumpers, magicians. It was fun and we all were swept up in the oft-given command to stamp our feet as the south tried to win a barrel race or some such thing.
~Food kept getting deposited on our plates...whole chickens, baked potatoes, corn on the cob, apple turnovers, biscuits...all mouth-wateringly good. All too soon the fun came to an end and after standing and cheering loudly with my southern flag waving wildly( I'm quite certain that the reason my kids mouths were hanging open was that they were awestruck by my courage to loudly take part in the fun and that they all wished they weren't so very shy and could scream and wave their flags just as wildly), I climbed out of my seat and turned to the exit which smoothly directed us right into the Dolly Parton gift shop. Gosh, I wish I could figure a way to channel people into Pear Tree South like that.
~After buying key chains shaped like boots and stuff like that, we pour out to the parking lot. It's about 10:30 p.m. I look at my family with a question in my eyes. Well?
~Annie spoke first and said much to her surprise (and I think dismay) she had fun! the rest of them followed suit with their words and I was one happy Mom.
~~The next day it was on to Gatlinburg. I love the Smoky Mountains and seriously think I could spend the rest of my days very contentedly in them. I asked the kids what they wanted to do since I'd picked the previous two events. All of them wanted the Ripley's Believe It or Not Aquarium. Now, I've been to 2 different aquariums in the past year or so, so I wasn't too excited about this, but agreed to it to be fair.
It was the best aquarium I've ever been to! The shark tunnel went on and on , around corners and with a moving sidewalk which you were free to jump on and off of. The jellyfish and King Crabs were among our favorite, as was the Cuttle Fish which is a natural light show with its constant electric light flickering throughout it's body. (I wonder how that mutated into being) And I had never before seen a catfish which was about 3 feet long. I always remember them being perhaps 3 inches in long in people's fishtanks. This place alone was worth the trip....though I was really wishing we could have seen a bear in the wild during our car trek through the Smoky Mountain National Park.
~~We ended the southern portion of our vacation in Cherokee N.C. at an Indian village where we took a tour and discovered all sorts of interesting things. For instance the Cherokee have always believed in one Sovereign God; they never worshiped multiple gods. And the people always belong to the clan of the mother. Once they married the husband moved to the clan of the bride. They were never allowed to marry within their own clans (there are seven clans within the tribe, the "long-hairs" being known as the snobs who thought they were better than the other clans). I had been here when I was Jedd's age. I was astounded by how different it was and by the fact that I didn't remember any of it this way. My family kindly pointed out it had been 36 years and that things change. 36 years...huh...
After that excursion we had lunch and headed north. Under the guise of wanting to try boiled peanuts, Thom graciously allowed me a quick tourist stop to buy pea shooters and fake eagle feathers. The peanuts were disgusting and we figure it must be an acquired taste or one you're weaned on...rather like the idea of vegemite for Australians. We made it home the next day by early evening. We were all utterly exhausted...it was wonderful...Thank you Lord for safe travel and harmonious family time. Thank you for further opening our eyes to your glories and wonders.