It was a bright and sunny day... That's pretty much how most horror stories start out, right? No? Well, even so our weekend road trip to PA ended up being a little on the rough side. It really did start out looking like a great day to take a trip. Elizabeth and I both have spent our fair share of being on the road, from our families taking trips to grandmother's house, all the way up to our more recent journeys across the country as we travel for partnership development. We really didn't expect this trip to be any different, but it was. Possibly it was our expectation that it would be an easy trip that made it so bad for us, but either way, it was bad.
To start off the trip, we sat outside a restaurant for an hour, waiting to meet with someone from a church in that area only to find out that we had somehow missed him. Always a great start to a trip. From there it was a slog of a drive north over highways that are..... somewhat different from the highways we are accustomed to. Elizabeth later said that she experienced more culture shock from driving on the roads of Pennsylvania than from anything we did in Papua New Guinea. For one thing, the highways are composed of narrower roads, weaving through hills instead of long, straight, wide highways. Add to that an overwhelming amount of construction on these narrow, hilly roads, and a sprinkling of bad drivers, and we had a recipe for stress.
But what really brought it to the next level was our trip home. First, our air conditioning went out. Lovely. Then, a short time into the trip, we began to smell a faint sulfur smell, that grew less faint as time went on. Finally, Elizabeth pulled off the road and into a gas station so we could get some fresh air. I took the opportunity to look up what would cause such a stench. Turns out my alternator had gone bad and begun overcharging my battery. It was the boiling sulfuric acid from the battery that we were smelling.
All that got fixed of course. We replaced the alternator, and the battery, and got a new tire as well. I refilled the freon, and we were set to get back home. However, our quick trip up north ended up taking a lot longer than we would have liked. The road got long.
It seemed like it ended up being one of the longest road trips of my life. It was definitely one of the more stressful ones. Yet even so, while we were there, in Pennsylvania, we got to spend time with Legacy Church, and meet some great people. We also got to spend an afternoon with some of our good friends from Dallas, who had moved up north after graduating. Even on what we perceived as being a bad trip, there were a number of good things that happened.
Life sometimes offers up to us "long trips". Even when our journey looks straightforward and simple, sometimes stumbling blocks appear. Missions has been that sort of journey for me. I decided to become a missionary back in 2005, and while we are now so close to getting to the field (May 20015), it took quite a bit longer than I had hoped to get to that point. Even so, there have been so many good things that have happened to me during the journey. If the journey had been simple, and short, I would not have met my beautiful wife. I would likely never have joined up with PBT, and I would be doing something completely different from my current role. There have been ups and there have been downs, but that's just part of life, and like our trip to Pennsylvania, you have to take the bad with the good. Even so, I'm ready for the next part of our journey!
To start off the trip, we sat outside a restaurant for an hour, waiting to meet with someone from a church in that area only to find out that we had somehow missed him. Always a great start to a trip. From there it was a slog of a drive north over highways that are..... somewhat different from the highways we are accustomed to. Elizabeth later said that she experienced more culture shock from driving on the roads of Pennsylvania than from anything we did in Papua New Guinea. For one thing, the highways are composed of narrower roads, weaving through hills instead of long, straight, wide highways. Add to that an overwhelming amount of construction on these narrow, hilly roads, and a sprinkling of bad drivers, and we had a recipe for stress.
But what really brought it to the next level was our trip home. First, our air conditioning went out. Lovely. Then, a short time into the trip, we began to smell a faint sulfur smell, that grew less faint as time went on. Finally, Elizabeth pulled off the road and into a gas station so we could get some fresh air. I took the opportunity to look up what would cause such a stench. Turns out my alternator had gone bad and begun overcharging my battery. It was the boiling sulfuric acid from the battery that we were smelling.
All that got fixed of course. We replaced the alternator, and the battery, and got a new tire as well. I refilled the freon, and we were set to get back home. However, our quick trip up north ended up taking a lot longer than we would have liked. The road got long.
It seemed like it ended up being one of the longest road trips of my life. It was definitely one of the more stressful ones. Yet even so, while we were there, in Pennsylvania, we got to spend time with Legacy Church, and meet some great people. We also got to spend an afternoon with some of our good friends from Dallas, who had moved up north after graduating. Even on what we perceived as being a bad trip, there were a number of good things that happened.
Life sometimes offers up to us "long trips". Even when our journey looks straightforward and simple, sometimes stumbling blocks appear. Missions has been that sort of journey for me. I decided to become a missionary back in 2005, and while we are now so close to getting to the field (May 20015), it took quite a bit longer than I had hoped to get to that point. Even so, there have been so many good things that have happened to me during the journey. If the journey had been simple, and short, I would not have met my beautiful wife. I would likely never have joined up with PBT, and I would be doing something completely different from my current role. There have been ups and there have been downs, but that's just part of life, and like our trip to Pennsylvania, you have to take the bad with the good. Even so, I'm ready for the next part of our journey!
