Talimena Drive

What an amazing day we had! Keith, Joe and I headed up to Talimena Drive (a 54 mile stretch between Oklahoma and Arkansas) for a day of sightseeing and geocaching. There were times that a person could almost forget exactly where they were when standing in the awe and splendor of the Ouachita Mountains. God must surely have smiled when making this area.

Sometimes there are words that become overused and for the most part "breathtaking" is one of them. I'm going to claim that word for this area of the country though.

Driving along we just loved looking around. The trees were so much different than what we have around here and that made it enjoyable to look around. And there was still enough color in all the leaves that it was so beautiful to look at.

Joe had a grand time as well. We didn't see a lot of people the entire day, but at one geocache site there was a secluded field. We let him off leash and the three of us ran around and laughed and just enjoyed each other.

The last picture will be one of those memories that will be retold time and time again. On the way to our very first geocache of the day the GPS told us to turn right at CR-54938 (or whatever the county road number was). We did and this picture shows the road we followed. Now, the funniest part is that we followed this dirt and rock road for seven miles.....seven miles along sometimes the edge of a mountain. I wish I would've taken more pictures to show the vertical road and even more impressive the vertical drop had Keith not been such a good driver. But instead of picture taking I was busy being

the passenger driver and I was holding my invisible brake pedal down for all I was worth! I know that we had a bevy of angels helping me to hold that brake pedal down, you know, just in case Keith wasn't able to brake on his own.

We were on the road long enough that we started to get a little bit of a nervous chuckle between us. Keith turned to me and asked if I had told anybody where we were going, just in case. No honey, not a soul knows where we are, but I'm trusting in those angels to keep us on this road and DON'T STOP PLEASE cause it's a little creepy up here!

When all was said and done and we made it back amongst the civilized world we checked to see where we might've messed up. And we discovered that had we stayed on the highway we had been on we would've just followed the winding road about 20 miles around and ended at the same spot. But our trusty GPS wanted to save us about 13 miles, so it sent us off into the wilderness. We had blind faith that all would be well and of course it was. Following the road less traveled can sometimes be a lonely thing, but it will usually provide you with some deep insights.

And does anybody see the parable here? Blind faith in our GPS brought fear to our hearts. Being reminded of our faith in our Father and the angels surrounding us brought comfort. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!

"He changes times and seasons." - Daniel 2:21