It was fall break. We had been at the lake for 3 days already. It was the first Saturday this fall that we didn’t have something going on. We had a glorious day planned. We were staying in our camper at the lake. That is something that our family loves to do together. We go to the lake where we can get away. We also love watching football together. We also love eating good camping food. The Blackstone was primed and ready for a great round of breakfast burritos Saturday morning then burgers and fried taters later that day. So those things combined with cooler weather…nothing was going to come between us and a perfect fall day we dream about the rest of the year!
I woke up about 6 am yesterday morning, which is typical while out there. It got down to 37 degrees during the night. I got up to go to the bathroom and realized it felt like 36 degrees in our camper (this will be explained a little later). We didn’t have the heater on because it had been pretty warm Friday, so didn’t really think we would need a heater that night. When I got up I thought about how wrong I was. I then realized there were no lights working.
I then looked outside and realized there were no lights working anywhere around us. I went outside, where it felt warmer than our camper. Yep, no lights anywhere. So I called in the outage, but didn’t know how long that would take. We waited around until about 8:00 am, then decided something else had to be done.
I had also noticed when I went outside that the two hoses that were connected from the hydrant to our camper were leaking pretty bad. So I thought it was a great opportunity to run into Elk City and get a couple of hoses and also get warm in the truck for awhile. As I went to start the truck I realized that the back window of the camper, which happened to be Channing’s window by her bed, was wide open. That would explain a large reason why the camper was so cold and why she complained of her feet freezing all night.
I woke up the troops and we loaded up and headed to Elk. We thought they were still sleeping, but they were just so cold they didn’t want to get out of bed. We got to Wal-Mart and got everything we needed. We got some hoses, a new filter, and some round-up to kill the poison ivy right by our camper that has plagued our house for the last 3 weeks. Perfect right? Quick, efficient trip to Wal-Mart to get the essentials then head back and the electricity would be back on. Not in the original plan of how we hoped the morning would go, but not a big deal.
We got up to the check out line and noticed about 50 people standing around waiting. We found out that their computer system was down due to a blown transformer. Their registers weren’t working and they didn’t know how long it could take. We were told it could be 15 minutes or all day. We waited that 15 minutes, but we were out on the all day option.
We called Atwoods and they said they had camping supplies, so we opted to go there. We arrived there and they did have camping supplies, about half an isle of them. They had nothing we needed. So by that time we weren’t sure what the plan was. The only thing I was sure of is that I knew my family was starving. I knew this due to the reminders I got about every 15 seconds about how they were starving. I decided to go to McDonalds and ravage the dollar menu and buy some time for another plan. A good portion of Elk City had that plan too. Since there were 20 cars in the drive through I decided to go in and order. Inside were about 15 people waiting on their food. So after about 30 minutes at McDonalds we finally got to enjoy some sausage biscuits and coffee.
I was determined to get the hoses since we had went through all of this already. I decided that we were going to Weatherford to Wal-Mart. For those that don’t know this area, we were at Foss. We went 20 miles west to Elk City then 45 miles back east to Weatherford. Sure enough though, Weatherford Wal-Mart came through. We got everything we had planned on, except I forgot the round-up at Weatherford. We even got to visit with a good friend’s dad while we were there (great to see you Snuffe). That made the trip worth it.
We headed back to Foss and at that point feeling a sense of satisfaction knowing that we had stuck with it, even though it wasn’t the original plan for the day. We had overcame a lot of alterations and stuck with it to leave with the hoses in hand. I think the men reading this will appreciate that dedication to the mission we were on.
We returned to the campsite and got the new hoses hooked up and no leaks. Mission accomplished. By then it was after lunch and it was time to settle in for some football finally. We had already missed some of the games we had planned to watch. We are OU fans though, so the real game wasn’t until 6:30.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing and watching football outside. We had some good friends there that afternoon and evening to enjoy the games and relaxation with us. We threw the football around ourselves (as seen below), played some cornhole, ate some great food, and ate lots of toasted marshmallows around the campfire. It was everything we had imagined, maybe more. It just came a little later than planned, and we had to go through a lot of things we didn’t see coming to get to that point.
As I sat there last night thinking about what a great afternoon and evening it was, I laughed about all the inconveniences we had from about 6 am until about 2 pm to get to that glorious day we had envisioned. Kristin and I did get a good laugh out of it though because in years past it would not have at any point been a pleasant day. I would have let the morning’s events completely ruin things because of my impatience. I would have lit up a few people in our adventures in Wal-Mart and McDonalds. It just would not have, at any point, been that wonderful and relaxing day we had been waiting on.
We also talked about how my patience has increased over the past several years. Believe me, this has been, and still is a work in progress. This is a two part blog because there will be more on that next week. So tune back in next week for an explanation of how that has gone down.
This day honestly reminded me of life. We all have a plan. We all have a way we think life will go. But, sometimes that plan gets blown up. There are times when what we think or wish would happen doesn’t. That is because sometimes God has other plans for our life. We want to make our own plan and feel like it should work out that way. When it doesn’t we either panic or get impatient and upset in a lot of instances. As we mature as Christians, that can change. As we learn to trust God, those inconveniences are just turns in the road that we learn to navigate through and come out on the other side better in a lot of ways.
When things don’t go our way, just remember that God is in control. It may be something big in life that doesn’t go according to our plan. It may be something that in the big scheme of life is as unimportant as a Saturday of camping and football. In either instance, it is our plan and we want it to work out our way.
Next week will be part 2 of this topic. So tune back in then to hear, as Paul Harvey would say, “the rest of the story”. We have to remember, God has a plan and we have to be willing and humble enough to realize that His way is always the best way!