Don't mess with Texas!

As many of you know, Aimee and I road tripped down to Midland, Texas, last week to seek counseling from a pastor and his wife in a church down there. We left on Friday, August 15, after Aimee got off work. I drove all the way to Emporia, Kansas, before I decided I needed to pull over and sleep (around 1:30 a.m., we had driven 8 hours by this time). We had taken the back seats out of the Aztec, put a couple of eggshell matresses down on the floor, moved our luggage into the front seats, and slept in our sleeping bags in the back of the Aztec in a Walmart parking lot in Emporia. I had even purchased battery-operated fans for noise and to help circulate the air while sleeping (unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures of this). Penelope traveled with us and woke us up around 5 a.m. Neither one of us was really able to get back to sleep after that, and we finally decided to get up and brush our teeth, etc., in a nearby gas station's bathroom. We got breakfast at McDonald's and continued on our way. We stopped in Oklahoma City on the way down and toured the Capitol Building grounds (pictures below).


We then drove the rest of the way to Midland (11 hours total on Saturday for a total of 19 hours). It was really fun to see the landscape change from lush green to more of a desert look (though not as desert-looking as parts of Arizona). When we arrived in Midland on Saturday evening, we drove by our hotel, drove by the church so we would know where to go on Sunday morning, checked in to the hotel, dropped off our luggage and Penelope in our room, and then went to eat at an Italian restuarant called Carino's (pictures below...keep in mind that we had not showered for almost 48 hours, so we look quite pretty).


On Sunday we went to first service at church at 8:30 a.m. and met the pastor and his wife with whom we would be seeking counseling. We also met with the professional counselor/pastor on staff at the church. We had the rest of Sunday to enjoy on our own but did have homework to work on in preparation for our counseling sessions on Monday. We worked on the homework all Sunday afternoon and then decided to just relax that evening. We went to Logan's Roadhouse for supper and then came back to the hotel, took Penelope for a walk around town, exercised in the fitness room at the hotel, and watched the Olympics. On Monday, we had counseling in the morning and afternoon. Our counseling couple took us out for lunch to a local mexican restaurant called Carambas. It was delicious (all the food at the all of the restaurants was great)! They also invited us over to their house for supper on Monday evening, and we enjoyed getting to know them better in their family setting and also enjoyed the scrumptous grilled meal they had cooked for us. On Tuesday, we met with our counseling couple for one last session in the morning and then headed back to Rochester after lunch. We stopped at the same Walmart in Emporia, Kansas, on the way back to sleep. On Wednesday, we stopped in Topeka, Kansas, to tour the Capitol Building grounds there (picture below).

We were upset that there was construction and that we weren't able to tour either of the Capitol Buildings on this trip, so we let Penelope poop on the Capitol grounds right near a "Keep off the Grass" sign. For those of you whose hearts may be racing at our blatant rebellion, I would like to let you know that we picked the poop up with a plastic bag and disposed of it properly.

Also at the Kansas Capitol, we found out that Penelope is not fond of Abe Lincoln. She ferociously growled and barked at him for several minutes while we were near his statue (picture below). As we walked back to the Aztec, she kept turning around to keep barking at him as if to let him know that he better not move. Isn't she just the best guard dog ever?!
We arrived safely back in Rochester Wednesday night, August 20. We praised God that He kept us safe the entire trip, that we had no car trouble, and that He spoke to our hearts through our counselors.