Toni's Tribute to All Countries, But Mostly America

We spent a full day playing in Hot Springs:  a long hike, a ride in a rickety elevator up an observation tower, a chat with the handler of a gorgeous and winning race horse (the only race track in AK is located in Hot Springs), a bike ride into town, more lounging and a picnic on rockers on bathhouse porches, and a long soak at the thermal waters at Quapaw Bathhouse, both in a private room and in the common pools, heated from 95 degrees to a toasty 104. All in all it was a lovely day.  I even convinced my already handsome husband that he looks even more dashing in a tam (as opposed to his ever present baseball hat).  The weather was perfect, the company even better. Three amazing things: 1-Thoroughbred race horses are pretty darn impressive.  And gregarious.  And daunting.  2-It is truly a blessing from God to be on the end of the economic ladder that we can be generous in donating to those on the other end.  3-For well over a hundred years, bathers ju...

 It's lovely to stay in one place for a couple of days, and why not at Hot Springs National Park in the beautiful Gulpha Gorge Campground.  We began our Sabbath with a major tender mercy which is described below.  Found a ward to attend for a couple of hours, and I love that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is consistently taught from congregation to congregation around the world.  Our bishops, teachers, and leaders both local and general are not motivated to entertainment or employ other tactics to maintain a membership.  The church of the Lord is not beholden to modern nor convenient ideas but rather to the preaching of God's laws designed only to bless us.  Church today with the local saints was lovely and spiritually rewarding.   We are committed to keeping the Sabbath day holy throughout these 8 months.  As such, we will not shop nor participate in commercial enterprise on Sundays.  After church, we walked along the stellar Bathhouse Row ...

Our third temple visit was the small yet beautiful Oklahoma City, OK Temple.  I have a sweet young friend whom we met in Thailand from near OKC, and I thought of her all morning and how wonderful it is to have good friends.  Another friend from home checks my mailbox daily as my mail delivery folks can seem to get anything right and aren't forwarding my mail.  Friends make the world go round.  Thank you to all ya'll! It's still bleak winter where we drive; cold too.  We pulled into Gulpha Gorge Campground inside of Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas and hooked up.  But upon doing so discovered a water leak.  Oh no!  Aaron is upset and worried.  The temp lowered to 17 degrees this morning, and though we weren't hooked up to water, still we had water in our tanks which may have frozen and damaged a pipe.  We have to wait til Monday morning to call ahead to an Airstream dealer in Dallas and see if we can bring it on in.  Truly this is...

Lubbock Texas Temple today was as rewarding as had been anticipated.  Though the town of Lubbock is nothing to write home about, still the temple experience itself and the lovely people we met while serving there were well worth the trip to this slightly out of the way destination.  We're sleeping wonderfully in our wee Bambi; the mattress in it is the best one we own, and Aaron wakes up relatively painfree.  The Lubbock Temple is small and intimate, which sets the stage for spiritual engagement.   After the temple, we headed to Oklahoma City, OK so as to attend the temple there tomorrow.  We found ourselves overnighting in the parking lot of a local tribal casino.  When I researched this place on freecampsites.net months ago, it looked safe and decent and best of all, free!  Which is a dang good price.  But when we arrived, we found junk trailers and next-to-homeless set ups all around.  I guess Aaron is correct when he asks with smile ...

Temple #1 complete, and what a spiritual feast it was.  Worshipping in the House of the Lord lists among the top of my favorite things to do.  Was a bloody cold night at 13 degrees for a low, but Bambi the Airstream did not fail us, and we slept cozy and snug.  But it's too cold to connect to water; we don't want to run the risk of freezing our pipes or pump.  So we use water in restrooms along the way and problem solve to make it work.   New Mexico is fairly a wishful thinking state that they declare themselves the Land of Enchantment, but that's quite a subjective observation, I am sure.  We left New Mexico heading eastbound for the Lubbock TX Temple tomorrow.  We are staying at a free city campground 

  Was a long day from St George to Albuquerque, NM, but my adrenaline and excitement served me well.  With much excitement and some small amount of trepidation (but mostly excitement), we moved out for eight months of adventure!  No problems, no encounters, no negative reports; all is well and we are happily ensconced in the Route 66 RV Resort outside of lovely Albuquerque ready to hit temple #1 tomorrow.   Three amazing things today:  1-friend Kathleen received a most excellent report from her surgeon; breast cancer completely removed with clean margins.  That's the best news of my 2022!   2-We made it safely through horrific semi-truck traffic and two major delays all the way to our sweet warm campsite.  3-Aaron's friend Ben limited out on his allowance of ducks, 4-good friends still love us after we left a sack of garbage to be disposed of on their front porch and they, thinking it was a sweet parting gift from me, opened it in gleefu...