Time well spent

I’m up early again this morning. It is July 3, 2009, around 6:30 AM. We had a wonderful and long day yesterday and I’m looking forward to another one today. So far it has been great. I’m outside on my bench sipping coffee from my favorite cup and listening to the sounds of God’s creation. There hasn’t been any cars running around this morning to disrupt things, only birds of various kinds are penetrating the quietness.

I woke up this morning thinking about my family and how blessed I am. I was listening to a sermon the other day, I think it was Erwin Lutzer from Moody Church but I might be mistaken, and he was stressing the point of how it's not the gifts, but it is the time spent with your children that they remember and value the most. I thought of that several times yesterday as my family and I were driving around upper East, TN and parts of Kentucky. It brought back memories of when I was a child and my parents would take us on trips like that. We didn’t have a bunch of money to spend on things like theme parks or shopping, but we managed to put gas in the car and drive around. Yesterday we were like that. We didn’t have but $30.00 and ¾ tank of gas but we pointed our vehicle North East and began driving. My intentions were to drive to Boone Lake just outside of Johnson City but things changed as I began to drive.

We drove down Rutledge Pike through Blaine and towards Rutledge. I spotted Joppa School over on my left and told the kids that my Uncle Ronnie used to be the principal there many years ago. We then decided to turn beside Joppa and head over the mountain toward Washburn. My wife spent her childhood going to church at Central View American Christian church in Washburn. The pastor, Jerry Epperson, has been there for I guess 30-years or more. He was the pastor there when she and I were married in 1985 because he officiated our wedding and that was 24-years ago. We decided to drive by the church so the kids could see where their mother went when she was a child. The church had really changed since we had been there last. They have completely remodeled it by adding brick and expanding the sanctuary. They also have bathrooms inside now, something they didn’t have back when she used to belong there. The church is really beautiful now but I wish the kids could have seen it the way it used to be.

After visiting Central View, we kept driving through Washburn and hit highway 25. I turned left and headed toward Tazewell. We ended up going to one of our very favorite places, Cumberland Gap State Park in Middlesboro, KY. I have taken the kids there a couple of times before and they absolutely love it. My dad used to take us there when I was a kid too. I saw in the Knoxville News Sentinel yesterday, that the park is celebrating their 50-year anniversary this weekend. We sure enjoyed the time we spent there yesterday. My son still had some birthday money left and he bought his self some replica Confederate money and a hat from the gift shop. That boy is more like me than he wants to admit!

We left Cumberland Gap and headed back to Tennessee and I decided to detour through Lafollette. It was a long beautiful drive. We stopped by a Dollar General store and bought some junk food to eat in the car as we were driving. The kids thought we were really something, letting them eat a bunch of junk like that. I know it wasn’t much, just $10.00 worth of snacks, but it will be something they will always remember. We finally made it to I-75 and headed back towards Knoxville. We did stop off in Clinton to see if there was anything at Hammers we wanted but we didn’t buy anything. Then it was back home in Corryton. We had such a great time just driving around for 4 or 5 hours and we weren’t out anything except a half of tank of gas and $10.00. You can’t beat that for quality family time!

Speaking of family time, we are having the Spencer reunion at my mother’s house tomorrow. There are supposed to be around 50 folks coming in from all over to spend time together as a family. My mother is really excited about it and she has spent many hours getting prepared. I hope we have a good reunion.

Don’t forget to treasure the time you have with your family during this 4th of July holiday and don’t forget the families and men that gave their lives to give us this freedom that we enjoy. You might even want to read over the Declaration of Independence just as a reminder.