Dirtline and Keatchie

"Dirtline" is one of the various hairbrain travel ideas that's hatched from my imagination in recent years. I'm fascinated by the social, political, historical, environmental, and topological aspects of borders. The idea that just crossing a few feet to this side or that side of an imaginary "line drawn in the sand" can change citizenship, college choices, taxes, phone service, historical context, road maintenance, gas prices, and so many other big and small parameters amazes me. Intuition seems more comfortable with gradual changes. But, whether an international border, a state line, or some minor civil division (even a school district), an adequately defined and surveyed border represents a human imposed discontinuity in a mostly continous world.

Of course, the weather cares little for political borders, and people and animals cross them all the time, generally without much concern or interest. I wonder whether the two deer that I saw in Texas knew that they'd reached safety when they crossed the road into the game refuge of Fairchild State Forest. We hear lots of hoopla about international borders, about people's hopes to make it to the other side (legally or illegally), and the occasional stories of someone's life getting seriously messed up because of arbitrary border bureaucracy. But the subtle differences across state and lesser borders are easily overlooked.

So the idea of the "dirtline" was to plan a trip along a border, crossing at every available opportunity. The name comes from the extra little thrill I get at "sneaking" across on out-of-the-way little roads (especially if unpaved) where the line is not marked by some huge billboard or line-up of shoppers. In particular I remember one road across the Florida-Georgia line where the small sign informing me that I was entering Florida looked like it was at least 50 years old. Since land surveys tend to be based on state and territorial meridians and benchmarks, it's fairly natural for property boundaries to stop at state lines, sometimes producing a visible line of varying land use.

On this last trip to Texas, I took the opportunity to seek out a couple of county/parish roads that cross the Louisiana/Texas state line. Like a few other state lines, this one has the added historical interest of once having been an international border, between Spanish and French territory. Westward bound, I followed Elysian Fields Road out of Greenwood to Texas, where the pavement substantially deteriorated and a sign welcomed me to Harrison County (no mention of Texas). Then, turning south past Boggy Baptist Church (wonder if they baptize you in mud there?), I got on State Line Road into Bethany. As you might guess, State Line Road follows right along the state line. The only clue to which state the road was in was a monument in Bethany at the intersection with US 79. So it appears that I was still driving in Texas, but that the people living on the west side of the road had to walk across into Louisiana to get their mail from mailboxes that were all on the east side.

My other dirtline trip didn't quite go as planned. On the way back, I figured I'd just take the next county road to the north across the state line. As a bonus I would get to go through the small town of Elysian Fields. Nothing really special. I've just always thought that was a really neat name for a town. (Check up on your Greek mythology if you don't understand.) It turned out that I couldn't make it to the state line before dark, but decided I would not let that deter me or dampen my enthusiasm. But when I got to the final turnoff about a mile or two from Louisiana, there was a big homemade sign warning "This is not a public road". So apparently the county road is no more. All I could do was continue north to Waskom and commence the monotony of I-20.

So what in the world is a Keatchie? Just another little slightly-out-of-the-way place that's had my curiosity for a while. Yep, I think it's a neat sounding name. I think it would be good for the name of some exotic tea made out of an obscure plant from the Big Thicket of Texas. Surprisingly there are actually two Keatchie's in Texas. Neither is big enough to attract any attention, and the one I explored was more of a place than it was a community. But it led to a nice adventuresome drive along deserted gravel roads. I don't think I saw another vehicle along the nine miles that it took to get to the next state Farm-to-Market road.

What I did see was a surprisingly large and peaceful creek. A couple of slightly confusing minor intersections. And plenty of partly wooded ranchland. There was a small rural cemetery, next to one of the very few houses. One of my favorite sections was where the road was cut, or worn, into the low rolling hills as a "sunken road". Probably none of my family would have cared much for this narrow, often washboardy road. But for me, it was a pleasant and memorable departure from the highway drive. The one disappointment was discovering that my camera battery was dead. Maybe that just makes the experience more personal. In any case, I resolved to enjoy the moment rather than mourn over something I couldn't fix.

Surprisegiving

Wow, it's been a while without blogging. Three special days without wife and family. The first time I've ever been apart from my wife on our anniversary. No point in dwelling on it. Then the "American" holiday of Thanksgiving. I didn't lose too much sleep over that, since we'd already celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving the month before. I figure I've been greedy getting two Thanksgivings every year anyhow.

But my dad's birthday followed just two days after the second Thanksgiving. Since Nancy had surprised (and scared!) her dad by driving up to see him, I figured maybe it was my turn to do the same. Also it made sense since I hadn't managed to get his present mailed off.

So, for the first time in a long time, I made the long drive to Texas by myself. The unfamiliar silence was at least interrupted when I could occasionally find a radio station that I liked. A broken CD player and forgotten cassettes didn't provide many other options. And a late start limited my possibilities for sidetrip adventures. The short sidetrips that I did will be in my next blog entry (hopefully before I forget).

Of course the surprise visit was a . . . surprise. My arrival was timed nicely to allow me to see the last couple minutes of the Aggies beating the Longhorns. Gig'em Aggies! Which means that I also missed the total chaos of people driving around following the game. Got to watch a couple neat shows on HDTV, drink some eggnog, and get some real Texas chicken-fried steak. It wasn't a weekend for really doing much anyway, with a constant patter of windy rain and temperatures stuck in the mid-40s. A couple hundred miles further west and I could have been in snow, but in College Station it was good just to be in a warm house. A house in the midst of some serious remodeling. I don't know when it'll ever be finished, but at least I can say that a lot of progress has been made since the last time we'd been there. I also visited Hope Evangelical Free Church. No telling how many times I've driven past it in the last 23 years, but never visited. It was a bit smaller than I'd expected, but friendly and comfy. And they had a neat thing on their bulletin board where folks could sign up to speak in the Sunday evening service if God laid something on their heart. That seemed like a mighty nice way to get away from everything being focused on the pastor. I think a lot of times that God reveals himself to His people in ways that they never get an adequate opportunity to share with others. Another church, another lesson learned.

The drive back was mostly in rain, or at least dreary skies. I had hoped to have a basic "mobile mesonet" put together in the Subaru for the drive, but didn't really get it all together. What I did have was just a datalogger and GPS and my nifty new power inverter to run it all. So I could record when and where I was, but not any temperatures or other interesting stuff. In any case, I was still pleasantly surprised (amid the exhausting boredom of I-20 at night) to see that there was in fact a substantial temperature rise as I pushed through the cold front somewhere between Monroe and Vicksburg. And I'd gotten it into my head that it was cold everywhere! Although there was no visible change in the incessant drizzle, the temperature was up to 66 degrees when I stopped at the Mississippi Welcome Center and the wind clearly coming out of the south.

Getting home just before ten o'clock, I got the cats fed, called my parents, and tried to psyche myself up for the morning after. A good Surprisegiving. But I sure am tired.

The Long Drive

After five days on the road, Nancy and the kids finally reached Canada today! Maybe soon I can get back to a "normal" pattern of life without them here. God really blessed us so that she did not have to drive through any snow. Shortly after her arrival the next storm system is forecast to give some snow accumulation, before it warms up nicely.

So now that my family is about to settle in up north and my father-in-law is feeling a lot better, I suppose it's about time to start considering new stuff to blog about. I know there is some confusion about where the name for the blog came from. If you know me at all (and you may not), the "adventure" part is probably pretty self-explanatory. Basically I like to go places and do things, especially if it's new to me. "Tejano" comes from my identification with growing up in a heavily Hispanic part of Texas. The "safari" part is just a Swahili reiteration of my insatiable travel appetite, since my birth in Kenya has always helped to foster my interest in far away places, languages, and people. So that's how the name came about.

Unfortunately, helping Nancy out with her little adventure up to New Brunswick lately has got the travel bug running full force through my veins again. In particular, a little project that I started the last time that we went to Canada really came in handy yesterday, when I was scrambling to find a motel room for them. Since we always have trouble finding reasonably priced accommodations in the Northeast, I had put together a map of Maine with hyperlinks to motels in each town. Right now I'm really wanting to make that database more complete, partly for our trip back down in a couple months and partly just 'cause I get so interested in all the places there are to stay.

I especially want to have more documentation of the independent family-owned motels that are usually not so easy to find out about, in many cases are cheaper, and often are struggling to compete with the big boys. I think that what I have could be a valuable product to be able to sell, even in its currently very simple form, but I can't currently see being able to make this happen by myself. I can't put the draft version online for free use either, since I would first have to get permission from the owner of the copyright on the base map that I used. It's a neat resource for me. Hopefully someday I'll be able to share it with the rest of the world.

My Personal Allotment of Space and Time

At a recent event I was reminded of both the growing realization of science's failure to completely explain the universe and of God's choice to create us so that we can't be in two places at the same time. Only God Himself is completely above and beyond constraints of time and space. We are physically limited by the space-time continuum of the universe that we're embedded in. In that limitation however lies the special nature of God's creation. We are each unique. Although the paradigm of His salvation is universally invariant (I know, the mathematician is leaking through!), God's perfect will, direction, and work is unique to each individual, and substantially impacted by the imperfect circumstances that He allows us to live out our lives within.

In the different seasons of life, our responses must vary. In winter we dress differently from summer. Under financial hardship we (hopefully) spend differently. And in family "crises" we must assume new roles of ministry. We shouldn't be surprised or upset at the uniqueness of our current circumstances. Instead I should thank God that in His sovereignty He has laid out a task in His grand plan that is designed for no one else. Seeing that task and joyfully serving Him in it brings glory to our Lord and purpose to our life.

Yesterday the importance of Bible translation was highlighted for me. A crucial part of God's work. Although it is clearly not what every Christian is called to as a career, there are still so many ways that we can use the ordinary talents, gifts, and resources that we have to facilitate the availability of the Gospel in languages and cultures that we may never personally comprehend this side of heaven. It was a special treat to see my daughter begin to consider how God could use her.

Many years ago James Dobson wrote a book called "When God Doesn't Make Sense" (or something like that). I never actually read the book, but the basic idea is that in our limited capacity we can not reasonably expect to always be able to understand God's providence and sovereignty in all the details of our lives, especially while we're in the midst of "stuff". I think this is something that was lived out more completely in past generations, before we got so conditioned into thinking that we can heal every disease, take personal control of the direction of our lives, and basically do whatever we want. As the song says "When you can't see His hands, trust His heart". Although we can be encouraged by others' stories of faith and perseverance, God's character is ultimately revealed in His Word and in His personal dealings in our lives.

So. Why am I here at this exact point in time? Asking the right question is usually the first step to finding the right answer.

Emotions

Ever had a weekend that was really exhausting, even though you didn't really do anything? As Nancy reminded me yesterday, God made us emotional creatures. And it was definitely an emotional weekend for me.

The constant backdrop of uncertainty about my father-in-law's heart problems set the tone. It's been good to see God's faithfulness in ministering to him in these days when we are so much more aware of God's sovereignty in providing us a limited period of time to work for Him in this world. So many times in the past Nancy's dad has been depressed over relatively minor things. Yet now he seems to be at peace with his circumstances. Today he gets transferred to the heart hospital in Saint John for more tests.

I'm sad to think we may not have him with us much longer. But also so proud to see his faith and the impact of his life, and knowing that, when the time is right, God will have something much much better for him. So there is an undeniable joy as I ponder our Lord's grace and mercy.

To "add fuel to the fire", I went to the funeral of a friend who had been battling cancer for the last couple years. Jerry Reynolds was one of the first (and most memorable) people we met when we started going to Cleary Baptist Church nearly nine years ago. I hadn't seen him in a while, and it was good to be reminded of the huge spiritual impact he had through his family and his service to the church. His love and joy and faith were truly contagious.

The rollercoaster of feelings continued Sunday. Although I had concerns about my family being able to adapt to being the only white folks in church, we were all blessed by our visit to New Jerusalem Baptist. In particular, it was refreshing to see a church that was literally bursting at the seams, instead of the propaganda we've heard so many times that people won't fill a church beyond about 80% capacity. In the evening, we were blessed as Cynthia finally went forward (at Cleary) to profess her faith in Christ and ask for baptism. God is so good.

Discipline

As much as I like the idea of it, self-discipline is always a big challenge for me. On one hand, I'd like to think that I'm good at sticking to long tedious projects. Yet I wonder, when I look at my list of unfinished projects. I have a half-dozen books that I'd like to write, but none completed. I have a tough time keeping a regular discipline of Bible reading, of grading homeworks, of staying in touch with friends, cleaning up, and so forth. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak". Now what are the chances that I'll actually keep up with blogging on a consistent basis? Hmm.


Well, I have had one small victory in self-discipline over the last week. After a lifetime of once-a-day teeth brushing, I've finally gotten myself into brushing two or three times a day. Sure it's always made perfect sense that I should brush my teeth after each meal. But I could just never get myself to remember to do it. I guess the financial impact of me and John's dental problems has finally gotten my attention.


Is this the beginning of a new era of self-discipline for me? Don't know. But at least it can be one more area for me to be a better example to my kids. And it does make me feel a little better about myself.