JUNE 28, 1978

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOLLY

Beach Bums

Whew, everyone needs to take a little summer vacation. Holly and I spent a good weekend in beautiful Jacksonville, Florida. I spent the week there working at the airport. I have decided that this is a great way to travel. It is like having an advance team, for all you military types out there. I scope out the lay of the land, know some good places to eat, and how to generally navigate the city.

Being that Holly’s birthday is June 28^th and my Birthday is July 6^th, I decided that this would be our little birthday trip. It has become somewhat of a tradition for us. Last year we traveled to North Carolina to visit our great friends (HI Clint and Erin!). Holly arrived at 1pm on Friday afternoon. I decided that we need to really enjoy the Florida sunshine and rented a convertible for the weekend. Something odd about renting a convertible, you have to program in a country station into the presets. ;)

We loaded Holly’s bags and took a long way back to the hotel, to give her the lay of the land. We were staying in downtown Jacksonville, a good central point for all things in the city. We decided that we should catch the local Double-A affiliate of the Dodger’s play a little baseball. So we headed off for the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville (we had to go simple because of the cool name like Ballpark in Arlington). We have this crazy knack of catching baseball games that have fireworks attached, without even knowing it. So we were watching the Jacksonville Suns battle it out with the Montgomery Biscuits (serious the Biscuits?) when we heard the stadium announcer say “Remember fans to stick around after the game for the NAPA auto parts post game fireworks show.” SCORE!

So the mighty Jacksonville Suns won and the fireworks were great. We get up on Saturday and head to St. Augustine, Florida. It is about an hour south and claims to be the oldest city in the USA. It is a cool town that reminded Holly and I of the old European cities you see on TV. It has very narrow streets that are made of rickety stone and brick combo, uneven sidewalks and buildings all smashed together. It would never pass Texas wide-open space planning rules. We toured an old Spanish hospital, an old wooden school house (not really worth it) and an old fort. While at the fort they were demonstration how they would fire cannons and we actually saw them fire one. It was pretty freakin’ loud and very cool. We rounded out our visit to St. Augustine by visiting a lighthouse and climbing 219 steps to the top of the 14 story house. I loved it, but Holly hates heights, so she literally climbed to the top for a single picture and less than 25 seconds of views.

After St. Augustine, we headed north to Jacksonville Beach. We camped out and played in the super fine white sand for a few hours. Having only seen Padre Island and Galveston bay, it was like playing in the Caribbean to us. We then headed back to the hotel and out to a fancy dinner. We went to Benny’s Steak and Seafood and had a scrumptious dinner as we worked our way through a bottle of wine (It was a Riesling Trey and Viki!).

Sunday we slept in and headed back to the airport. After some tense moments trying to get on some flights we were on our way. Take it from us, get out for at least the weekend and enjoy some quality time away from reality!

My Adventures in Mass Transit

by Justin

While spending a week in Chicago for work, we utilized something we do not have in Dallas (or Texas for that matter) a great network of trains for mass transit. From our hotel at Midway airport we took the trains twice, once to Wrigley Field the other to downtown. While the ease and cheapness of the train was great, there are some interesting times to be had on the train.

Our first train ride to Wrigley was a nice crowded affair. We are riding the Orange line into downtown and know we need to get off at Lake to transfer to the Red line to get to Wrigley. So doing what every good tourist does we watch our handy-jim-dandy map and listen to the on-train announcements to ensure we get off at the correct stop for transfer. We know where we are suppose to get off right? Lake! So we come to a stop and the train announces Library & Lake stop. We are confused, but it says Lake so we jump off. We search and search to no avail. We finally ask a worker for the transit authority and he, with NO enthusiasm explains that there is in fact TWO stops for Lake and we need the other one. The thing is that the handy-jim-dandy map doesn’t tell you this important fact. No fear after a twenty minute stop on the red line, we make it to Wrigley in the middle of the second inning, just in time for a rain delay…perfect.

My second train story is one of those Joan Osborne moments. You know the “What if God was one of us? Just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home” song. We are sitting on the train headed home from have some mighty tasty brew from a place downtown called Jake M’s when a man sits in front of us. He all of the sudden looks up and says “I don’t want to love you anymore” and gets of the train. We all look around and realize that he is not exactly playing with a full deck of cards. He gets off at the next stop and we think we have just experienced our funkiness for the evening, WRONG.

The same stop this guy gets off a new crazy gets on. This guy strikes up a conversation with us wanting us to go to a block party in three weeks. We try to explain that we are only in town for business and we won’t be here, but he insists we attend. He tries hard to convince us that we need to be there because it is going to be like the ‘Left Behind’ series and we don’t want to miss it. He pulls out a crinkled up piece of paper and shows it to us and indeed it is a ‘Left Behind’ themed block party. He goes on to stress that we should not bring any alcoholic drinks, as all beverages will be provided. He promises that the ‘spirit’ will control us and we will dance all night with their beverages. We were a little scared what those beverages might be. The first thought is like those cult guys who tried to hitch a ride on the comet a few years back with Kool-aid. He finally gets off and we are freaked out.

That’s my experiences with Chicago and mass transit. My thoughts go to those of you who have to put up with this randomness everyday. At least I only have to put up with idiots in their cars! Next week I am off to Jacksonville, Florida. I will give you a beach update soon!

Blessings

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers for my grandad and the rest of our family over the past two weeks. My grandad actually didn't have a heart attack, but a gall bladder attack. When he went to the doctor, tests showed severe heart blockage which led to his actual triple bypass on June 2. He was doing fine from that, but then his gall bladder ruptured, which led to emergency surgery. He was very sick for a couple of days, and the stress from that made his kidneys fail temporarily. He had to have dialysis 4 times, but thankfully today was the last of those. And finally... he got to go home today!!!
It will be a long road of gaining strength, regulating blood sugars and learning to rest a little more. So please feel free to keep sending the prayers our way! :)
Justin and I are ready for a break. He's been travelling so much and we've been to Lubbock the last three weekends. Thankfully, we can stay home this weekend and do a little bit of nothing.
Hope you all have a good weekend and are enjoying your summer so far!
Holly

Prayer Please

To catch you all up on our craziness, here we go. Justin is on his third four-day business trip since starting his job May 1. He came home last Thursday from Ohio, we left Friday for Lubbock for the long weekend, and he left Tuesday morning for Chicago. He gets back tomorrow (Friday) and we leave Saturday to go see my family again... which brings me to my next point.
We had planned to go home this weekend for my grandparents' 60th Anniversary party. However, my grandad had a heart attack today and is in the heart hospital in Lubbock. He will be having a double bypass tomorrow, which is actually their anniversary. So please keep him in your prayers for recovery, my grandma for strength and peace and the rest of my family as well.
Thank you all and hope you're okay.
Holly