One of the things that you realize when you make it to Alliance, NE is the ability to find Internet connections for blogging is a little difficult...fortunately when all else fails go to the public library. So that being said I will try to catch you up on the trials and tribulations of the Donahues coming to the panhandle of Nebraska.We left Sellersburg at 4:30 am on Saturday and arrived in Alliance, NE at 9:30 pm our time...we are two hours behind here. It was an extremely long drive (1,099 miles) but we were able to accomplish the feat in less than what Mapquest said...they said 17 hours we did it in 15 hours. Now the unique aspect of the trip is that for the first time Kari was tired enough that I was able to drive about 5 hours of the way...something that rarely occurs.
The last 150 miles seemed to take forever, especially since the drive from Broken Bow to Alliance is very isolated. In fact we had to gas up in Broken Bow since there are no gas stations from that point until Alliance. We did have one exciting event in that stretch and that was when we picked up a sand turtle on the side of the rode and brought it to Kari's folk's home to put in their garden pond.
Kari's mom looks great and is doing very well! She has lost a lot of weight...I am guessing around 80 lbs and is getting around far better than I ever expected. He dad is also doing well and is as funny as ever! Her brother and his family are doing great...but I can not believe how much Tyson and Allison have grown over the last eight years.
Sunday morning was difficult for me to say the least. I kept feeling like I had to go get ready to preach and that was hard to deal with. Kari, her mom and dad and myself went to the United Methodist Church in Alliance for worship. How you all sit in the pews for an hour is amazing to me! I can say one thing about the service...THANK GOD FOR SPEED MEMORIAL CHURCH! The minister at the UMC read every prayer, and his sermon...it was driving me crazy. And the service also strengthened my feeling that we are blessed at Speed for our musical talent in the church.
I want to thank Sam Stone for filling in for me and I have heard nothing but rave reviews on his sermon. I can not wait to hear it.
Today (Monday, July 21) will be spent site seeing. We may go to South Dakota or we may just go to Car Henge which is located just outside of Alliance. I will try to get back to the library to blog on Tuesday, but if not I can blog everyday at my folks starting on Wednesday. To say I miss you all is an understatement.
