“Reuniting With Family” - Day 5

Today was the day; we gathered up the few “overnight” things that we had taken over to Mom’s house and got all her things packed in the car.  Before long, we were having prayer at the house, preparing to drive back over to the church, where “Destiny” was awaiting us.  We got back over to the motorhome and got everything loaded up in the rig; I then took Mom’s car over to one of the church members’ house, that lives right down from the church; we were leaving the car there while we were gone.  I walked back to the motorhome; by that time, Adriene had the coach ready for our departure.  Surprisingly, Mom wanted to sit up front in the passenger seat for our trip; Adriene graciously said Mom was more that welcome to sit up front and enjoy the ride. I was surprise that Mom wanted to sit up front, but she was excited and ready.  We cranked up the coach, spoke God’s blessings over our trip, and we were soon pulling out of the church parking lot, on our way to Virginia, for our “Back Together Again” Family Reunion.

Our trip for that day covered just over 170 miles, so we were on the road for about 3 hours.  Mom was just loving it, as we reminisced about the “good ole days” of our traveling up and down I-95.  It was a really special time for us as we were back on I-95 heading North enroute to “Indian Acres”.  Well, now that I have mentioned Indian Acres a few times, let me tell why we chose that location for our family reunion.  Growing up, Indian Acres was a “camping home-base” for us, and we have sooooo many fond memories of our time there with my Pops and Mom (more on that later).  Our camper that we used during our travels back then, is still parked there (about 40 years now, and no longer habitable); our family has not been back to our “home-base” together since my Pops went to be with the Lord in 1996.  Yes, our heading back to Indian Acres was going to be a special time.

When we were arriving at the entrance, a wealth of emotion began to well up in me and I looked at the Indian Acres sign, then looking over at my Mom.  I stopped at the entrance to get a snapshot.

First order of business after arriving was to make sure that everything was all setup and ready for the rest of the family before they arrived in a couple of days.  I also had to get a pass for the campsite that we would be staying at.  As we were taking care of our initial business, God began to show himself present.  A few weeks prior to our leaving San Antonio, I was calling Indian Acres to make reservations for the site that were going to have our family get-together (by the way, I was heading up the effort to coordinate the family reunion).  Anyway, while talking to the administrator, they told me that the "Tee-Pee” that I wanted to reserve, was already taken by another event; I was a bit disappointed, because I really desired to have that area for our reunion, but I had to reserve an alternate location that was quite a way from our campsite.  Well, after we took care of our business in the office, we headed back to our campsite.  That is when God showed up; my phone rang and it was the main office calling to tell me that the party that had the “Tee-Pee” area reserved, had to cancel and offered it to us if we still wanted it - YES, we’ll take it.  Thank you Lord!  The “Tee-Pee” area is fully covered, and it also was right in front of our campsite.  Not only did we get the area that we truly desired, but we got it for the entire day at no additional extra cost.

We were actually at Indian Acres, 2 days before the actual family reunion.  Our initial plan was for us to stay at the Indian Acres campsite, but Mom was going to stay at a local hotel down the road with my sister.  As God would have it, it was getting a little late in the evening and my sister had not arrived yet.  That is when God gave me another desire of my heart; I asked Mom if she would like to stay the night with us at the campsite in our rig and meet up with my sister in the morning; she graciously accepted.  Mom “camped out” with us for the night; thank you again Lord.  Mom is an “early to bed, early to rise” person, so we got her all setup the “Destiny’s Master Suite”, and she soon called it a night.

We were still enjoying the evening and waiting for my sister to arrive.  We convinced her to come by our campsite before going to her hotel for the evening.  She finally arrived and I am always glad to see her; she had a car load of “stuff” because she was designated as the family reunion “event coordinator”.  Yes, I designated her because my sister (Angie) is really good at that kind of thing and she is always the “life of the party”.  We hung out outside and reunited with her so that we didn’t wake my Mom up inside.  Angie stayed for a little while, and we made plans for the next day.  She was a bit tired because she had just driven about a hour and a half after getting off of work.  We said our goodnights, and told her to go and get some rest; she headed to the hotel for the evening.  We stayed up for a little while, then we made ourselves “semi-comfortable” on the fold-out couch/bed that we have in our living room; we realized that we were a bit tired ourselves.  We called it an evening as well.