Well, I’m not actually sure if this is day 1 or 2 or 3 or what but that’s how everyone else over here starts counting. We were able to get to the guest house last night about 1am local time and we did get to sleep around 2am. I am not sure I have ever taken a longer set of flights from one starting point to the next. Combined I think it ended up being almost 38 hours from house to house. It was great getting to travel with a group of guys and that part of the trip made it much easier than if you were trying to traverse all this alone. I have a tons of photos already but I will leave you with my favorite from the day so far, my roommate and resident neanderthal man, Mark Fuller. The two wonderful ladies who made and served us breakfast is Lillian and Jennifer, they had a great time with the team that just left, looking forward to getting to know them as well.
The trip from the airport at midnight to the house was something of shock overload and sensory explosion. I have been all over the world and been driven around in rickshaw’s in Bangkok and haven’t seen anything like the “traffic flow” they have going on over here. It was quite something at night, looking forward to actually being able to see the road today (they were on power blackouts all over the city last night so it was VERY dark).
As I write this we are all getting ready to head out. It’s 9am local time and there are more soccer (football) balls, goals, and everything else ready to head down to Buloba. Until tomorrow or whenever.
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Ok, well it’s not Shakespeare but it is just about that time of year when the days are really long and the nights are clear and hot. Sometimes it’s hard to find new and fresh images when your routine seems to stay the same, but there is always a lot more to creation than meets the eye. Out here we actually still have a dark sky at night, most of the time. We can still see the lights from the Auburn-Opelika metro area and on the other side we can just see the glow from Columbus, GA, but it isn’t anything like what the sky looked when we lived in the big cities like Dallas. Those big cities like Atlanta and Birmingham have almost no night sky left. Luckily out here we still do… so… I’m off to try to get some shots of the Milky Way or whatever else my nephew finds while stargazing. Hopefully I’ll have something interesting to show for it tomorrow night.
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We finally finally got some rain down in Auburn. It rained most of Friday and by Saturday morning everything already looked a little greener than it did the day before, and a whole lot cooler than 96*F. Amazing what a little water will do. No, we don’t bale hay out here, but the guy down the street does. We just mow it down, as you can see from the tractor above. Saturday’s are just too short sometimes.
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Almost impossible to describe what we saw today as we took a small group of people from Cornerstone into Dadeville, AL. We didn’t know what to expect when we got there and most of the area was closed off, but the houses the police directed us to were way beyond needing trees cleaned up or anything like that, they just needed help finding their personal belongings so they could leave the area. It wasn’t partial damage where we were, it was complete destruction. The homeowners were more than gracious for having just lost everything and then having total strangers walking around their property. I tried to document what we saw as best I could while respecting the owners of the property. I spoke with each owner before taking any shots of course and they were more than accommodating to our group. To see the entire gallery from today visit Alabama Storm Damage April 2011.
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They say you should stop and smell the roses. It has been so cold, wet, dark, and raining for the last few days that you couldn’t get outside and do anything, let alone smell a rose. It finally cleared up enough this afternoon to jump outside for a quick break, and today that makes this shot the photo of the day. I took the shot of the roses with my iPhone today, and in my ongoing battle to make the iPhone a viable photographic alternative to a big DSLR I am testing out some new apps (blog post review to come some time).
There is so much going on this week and my mind and heart are in basically three different places so this was a nice walk around the house break. My friend and marathon prayer partner lost his sister unexpectedly this week and today he is in Tennessee with his wife at the funeral. He has usually been on the other side, praying for myself and Deborah as she continues with her tests at UAB, but this week it changed.
This morning, going through my normal continuous reading of the bible, I just happen to be reading Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 12:26 that says “if one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together”, and this is truly the case. As we get ready for the next round of tests at UAB on Friday (depending on whether UAB and BCBS can figure out how to talk to each other) I know he will be back on the other side praying for me once again, and that is such a comfort to me.
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For the last several weeks these C-130’s have been flying directly over our property, at about 1,000 feet off the ground. While they are not as loud as an F-14 with afterburners fired, they can really beat the surrounding air, especially when flying in pairs. That’s just what they did last night at about 1:30am, felt like the windows were going to break.
This shot was taken about 15 miles farther into their flight path, almost directly over AUO (Auburn University Regional Airport) around 6pm. I am only drawing the conclusion they are flying from Fort Benning to Montgomery, but it is pretty cool to see them flying overhead, just not at 2am.
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The photo of the day today is the ever moody Ebby and her many expressions. I am truly amazed at how many expression a dog can make. She has a way of speaking volumes with just her eyes and this is one of those we love, saying just leave me alone and let me sleep.
