New River Gorge

We went on an excursion Saturday. It was a classic, Chris Eicher brand of excursion -- throw out the idea of doing something in passing several days in advance, then decide the night before that, yes, we're going and then keep the children in suspense on the particulars until we get there...

I won't tell you how I had my Saturday all planned full of Important Stuff already and how much I didn't even want to go on an excursion. I won't tell you how hard I struggled inwardly before I chose to see the love and accept the gift; we won't go into all of that.

I will just tell you how I saw a man who decided, "You know what? House building is important but it's not going anywhere. October days to do something with my family? They're disappearing fast. Family is more important." How could I refuse all the love wrapped up in a gift like that?

So we went.

We got up, and we got dressed and we headed out into the chilly morning on an excursion; which is all Chris would tell the children about where we were going. We finally looked the word up for Jennifer, who desperately wanted to know what an excursion was.

We drove and we drove until some people were sure we would never get there. But we finally did arrive amongst the beautiful mountains of West Virginia.

We took a little hike down a bunch of steps to see what we could see...

To the left we saw the incredibly deep gorge and the tiny little bridge that used to provide access across the New River. To the right we saw the amazing new bridge that cut the time of crossing the gorge from 40 minutes to just a couple of minutes.

Then we climbed back up all the steps...

And drove down the winding, narrow road

Across the old bridge and on to more sights to see and good food to eat on the way home.

It was well worth laying aside all my plans for Important Stuff to spend a day with these people that I love!

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