To NJ With Love

We just crossed into NJ. Will be meeting our CES leader for lunch then the mission president. Trip has been good. We're about 60 miles from NY. Saw signs for DC, Gettysburg, Baltimore, etc.

Love you all,

October 18, 2011, on location: New Jersey Morristown Mission

So this is the official mission photo of us taken on the day we arrived by our CES coordinator, Brother David Bean.

Elder & Sister Dixon/Mom & Dad/Grandma & Grandpa/Deanne & Rog/Etc.

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      The Trip Eastward

We left Highland on October 13^th and arrived in Morristown on October 18^th.

As we traveled, we thought often of “America the Beautiful”.  To paraphrase that popular hymn: we left the purple mountain majesties, traveled through amber waves of grain and arrived at the fruited plain – all under spacious skies.  We truly live in a fabulous nation.  We followed the thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness in reverse.  How marvelous it would be if all of our successes were noble and every gain divine.  How great it would be if we all felt and practiced brotherhood from sea to shining sea. 

 We were impressed with the abundance of our nation, which is represented in so many forms.  It filled us with gratitude and caused us to wonder how we can work to help a few of God’s children enjoy lives in which they are able to fulfill, at least some of their fondest dreams.

Ohio!

Our trip is going very well. We are in Ohio tonight.

Our  Prius averaged 47.6 MPG for the whole trip.  Do we sound pious?  We're glad for the great gas mileage because we are traveling a lot in our weekly assignments here in NJ.

This is the total of what we took for our 18-month stay--very tightly packed.

Things got a little confusing near Indianapolis.  It fit the saying: "You can't get there from here!"  Click on the pictures and you'll notice that suddenly we see that all the road signs near this overpass and major roads confluence and  divergence are taped over.  We knew we needed to turn but didn't know where or how or when or what into!  Yikes!  We hadn't needed the GPS on our smart phone yet.

Most of the Midwest looked a lot like this.

There were still touches of autumn as we traveled in October.

Day's end.  Time to find a place to stay.

VISIT WITH FAMILY IN OHIO

On Sunday my sister Shari went to church with us in Oxford, Ohio, and then we ate at her daughter Kelly's home and enjoyed getting to know Kelly's family.  This area is close to Cincinnati where Deanne was born.

I it's hard to express in words how wonderful it was to visit with Shari Ridenour, my half-sister.  It had been a long time since we had seen each other.

On the Road

Well, we did it. We actually pulled out of the driveway, our little car loaded to the gills and we're on our way to New Jersey. The drive has been good so far. We're staying in Laramie tonight.

It is hard to believe, after years of talking about a mission, that it's really begun.