The Trip
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Matthew 6:21 KJV
Vacation time is suppose to be a fun time. You work so hard for that little time away from work. Me? I like to plan my trips and I like finding fun things in our country to do. It was in that spirit that I planned my first trip to New England. It was going to be a trip with my son, so I started looking for things both of us would enjoy doing.
After planning it out, I decided that we would drive to New England from Virginia. I wanted to make sure we found at least one thing to do in each of the New England states. I mapped the trip out and made the reservations I needed to make.
A few days before the trip came, I developed a sharp pain in my back. I could hardly move. I was determined to go on this trip with him. I was a little worried about all the driving and not being able to do all the things I had planned.
As the day of departure approached, my back still didn’t feel very well. I put on one of those heated back things for the drive. Off we went.
Our first activity took place in Connecticut. I decided we would go river tubing. Oh, the perfect activity for someone with back problems. Each of us would have a tube. I wanted to make sure I kept my son close because it would be hard to figure out where the other person was if one of us were to get too far ahead of the other.
As we floated down the river we made a turn around one of the bends. Just as we made that turn I slammed straight into a huge rock. I flipped over. I remember trying as hard as I could to return to the surface. I remembered, while I was underwater, being so worried about my son, especially if something bad happened to me. Here he would be in the middle of a river, in Connecticut, not knowing anyone, all alone, not having a clue as to what to do.
A burst of energy flowed through my body and I pushed against some rocks at the bottom of the river. I quickly rose to the surface and inhaled all the air that I could. I took hold of my tube. Amazingly, my son had stopped on the other side of the shore. I got back in my tube and acted like it was just one of those things that happens. Inside, I prayed a prayer of thanks that God took care of me.
The rest of the tubing adventure was uneventful, or at least from what I remember of it. Now we would be off to our next stop: the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Things went much better at the Basketball Hall of Fame. My back had stopped hurting. Here, my son and I shot baskets into the different type of hoops that had been used over the years. There was also an exhibit where you could determine your vertical lift once you jumped. The guy doing the measuring seemed impressed at my jumping height, and he turned to my son and said, “Wow, your Dad can jump.” My son seemed impressed.
Then we were off to Vermont. We went to the Ben and Jerry’s factory. We saw the ice cream being made and went outside to the graveyard of some of the flavors they no longer made. It was then off to New Hampshire.
Up in New Hampshire we went to the top of Mount Washington. We took the COG, or the little engine that could, up to the top. The highest land wind speed ever was recorded on top of Mount Washington on April 12, 1934. The wind reached a speed of 231 miles per hour.
There was a weather station at the top of Mount Washington and the difference in temperature at the base of the mountain and at the top of the mountain was over forty degrees that day. They said it is the only place in America where a certain number of weather fronts converge. I can’t remember the exact number.
Things seemed to be really picking up from the first stop. We were having a great time. The next stop was Maine and a whale watch.
The whale watch was great, but as we approached the shore an announcement came over the speakers: “Will the owners of a SUV with Virginia license plates go to the ticket booth once we arrive back to shore.” I nervously approached the ticket booth, not having a clue what to expect.
The girl explained to me that there was a construction job going on next door. It seems, when we were on the whale watch, one of the construction workers, who was on a forklift, had put his forks through my back window and shattered it. They had taped up the window with plastic and they would pay for everything. My son and I still had other things to do on the trip, so we would just have wait until we got back home to get the window fixed.
Our next stop was in downtown Boston. I backed the SUV as close as I could to a wall in the parking garage of the hotel so, with the broken window in back, it would at least make it a little harder if someone wanted to break in. We left the car there for the 2-3 days while we would be in Boston. We were just going to use mass transit. We had a great time in Boston. One of my highlights was visiting the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
Our next stop was Rhode Island. We made a quick stop at the oldest Baptist church in America. They had these long poles with a flat surface at the end of them. They would use these to collect the offerings. The usher could stand at the end of the row and push the long stick down the row so everyone in the row could fill it up. My son wondered if they used the other side of the flat collection surface area to smack people if they didn’t give enough.
At this point, the vacation was pretty much over. All we had to do was make the return trip home. The road was packed. We were moving along through Connecticut at a very slow pace on the Interstate. While we were in traffic my tire went flat and I had to pull over to the side of the road.
The spare tire in this SUV was under the back, inside the cargo section. I went out to open the back door of the SUV to get the tire out and when I lifted the handle the door wouldn’t open. I yanked on the handle even harder, but it didn’t do any good. I decided to take everything out of the back and set it on the side of the road and kick the door while I had my son pull up on the handle. Still no luck, the door just wouldn’t move.
Exhausted, frustrated and at the end of my ropes, I went to the back of the car and rested my head against the car. I started praying, “God, why won’t this stupid door open.” At no time, with all those cars, did a single person stop to help. I had no idea what to do.
It was then that I noticed the little button you use to lift the window up on the back door. It had been hidden by some plastic that was covering the window that wasn’t there. I pushed the button and lifted the handle again and the door opened right up. Since there wasn’t any glass in the window, I never thought that you had to push the button to lift the window before the door could be opened.
I changed the tire and squeezed back into traffic. The rest of the trip was uneventful, at least from what I remember of it.
With all the road construction that is going on today it is hard to believe there was actually a time when our country wasn’t covered in asphalt. The first car in America is believed to have been built by Oliver Evans in 1805, but many would argue it was really the Duryea Motor Wagon Company that built the first car, in 1893.
Either way, there weren’t too many cars, so there was no purpose to have paved roads. Horses, the main mode of transportation, didn’t need paved roads. Realistically, roads in those days were probably just worn paths or gravel streets for horses to travel or for people to walk.
In 1902, Oldsmobile (Olds Motor Vehicle Company) pushed out 425 cars, in the first year of operation. The cost was $650. Spotting a car was still a rare sight and the idea of paved roads was still a long way off.
In 1908, Henry Ford, and his Ford Motor Company, came up with his revolutionary idea of the assembly line to mass produce automobiles. He would produce 10,000 Model Ts that first year. By 1914, sales passed 250,000 cars. By 1916, the priced dropped to $360. Ford claims that 15,007,034 Model Ts were produced.
There is a story in the Bible. If you look too hard, you will probably miss it. It’s a story of a person. This person’s life starts out so remarkably. He is very blessed, starting from day one. For as far as he could see, there were blessings surrounding him like raindrops in a summer downpour shower. All he had to do was look at something and then it was his.
But then this fellow stopped looking at all the blessings he had and instead he decided he wanted more. The result: He lost it all. Now the good life was remembered as “the good old days” and the future stared at him with its toils and troubles.
Instead of looking at his disobedience and greed as a lesson and a call to repentance, his heart grew harder. His disobedience became habitual and his sins grew larger. Despite trying real hard to find happiness, through all that sinning, happiness never seemed to be there. He kept to his guns, and tried even harder to find fun and to do things his ways. His ways kept getting more and more evil. Happiness still didn’t find him and the vicious cycle continued.
God looked down on this man and decided enough was enough. Yet God didn’t want to totally destroy his creation, because he noticed there was a small part of this man’s heart that still desired a relationship with Him. God decided to save that small part.
With all the bad parts gone, you would have thought that this man would have learned his lesson. The man didn’t and the evil returned. Sure there were some small parts that were still good, but a large part of his character became more and more attracted to evil once again.
All God’s efforts seemed to backfire. He sent natural disasters and strong evil empires to conquer this man, hoping the man, in his despair, would return to Him. He tried showing the man miracles and even tried speaking to him personally. Nothing seem to persuade the man to return to Him.
With all those cars out there, it soon became obvious that we just might need a better highway system. By 1919, it was clear that our system of roads was not a system at all. It was more a systems of paths which, in some instances, crossed each other.
One of the roads we did have was called the Lincoln Highway. It crossed the nation from Washington DC to Oakland, California. It was still not a highway like we think of a highway today. When one took a trip on the Lincoln Highway it was a literal adventure.
In 1919, the US Army Motor Transport Corps decided to make the trip from Washington DC to San Francisco, California. They would use the Lincoln Highway for most of the trip, but when they got to Oakland, where the highway ended, they would take a ferry across the bay to San Francisco. The trip was completed, in then, a record time of 62 days.
The expedition was manned by 24 officers and 258 enlisted men. Lt. Col. Charles W. McClure was the expedition commander and Capt. Bernard H. McMahon was the train commander. Members of the Air Service, ASAP, Coast and Field Artillery, Medical Corps, Ordinance, Signal Corps, and Tank Corps all sent official observers. The Signal Corps filmed all the convoy’s events.
Wikipedia states, “The Publicity Officer (Lt. William B. Doron) rode with Ostermann 2-10 days ahead of the main body, while the Recruiting Officer (Capt. Murphy) was 1-2 days ahead, and the Cook and Mess units were several hours ahead, two motorcycles scouted about ½ hour ahead to report conditions and place markers.”
The convoy would break and repair many wooden bridges. There were 14 bridges in Wyoming alone that they repaired. Pretty much all the roads from Illinois to Nevada were unpaved. There were six days of rest during the trip. The rest stops were in East Palestine, Ohio; Chicago Heights, Illinois; Denison, Iowa; North Platte, Nebraska; Laramie, Wyoming; and Carson City, Nevada. There were three delays that kept the convoy from reaching Evanston, Wyoming on August 13th. It arrived on August 16th instead.
This future President was part of that convoy. Once, in Wyoming, he convinced the leaders to stop the convoy. He believed an Indian attack was imminent. As they waited, and they telegraphed the War Department, a shot rang out and they stopped sending the telegraph. It was just a young officer whose weapon went off by mistake.
God then decided to send some wise men to spell out exactly what it would take to find the happiness, or treasure, the man was really seeking. This man was either really dumb or he was just determined he was smarter than God, because he still refused to listen.
Despite this man’s evil, God refused to give up on him. Even though the man seemed to go in a different, more destructive way than God knew was best, God was determined to bring him back into a relationship with Him. Stubborn men and their evil ways will eventually always lose out to our stubborn God.
What God wants, God will get. If we don’t do our part, we will eventually pay the price. This man will tell you. He knew because he had to learn it the hard way. He woke up every morning and looked in the mirror. Despite how hard he tried, things like peace, contentment, happiness, forgiveness, and inner fulfillment never seemed to reach his soul.
God then did the unimaginable. God decided to his His Son, His only Son, to talk to the man personally. Here is the Bible story you might miss if you look too hard. God’s Son, Jesus, gave this man the secret to happiness.
As the man stood in the crowd with people just like himself, Jesus uttered just a few quick words. All these people had tried to convince themselves that the way to happiness was to use their own judgment to define fun and treasure.
Instead Jesus told them, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” In other words, if your treasure, or what you are looking for in this life, is with your relationship with God, things like peace, contentment, happiness, forgiveness, and inner fulfillment will follow. If your treasure is someplace else, your soul will never be truly happy. Sin will try so hard to convince you, with things or desires, that it is the answer, but it’s lying to you.
Who was this man? Well, the man was just about every character listed in the Bible. He was Adam, Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, Peter, Paul, Mary, and anyone else you read about in the Bible. God gave every man the Garden of Eden, the parting of the Red Sea, sons at old ages, victories, conquest over doubts, miracles, and a little baby in a manager.
But Jesus didn’t just utter these words to the Bible greats nor did God just give these gifts to Bible characters. Jesus also whispers them into each of our ears. God gave, and gives, each of us so many blessings. Jesus said those words to you and to me. God offered them to you and to me. Trials and problems don’t go away when you have a relationship with God, you just have someone stronger than yourself to turn to when they arrive.
Germany, on the other hand, mounted a road building education for the world. It was called the Autobahn. Although Hitler wasn’t the brainchild of the Autobahn, his Third Reich expanded it. Hitler believed there would be a great military advantage to have such a road system. Besides, it also created much needed jobs which did nothing but increase his popularity in Germany.
When the United States entered World War II, our former soldier and future President, who was scared of an Indian attack during the cross-country Truck Train, or convoy, was extremely impressed by Hitler’s Autobahn. He believed America needed to form its own organized highway system, if, for no other reason, than to evacuate people in case of an atomic attack.
The idea wasn’t new to America. In 1939, the US Bureau of Public Roads pleaded with Congress for a non-tolled road system in the United States. Congress even passed The Federal Highway Act of 1944 that allowed for the development of a 40,000 mile National System of Interstate highways, but they never provided funds to make it happen.
When Dwight Eisenhower became President, he made the interstate highway system a priority of his term. On June 29, 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The bill was to create a maximum of 41,000 miles of Federal Highways. Today, if you look real hard when you are on an Interstate, you will probably notice signs that state “The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System.”
What we take for granted today was not without opposition during those times. In order to build roads, you had to have land. Sometimes to get the right land, the government had to basically take it from the people who owned it. Quiet little towns, which had very little “through” traffic, would now have cars coming from every direction. Many people started to revolt. It wasn’t a pretty, easy going process. In the 1960s, activists stopped construction on roads in New York, Baltimore, Washington DC, and New Orleans.
But Eisenhower stuck to his guns and the Federal Government funded the first 41,000 miles of paved highway. The US Interstate Highway System now covers 46,876 miles and is in all 50 states. Yes, there are even Interstate Highways in Alaska and Hawaii.
Life is one long trip. As we get older, we fondly remember parts of life and forget other parts. We chalk up some parts as uneventful, then other areas seem to scar us for life. Usually the smoothed paved parts were once just gravel paths. Summing up life: it’s an adventure.
Sometimes in life’s trips we get too focused on the path and we forget the destination. We focus and remember the back pain, the near drowning, the busted car window and the flat tire. When we do that we often miss the treasures that God places right in front of us, like the tubing adventure, the Basketball Hall of Fame, the ice cream factory, the mountain experience, the whale watch, the big city excitement, the historical visit to an old church and even that special time you get to spend with that special person. Yes, when we look at the path too hard, we can easily miss the treasure.
When we get to those rough patches, we usually turn to God and ask, “Why?” Maybe God is getting ready to pave the path. Maybe God, like Eisenhower with his road vision, knows we can be better if we are willing to put in the work, have patience, and trust His wisdom.
Prayer:
Dear Mighty Father, Please help me through this journey called life. Please let me stay on the path You want me to trod, even if it is rough and unpaved. Let me always trust Your wisdom to get me to that great place you have reserved for me. Amen.
