Potato Creek

Last evening, Ben, Trent, and I took off on a quick adventure to Potato Creek. You might say that there is not much of an adventure involved in going to Potato Creek. Well, it was an adventure for us because we took our bikes. We loaded the bikes up with 2 tents, sleeping bags, food for two meals, some clothes, a camp stove, and some other gear. We left about 5:30 PM from Bremen and were at the park gates by 7:00. However, along the way, we decided that it would be a good idea to have stuff to make S'mores. So we kept riding another 3 miles into North Liberty and picked up the last box of graham crackers - it was dusty - marshmallows, and chocolate. Back at the park, we made quick work of setting up camp. Then we checked the camp store for firewood. They were out and the next load wasn't due in until 9:30. So we went back to camp, started up the camp stove, and cooked our beans and hot dogs. Yes, we each had the equivalent of a can of baked beans and 2 hot dogs. While Trent kept the food hot, Ben and I headed back to get the wood. We were able to pack a lot of wood into two paper grocery bags and loaded up our bikes with the wood. As we were loading, a guy said, "Geez, you guys are going to have fun with that." We explained that we brought everything for camping in on bikes and thought we would manage okay. We did. We had enough wood for two fires - one last night and one this morning.

A few observations/comments/etc...

We were pretty blown away by seeing so many huge campers. There was even this guy sitting on a lawn chair staring at a TV built into the side of of his RV. Why??

We managed to get by just fine with relatively few items - far less than the normal comforts of home

We had a lot of stares - especially when we were loading up. It was like it finally dawned on the campers across from us that yes we came on bikes.

It was great to plan something together and see it to fruition

This morning, I woke up and started reading some in Mark.

What struck me in just the few chapters that I read was the movement.

"The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him." (1:5)

"Come, follow me..." (1:17)

"Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee .... and followed him" (1:20)

"Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place to pray" (1:35)

"Some men cane, bring to him a paralytic" (2:3)

Okay, I just got into chapter 2 and you can see the list is already long.

It is really easy to get caught in rut, to get caught up in our hurts, habits, and hang-ups. This really, really makes it difficult to interact with God. However, there seems to be a pretty strong precedent in scriptures for movement - for positioning. This short bike trip provided a brief opportunity to get out of the box and this morning provided a few minutes to reflect a little more deeply on a few chapters of Mark.

Take care,

Todd