A Peek Into My Life: Spring & Summer Travels

At the beginning of 2025, my family and I did not set out to do as much traveling as we have done so far (3 big trips in the past 3 months 😱), but the Lord has used these trips to encourage us, to make some new friends, and we’ve been able to see some beautiful new parts of His creation.

Trip #1 – North Carolina ⛰

This spring, my brother and sister and I attended the Church and Family Life Conference, which was in the Black Mountain area. It was an amazing time of hearing God’s Word preached, singing hymns along with thousands of other believers, making new friends, mountaintop views, a cappella singings, and a fun, impromptu ice breaker game that I have titled “The Circle Game” (This started with just a few ladies sitting around in a circle, and it grew to about 20 people or so. Someone had the idea to seat everyone in age order, and then we went around the room answering questions like favorite hobbies, favorite Scripture verse, pet peeves, etc.).

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The last day of the conference, we hiked a mountain that was 3,500 feet in elevation. It took us about thirty minutes to get to the top, but the views were worth the climb! 😍 Being surrounded all weekend by this part of God’s beautiful creation made my heart feel like it was constantly singing, “How Great Thou Art”!

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Breathtaking! 😍

Trip #2 – St. Louis🦩🐻🐯 & Wisconsin! 🌲

In June, we were invited to sing at a church in Wisconsin, and on the way up we stopped at St. Louis to visit my mom’s family. My Grandma planned a day at the St. Louis Zoo with some of my cousins, and that was fun and very nostalgic. Years ago we lived in St. Louis, and we would have zoo days with my mom’s family who lived there.

My Grandpa and Grandma. 😊🥰

It was neat seeing how God designed all the animals so uniquely, and to read about all the purposes behind each unique design!

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On to Wisconsin! 🌲

One thing that I immediately noticed and loved about Wisconsin were all the FIR TREES! 😍🌲🌲🌲 They were everywhere – on the side of the interstate, in people’s yards, etc. It looked like something out of a story book. All of the barns were pretty neat too. Sadly, I didn’t get a picture of any of the red ones. I was also excited that I got to see a lighthouse! 😍 (Even if it was a teensy one. 😄) We passed by so many beautiful old houses, although I only managed to get a picture of one of those. Most of the time I would see one, admire it and say, “Oh, pretty”, but then by the time I got my camera out, we would be past it. 😅

The weather in Wisconsin was a very nice change to what we had down here in the south. 🥵 When we left on our trip, it was in the 90s and humid, but up there it was about ten degrees cooler (and it cooled down a lot at night). It was interesting, because it felt like we did time travel back to our early spring time with the cooler temps, and also with the budding trees and pine pollen. We stayed at a campground, and we were able to take some lovely sunrise and sunset walks. Our friends put us up in a fancy camper, and we were so blessed by their hospitably. This was our first time staying in a camper, which was fun! (Although my youngest sister probably didn’t think it very fun when she went tumbling down the stairs from the top bunk one night when she was sleepwalking. She was okay, other than some bruising.)

The day after we got to Wisconsin, our friends showed us the sights! We had a delightful riverboat cruise which took us down the Mississippi where we spotted around 10+ bald eagles, and then we drove up a mountain to see the lay of the land. 😎

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On Sunday, we were blessed to be able to worship with the people at Gospel Baptist Church and to share our music with them! If you are interested in seeing our full concert, here is a link to it on our Youtube channel: Gospel Baptist Church Concert

Sunday afternoon some Spring100 & conference friends joined up for a walk around the campground, and we introduced them to the Circle Game. 😁 At one point on the walk, all of the 20-year-olds ran over to the playground area and proceeded to play on the equipment. Meanwhile, we 30-year-olds sat back and watched like responsible adults. 😂 (They did get us up on the bridge for a picture.)

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The cheese!! 😍 Getting to try some real Wisconsin cheese was an amazing experience! As you can see, I stocked up before coming home. 😁

Trip #3 – Back to North Carolina! ⛰

My siblings are huge Inspirations and Southern Gospel fans, so when they planned a trip to go to Singing in the Smokies event in North Carolina, and asked if I wanted to come along, I said, “Of course!” 😊 So on the Thursday of July 4th weekend, we started out at the unearthly hour of 4 AM. 😵 It ended up being a pretty awesome trip (minus a major scare) with three days of gospel singing, and the beautiful Smoky Mountains.

We made it in time for the first singing Thursday night! Some of my favorite songs from the whole weekend were: The Prayer – The Isbell Family, God’s Got Plans – The Chuck Wagon Gang, and this fun mandolin duet by Jeff Tolbert and Primitive Road.

We stayed in a beautiful cabin in the woods, and got to enjoy some peaceful mountain views while there.

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While the Smokies were very pretty, if I had to choose I would say that I enjoyed the Black Mountain views better. 🙂

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On Friday, we visited a good friend and toured his cabin that he had built with his grandpa when he was a teenager.

On the way back to our AirB&B, my siblings and I were in a pretty bad wreck, but praise the Lord no one was hurt bad! 🙏🏻 My one brother’s arm got kind of banged up, and the rest of us are dealing with whiplash. The guy in the other car who had pulled out in front of us ended up with a broken collar bone. My brother tried to swerve, but the other guy did not stop. Thankfully, my brother had the presence of mind to not serve too much, or we would have rolled into a ditch. It all happened so fast, and felt like a really bad dream. Our friends were able to come get us and take us back to our AirB&B. My brothers were able to find a rental truck and we were able to stick with our weekend plans. 

We are just overwhelmed and thanking God for His protection, that it wasn’t worse. When all the “what if” questions were running through my head after it happened: “What is we had rented a smaller car like we originally talked about?” “What if my brother didn’t have the brush guard on the front of his truck?” (which is most likely what kept us from getting hurt worse), “What if someone had been killed?”…I thought of the story from Corrie ten Boom when she had a near death experience and was asking all the “what if?” questions. Her sister Betsie so wisely said, “There are no ‘if’s’ in God’s world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety.” ❤️

Thanks to our friends, we were able to make it to the singing that night. We were tired and still pretty stunned from the wreck, but so grateful to be alive and (mostly) well! ❤️

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On the way home, we made a slight detour into Georgia to visit the church where one of our favorite radio hosts, Todd Friel of Wretched Radio, pastors. That was one of the biggest highlights of the trip for me. It was so neat getting to meet Mr. Friel in person, and being at his church was such a blessing. I would give them an A+++++ on solid teaching, good music, and being a very friendly and welcoming church.

The crazy adventures seemed to never end on this trip! Since we had to rent a truck to be able to get up the steep driveway at our cabin, that meant all our luggage was riding uncovered in the back. A rain storm came up, so we had to scramble to the nearest Dollar General to get some black trash bags to wrap everything.

Let’s just say that with all the excitement and stress from this trip, things got a little crazy on the way home. 😜 After a 10+ hour drive, everyone was ready to get out of the car.

While it was so neat to get to see new parts of the country and meet new people on these trips, and while I am normally an adventurer at heart, by this last trip I was ready to just be home for awhile. The saying is indeed true –

“There’s no place like home.”