First Day-Destination Lake Junaluska, NC

We left home at 9:37 on July 18,2007. We made it to Lake Junaluska, N.C. at 5:45 after a beautiful drive across the state of North Carolina. Lake Junaluska is near Cherokee and Maggie Valley, and the setting is gorgeous. The picture on the previous blog is the view from the outside amphitheater where the large cross is located. Lake Junaluska is a retreat owned and run by the United Methodist Church, and I suggested this for our first stop because my daughter, Amanda, had been so happy here. It is also convenient to Interstate 40, which was our main route to Tennessee. Amanda and several other members of her youth choir had come here for several summers for a week of music camp, and I had come to chaperone. The location and the beautiful music those teenagers performed made for a magical time for all of us, and the place did not disappoint.

We stayed for our first night at Lambuth Inn and discovered that a minister's convocation was in progress when someone mistook me for a Methodist preacher. The gentleman invited us to the evening worship service, which was held in the lakefront assembly center where my daughter and the other youth had performed during music camp. This is an excerpt from my diary entry that day.

Junaluska is still as beautiful as I remembered it, except that it lacks the beauty of Amanda's smile and lovely voice gracing its lakeside stage. I feel her loss keenly here, but I do not regret stopping. Here she was happy, here we made good memories and beautiful music.

During the worship service, they called everyone to the altar to be anointed with oil and placed the sign of the cross on our foreheads. I was reluctant to go up with my tear-stained face, but I'm glad I did it. We felt that we had received a blessing on our first day. It was a lovely way to begin a cross-country trip that was part sight-seeing and part pilgrimage.

Planning and Preparation

Before I begin our journey, I should probably take a moment to mention a little background. The four of us held several meetings over the course of a year, planning a basic outline of the trip, making monetary decisions, and dividing duties. Kristee owned a Ford Explorer, which she planned on trading in soon after our trip. She provided the vehicle and the three other ladies split the cost of gas. We set up a gas fund at a local bank, accessed with checks and debit cards. That way, we never had to worry about whose turn it was to fill up the tank, who paid the most per gallon, or any of those concerns. We actually overbudgeted, and we split the excess money three ways when we returned and closed the account.

Betty Jo was the navigator, the map and AAA expert; she had all the AAA books, phone numbers, etc. Kristee was in charge of security, the vehicle, and the overall head honcho. I was appointed devotion leader, and we had a devotional time each day, whether we were in Yellowstone or the desert. I also had made up songbooks for each of us as a special surprise, filled with songs about each of the states we would be visiting, patriotic songs, favorite hymns, and songs that I thought most of us would recognize. I suppose this made me the entertainment director. I also bought a GPS right before we left, which proved to be a godsend. Jane was assistant navigator, second-best driver, and general morale booster. She gave us our visors and our nicknames on our first morning away from home. Kristee had given us all journals, which proved to be invaluable, and Betty Jo had made us all monogrammed laundry bags.

At our first meeting, we each picked three special places we wanted to visit, and Betty Jo started planning our route based on our choices. We all wanted to see the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Mount Rushmore; they were unanimous choices. Kristee wanted to see New Orleans, the Oklahoma City federal building bombing site, and the JFK museum in Dallas, Texas. Betty Jo wanted to see Santa Fe (and her sister who lived nearby), the Mormon tabernacle in Salt Lake City, and Yellowstone. Jane wanted to visit a sister in New Orleans, a sister in San Clemente, California, and Mount Rushmore. I wanted to see the Crystal Cathedral, travel along historic Route 66 and see one of the Great Lakes.

Betty Jo called AAA and they mailed the appropriate books and maps. She also kept brochures and clipped articles from magazines on any place of interest that we might encounter. At our last meeting, we each brought the suitcase we planned to use, and we practiced loading the Explorer. It was a cinch! Of course, they were all empty! After much planning and preparation, we were ready to embark on our adventure. Off we go!

The WOW Girls Discover America

Welcome, lovers of travel and beauty. If you enjoy natural splendor, humankind's masterpieces, and fellowship with good friends, you are sure to feel at home on my blog. I make no claims to worldwide travel, but I have been fortunate enough to travel across this gorgeous country of ours for 25 days with three other lady friends. One of my friends made us visors with "WOW Girls" printed across the top and announced that "WOW" stood for "Women from Wakefield" (our hometown); Women on a Walk; and Women of Wonder.

Our trip across country included stops at places that hold great historical significance; some were places that showcased nature's majesty; some were places that tugged at our heartstrings; and all of them combined in a life-changing experience for the four of us. We range in age from forty-something to sixty-something, we are all married with husbands and empty nests, and we planned and saved for this trip for one year. We also were on a "walk" for various reasons: one of us is a cancer survivor, one is dealing with the death of her father from ALS, one is living under the shadow of lupus, and I was and still am attempting to find joy and meaning in this life after the death of my beautiful 19 year old daughter in a car accident.

This blog will be both a journal of our physical trip as well as an emotional and spiritual journey that brought us closer to each other and our God as we traveled from sea to shining sea.

I hope you will join me as I take you across America with the WOW Girls.