The Sunday Afternoon Drive

Sundays are generally a day of rest.  We wake up a little later, eat a big breakfast after morning chores and then get cleaned up for church.  Sunday School starts up at 10 AM sharp where we are studying the Book of Jeremiah.  Morning Worship begins at 10:45 and we are usually home by noon.  Sunday lunch is our big meal of the week.  Saturday night, Tricia made up some meatballs, made a roux, and added carrots, potatoes and onions and made a mighty fine meatball stew.  Served over rice, this is a meal that sticks to your ribs.

We sit around the table (Russ and Benjamin are usually with us) and we talk and then pour coffee.  We've been canning a lot of vegetables lately, so there was no dessert.  Usually we enjoy some dark chocolate truffles or some sort of homemade cake, brownies or pie, but it just felt like something was missing.  Sunday afternoon coffee without dessert is like rice without gravy or peas without carrots or James West without Artemus Gordon.  It's just not right!

I told the crew that I had an idea.  We'd do something old timey.  We'd pour our coffee into 'go cups' and go on a Sunday drive, stopping along the way and getting dessert.  I received a second to that motion.  All votes were in favor.  The motion carried.  As we were about to load up in the car, there was a knock at the door.  Our neighbors had picked mulberries and made homemade sweetdough mulberry pies.  They brought us four of them.  The Good Lord provided our dessert.  We love our neighbors!

We turned north on Highway 26 and enjoyed our sweetdough pies and coffee and just let the car wander around a bit.  Driving north out of Oberlin, we crossed over the Calcasieu River and looked down.  There seemed to be a few families sitting under canopies on the sand alongside the river.  We drove on.  Just north and west is another river called the Whiskey Chitto or Ouiska Chitto.  It is an Indian name, meaning "big cane."

The Whiskey Chitto is largely fed by springs, so the water is clearer than other rivers and bayous in the area and it has white sand beaches.  It runs for about 70 miles until it empties into the Calcasieu River around LeBlanc, Louisiana.  When wading in the Whiskey Chitto, you can actually see your feet!  We stopped, drove under the bridge, and took our shoes off.  We didn't bring towels, so we couldn't swim, but we waded and relaxed.

There was a family across the creek swinging on a rope swing and swimming.  Another family down the river was spraying each other with water guns.  A pickup truck under the bridge played Johnny Cash.  We watched a group of little minnows swim by.  Tricia and I then walked out on a big tree that had fallen and found a nice, shady relaxing spot to sit and watch the water run by.  Shall we gather by the river?  The beautiful, the beautiful river...

After a while, it was time to go, but as we drove back home on the 30 minute drive home, Tricia called to check on canoe rental service.  Just a mile down the road. there is a business that rents canoes.  They take up upstream and drop you off and then picks you up 4 or 5 hours later at a pickup point.  We're going to plan on doing that on an up-coming weekend.

Our evening services at church start at 5 PM, so we let the car wander on back home. It was a nice, relaxing Sunday afternoon.