To our friends scattered to and fro:

To those of you who follow me on Instagram, or follow Emily on Snapchat-this is not new news. In fact-I hope we aren’t being super annoying 🙈 But we have challenged ourselves to #americabysong which means that there have been quite a few multiple second clips of us sailing along listening to music that fits the progress of our journey: Country Roads take me home (West Virginia); God bless Texas; Amarillo Sky; Highway 40 blues, etc. Google and Apple Music have been our best friends for this project, along with the fact that several of these ladies are walking music libraries… anyhow we’ve been highly entertained for miles. Thanks for your patience on our project 😅

Yesterday morning we stopped at Four Corners Monument and the song that I thought best fit the occasion went like this:

Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,

Do not wait to shed your light afar,

To the many duties ever near you now be true,

Brighten the corner where you are.

That seems to be the underlying theme of the last few days- little things that have been beautiful rays of sunshine in our travel.

I had never been to the Petrified Forest before. Unbelievable. I’m so curious to know the facts about this crystallized wood from a Christians scientific understanding. (Maybe somebody can help me out? Google was not much help on this one)

The biggest day brightener from this stop was found in the crevice of a petrified stump. Hannah dug it out. This purple rock is part of a Facebook group the bold words “you matter” was a cute reminder of the value of the next pair of hands that discovers the hidden treasure wherever Hannah drops it off 🙂

The desert storms have been so much fun to watch. We saw countless bolts of lightning, and dodged a few raindrops. ( side note: We traveled late one night and the girls were super excitedly actually be able to see the strikes hit the ground. I missed that split second event-I was more concerned about finding an elk or a wild horse standing broadsided on the road 🤠)

We were so thankful that even though we drove thru rain-it was never raining when we wished to get out of the van and discover something:) I just love the saguaro cacti down near Phoenix.

Another day brightener has been the quest for wild life. Em wanted to see elk so badly. And this little guy charmed us all

And the wild horses along the way-make us imagine we are cowgirls. 🤠 But who am I kidding- I can’t pretend to be comfortable with equines-especially when I’m traveling with ladies who deal with horses every day.

And the final sunbeam I’d like to reference from our merry way was actually just that-the final sunbeams. We watched the sun set over the canyon and as the low light brought out the deep colors, and then the light faded from the deep walls, we worshiped. How Great is our God?

“And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of thy hands: They shall perish; but thou continuest:”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭1:10-11a

May you find multiple little bursts of sunshine in your world today.

“Auf wiedersehen” as they say. Or “see you later” where I come from.

See you down the trail,

Kendra

Bonus Pic:

For years whenever something scares us- our family has described it as “that turned me into a petrified forest” we now have a visual for that 🙈

Photo credits for a number of these pics: Emily🤠