A Little Too Much Drama for One Day

We started the day with devotions in the Admin building.  Will Graham gave a meditation from their main office in Charlotte, and we watched a recorded version with the staff in the Admin conference room.  He talked on 2 Samuel 19.  After Absalom was killed and David regained the throne in Jerusalem. As he returned, Shimei, who had earlier cursed King David and had pelted him with rocks, fell down in repentance before the King and begged for forgiveness, owning up to his wrongdoing.  King David promised him that he would not die.

This is a picture of us before God.  We all have committed offenses deserving death as we have wronged the Lord our King.  But God through Christ has said that we will not die.

To go one step further, Barabbas, the thug that rightly deserved death, went free because someone he never saw before took the punishment in his place.  So it’s not because we were good, but because Jesus took our place.

After devotions, we hung out in the break room for a half hour or so, waiting for our required safety meeting to start.  At 10am, we gathered back in the conference room.  Since we were working for the organization, we needed to participate in the safety training.  It turned out to be a two-and-a-half-hour video covering such topics as the safe use of a ladder, material safety data sheets, fire alarm policies, and the like. Probably all good information, but in my last job working for sales and marketing, we called this “Death by Powerpoint”.

This was it for the day, so after a late lunch, we drove to DuPont State Recreational Forest, about an hour south of here, as they had some cool waterfalls to hike to.  About four miles of hiking offered views of three falls, High Falls, Triple Falls, and Hooker Falls.  The parking lot was surprisingly full for a Monday afternoon, and Bob in the visitor center told us that this was Spring Break.  In fact the last three weeks were Spring Break somewhere and that upped the traffic considerably.   “If you found a parking spot, it’s not busy,” he told us.  Must be a popular place.

The falls were indeed beautiful, and the upper 60’s weather helped make for some pleasant hiking.  As was the case elsewhere, hiking seems to be either steeply upward or steeply downward, so the 14,000 steps recorded today probably are worth more than in Michigan.

High Falls

Triple Falls (I wonder how it got that name)

We made pulled pork sandwiches for dinner in the parking lot, and then took off toward Jump Off Rock, a popular overlook location at the end of a twisty, turney, and steep road.  This was supposed to be a great place to view the sunset over the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The parking lot was nearly full but there was a wider space available to back the RV in, hanging the back end over the edge.  As I maneuvered toward the space I heard a scrape and a bang.  I stopped and got out and saw that I had gotten a little too close to a white pickup truck in the next parking space, and his tail light was now dangling off by its wires.

To make matters worse, the owner was sitting in the cab at the time.  He came out of the truck flaming hot, spewing language that would make a sailor blush.  I kept my calm, moved the RV into the parking space to get it out of the way, and then exchanged information with him.  Meanwhile he was muttering with more colorful language and calling me all sorts of interesting names.  He called the cops to report the incident, and now we had to wait for them to arrive.

During this time I surveyed the damage.  His truck: a scrape on the tailgate, the left side tail light, and the bumper appeared to be a bit cockeyed.  He was very concerned and upset about the truck topper, which he said was custom made.  There didn’t appear to be any damage to that, though.

My RV: it appears that most of the damage to his truck was caused by the rear bracket for my awning which was now broken and the awning support was just hanging loose.  Fortunately there was enough bracket left to set the support onto, and hopefully gravity would keep it there.

As I was surveying this, he came back out of his truck and apologized for his earlier behavior.  He was considerably calmed down and was much more civil from then on.

The police arrived, took down all our information, took lots of pictures, and then took off.  So we were now done.  The only thing left is the insurance.  The other driver left also, turning down my offer of duct tape to hold his tail light on as he was concerned about sticking it to his paint.

I never did see the sunset.  Deb and I walked to the edge and looked for a little while.  I’m sure it was beautiful.  It was almost dark when we left.