The March Trip

(This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 18, 2011)

Well, here's the long version of our little trip to Amarillo!

On March 15th, 2000, we, along with our pastor, drove up to the TX panhandle to our friends, Michelle and J.D.'s house. Michelle made a multi-course Syrian meal for our dinner, and another family from the church came and ate with us. The food was delicious! We had a great time eating and talking until very late that night. By the way, the weather was hot and humid, about 85 degrees or so. The weather forecasters said we would be in the midst of a winter storm by the next morning!! We thought "suuure....." but "sure" enough, freezing rain was falling by the next morning, as we left Michele's!

March 16th, 2000

On the way to Amarillo, it started snowing. Snow was actually blowing across the highway! It was a neat sight, especially to me since I hadn't seen real snow for 5 or 6 years. We finally made it to Amarillo and ate some lunch at McDonald's. Afterwards, we made it to the church and got settled in. The presbytery meetings went off without a hitch, and lasted the rest of the day. I sneaked outside a couple times to try to take some snow pictures, but the wind was blowing so hard and the wind chill was so low (probably -10°) that it was impossible to stand in the wind for more than a few seconds. In the late afternoon, my Dad decided we needed to go check into the hotel, so we did that, and looked at our room. We went back to the church and ate dinner there. After the meetings were over later that evening, we ferried 3 of the men to the hotel and then sat out in the indoor courtyard with the pastor, chatting about all sorts of stuff. There was this huge fountain going, as well as a heated swimming pool in the courtyard, so it was extremely humid. Our clothes got damp-feeling pretty fast, so we and the pastor went to our room to talk more. I nearly fell asleep a couple times, because we got up early that morning and had been so busy that day!

March 17th, 2000

The next morning, we ferried a couple people to the church and then Mom and I started helping in the kitchen. There were a couple of ladies from the church working in the kitchen, so we helped them get stuff ready for lunch. For lunch, they prepared a huge salad with chicken, and some homemade rolls. It was all very tasty! Later in the afternoon, one of the men from the church brought in some barbecued briskets that he prepared for the church dinner that evening! They were delicious. The evening as we ate, I was feeling chilly even though we were indoors and I had on long sleeves. I thought it was just me, since I'm so thin I can't hold much heat! One of the men from our church here said he felt feverish, so he was miserable the rest of the evening. We took him and the pastor back to the hotel. We talked with the pastor for awhile that evening, but not as long as the night before. I had trouble going to sleep.

March 18th, 2000

We got up early this morning and picked up the pastor. We headed south to Canyon, TX. We stopped at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum and had a mostly good time. I couldn't figure out what was going on with my body, because the minute we walked into the museum, I started shivering uncontrollably because it felt like it was 50 degrees in there! I ended up taking my Mom's sweater and wearing it the whole time (which I feel bad for now, because she didn't feel so hot either, she told me later!). When we were almost done walking through the museum, I got very hungry. By the time we left, and got to Braums, I felt weak from being hungry! (a common occurence with me, because my blood sugar drops very quickly.)

We went in Braums and ate hamburgers, and I wondered why the weak feeling didn't completely go away after I ate. Yuck!

After we finished eating, we went to Palo Duro Canyon and explored that a little, by driving on some of their roads and taking some pictures. I was freezing cold there too, even though it really wasn't too chilly! We checked out the gift shop for awhile, too. While we were in there, my stomach got this "unsettled" feeling, that wasn't nausea, but wasn't just some ordinary stomach feeling either. I couldn't figure out what could be going on, but I hoped time would help. We got in the car and headed back to Michele's house. On the way, a huge dark rainstorm formed west of us and it was visible the whole time we were driving south! It kept me occupied most of the time. I did eat one cracker, thinking that I was hungry. We got to Michele's, and they are telling us about this great restaurant they went to yesterday evening, and I am thinking, boy, food does not sound good right now! I was hoping they wouldn't want to go back this evening. Thankfully we decided to go to The Cotton Patch, which is just a couple minutes drive from their house. We get sat down at our table and I am thinking that I'm not going to eat anything, I feel so weird. My stomach keeps feeling worse and worse, and suddenly I need to use the ladies room. My Mom and I go in and find only one toilet works! I go as quickly as possible because people are waiting, but I'm feeling worse and worse. When we sit back down at the table, I look at one of those meal ad things, and had to fight this awful urge to throw up everywhere. I don't think the others at the table had a clue until we said anything about feeling bad......boy, I'm glad I kept my stomach inside me! =) Fortunately my poor Mom (who has been having the same symptoms as me) asks my Dad if he will drive her and myself back to Michele's, because we're feeling worse. Getting out in the fresh air helps a bit, but when we get to their house, my stomach has become more nauseated than I have ever felt before. I've never felt so icky and awful as I did that night! I never threw up, but sure felt like it. I lost everything from the other end. My Mom was having the same problem as me, but she finally threw up about 11pm and got a lot of relief. I was not able to do more than sip water while I was so nauseous, and my mouth was as dry as cotton, partly from stress and mostly from dehydration. I was almost ready to ask Dad to take me to the ER so I could get some IV fluids, it was that bad! I spent most of the night alternately laying down carefully (after I felt a bit better) and sitting up, reading, sipping water, and then going to the restroom until about 4am. Thank the Lord I was able to sleep for about 4 hours before being woken up by the bright sunlight (I was sleeping in the living room on the couch).

March 19th, 2000

I sat up and swallowed, or tried to. My mouth and throat were so dry that I had to grab my cup and take a sip of water so I could even swallow! That was a scary feeling. The other thing I noticed when I woke up was: NO NAUSEA!!! I had forgotten what not having nausea felt like......you know the feeling, when you're in pain or feel sick or something, you can't remember what feeling good feels like? I got a cracker, because I knew that I needed nourishment, having not eaten for the last 16 hours or so. I was extremely dehydrated, so my saliva was simply a concentrate of  digestive chemicals with hardly any water....I took a small bite of cracker and started chewing, and it dissolved almost immediately! My mouth and throat were still so dry that I couldn't swallow the cracker without sipping water to make it go down. My Dad asked whether or not my Mom and I wanted to go to the church there, since our pastor would be preaching. We decided not to,because even though we felt like eating, we also felt like wet spaghetti in regards to strength. My Dad stayed at our friends house with us, and called the pastor and explained why we wouldn't be able to come to church. (By the way, he spent the last part of our trip here at another churchmembers house. I'm sure he was glad he stayed at someone else's house after hearing what happened at Michele's last night!) We were disappointed, but I sure didn't want to leave the house since I was still having to "run" to the bathroom, though not as often as the night before. My Mom got up and started doing stuff after our friends left for church. As the day wore on, she and I felt better. Our digestive "problem" went away pretty early in the day. Not too long after we got up, we felt achey and feverish, so we took our temperatures. Sure enough, we both had fever! I don't know how high it went, but it wasn't too bad I don't think. The fever was just high enough to make us feel like someone had rolled us over with a steamroller. Anything was better than nausea in my opinion, so I didn't really mind =). I took about 2 naps that day! I never take naps, so you know how sick I was! One time I didn't really feel tired, but I sat down and leaned   against the arm of the couch. Two hours later I woke up, hungry! It was the first time I had actually felt hungry since the day before. I ate two pieces of toast, and by evening my Mom and I felt well enough to eat some of the leftover Syrian food. We watched "Chariots of Fire" and then later on, Michelle and the girls and I watched "A Bug's Life" and made corn-shuck dolls.

March 20th, 2000

We got up early this morning, picked up the pastor, and headed back towards home! Mom and I were still weak, but feeling much better than even the day before. We stopped for lunch at some sort of cafe place, and Mom and I shared a hamburger. I really didn't want one because of the grease, but I ended up pressing the meat patty between some napkins, removing (I thought) a lot of the grease. I ate about 1/2 of the patty and couldn't stand the thought of anything else. It was still greasy enough that my stomach wasn't quite ready to handle it efficiently. I got a little nauseous again further down the road, as my stomach complained about the grease I'd so rudely swallowed down there, but fortunately it wasn't so bad as to make me feel like throwing up. We got home without further incident, and boy, did it ever feel good to be home!

After we got home, I did a little research on a bacteria called "Listeria" which can cause both flu-like symptoms and digestive troubles, and found a list of symptoms. Turns out that the symptoms are exactly what we and the two other people had. They had fever and other flu-like symptoms, and we had the digestive problems AND flu-like problems. Nasty! I am guessing that it was from the salad we had on Day 2 of the meetings, since some of the salad was made up of the bagged salad you buy in the grocery store. (the listeria site said it can hide  out in salad that hasn't been properly washed) Yes, the bags say "washed and ready to eat" but believe me, you'd better wash the stuff before using it. Why did we get sick many hours later and not immediately after eating the salad? The Listeria bacteria can take up to 18 hours to cause symptoms!

Despite this sickness that dominated our trip, we DID have a good time visiting our friends! I would say the fun outweighed the "unfun" =)

-Elisabeth =)

The Houston Trip

Here's a journal of trip #2 of the year 2000. It's not very long, but I said I'd put up *all* my trip journals, so here goes:

April 22nd, 2000
My parents and I left home and headed for Houston today! We are going, to be with an elder of our church as he preaches for a brand-new church in Kingwood, TX. We got there about....oh....I don't even remember, but it wasn't too late. We found our hotel and unloaded, then drove what seemed like 30 miles back the direction we came, trying to find a Pappadeux's restaurant that we thought we saw. We found it, all right, and enjoyed a delicious dinner of an oyster, crawfish, shrimp and mushroom fondue (with melted cheese on top) and then a big platter of fried seafood (catfish, stuffed crab, oysters, crawfish tails and shrimp). It was all wonderful!
We headed back to the hotel and did various things for a few hours before retiring for the night.

April 23rd, 2000 (Resurrection Day!)

The next morning, we met the elder and his family for breakfast (we were all staying in the same hotel) at Denny's next door. They were incredibly SLOW about getting our food, and as a consequence, we got to the church late (we were supposed to be there by about 10:15am, but we didn't get over there until 10:45am!). We met everyone there and then the meeting started. The sermon was very good, and we enjoyed talking with everyone once it was over. One family invited a few of us over, and we had a great lunch and time of fellowship. By about 4pm, we started back home. Come to find out the elder hadn't been feeling well at all, so this trip was not much fun for him. What is it with us OPC people, that it seems at least one person has to get sick on trips?! I hope it's not something that happens regularly!
Anyway, that was our first Houston trip. I enjoyed it, especially having fellowship with so many wonderful Christians! I'm looking forward to going back for more visits in the coming months.
By the way, I would have enjoyed the trip a whole lot more if we had made a jaunt down to the Johnson Space Center!! (just kidding =) )

Next up is another Houston Trip! Hopefully everyone will stay well this time!
Until next time.....so long, farewell, auf wiedersein, goodbye! <Sound of Music ditty playing in background>

The second Houston Trip

8/19/2000

Today we left home about 1:30pm and went out for lunch. Mom had an upset stomach for awhile there and we weren't sure whether we would be able to even go to Houston! We started driving east, taking a few detours to check out the church-building-in-progress, etc...and seeing how Mom felt. She said let's just go, and if I start feeling worse, I'll say something. She never said anything =) After about an hour and a half, she said she felt much better. In Tomball, TX, just northwest of Houston, we stopped for ice cream. We got to The Woodlands about 6pm, after leisurely driving through the town. We finally found Landry's, and got out to stretch our legs. We were going to meet some online friends of mine, and we would all eat dinner together with the elder from our church and his family (he would be preaching again like last time). It was so much fun meeting Rachael's family, and we can't wait to do it again! We ate calamari for an appetizer (I never thought I'd enjoy eating squid!) and then Mom and I shared a plateful of broiled seafood. It was all delicious! After dinner, we visited until about 9-something, then Rachael went home and we and the elder and family went to the hotel. So far so good!

8/20/2000

At 7:30am, the clock radio cheerily blared out this annoying buzzing sound. After that, I couldn't go back to sleep, even though I didn't *have* to get up until 8:15 or so! Oh well. I could use some lessons in getting up early!

We were all going to eat breakfast together, but ended up not doing so. my parents and I ate at McDonald's. It was not one of the better "hockey pucks" that I've had. After eating, we drove to the church. It was so nice to see all the familiar faces! The sermon was excellent, and again we went to one of the churchmember's houses for lunch. We had a wonderful time of fellowship with everyone! About 4pm, we started back home. We stopped on our way back home to see a family who goes to our church. The Mom was expecting a baby very soon, and had not felt well enough to come to church the last couple weeks, so we wanted to see how she was. We had a wonderful visit with them! As I walked out towards the car when we were ready to go home, I said "I hope we get a phone call soon with some news!" She said she hoped so too. Little did we know....

10 hours after we left their house, their baby girl was born there! =) We did get a call not quite 14 hours after we last saw them =) How exciting!

This trip was quite enjoyable for both our family and the elder and his family, especially after the last trip, where he was sick the whole time! This is the first time he and our family have traveled together where no one has gotten sick. Good to know that sickness does not always follow us around! =) We just know not to eat unwashed bagged salad <grin>

Elisabeth =)