The Ray Clan Ephemeris

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Crazy People Drive all night

...and God must like crazy people. We left Nashville at 11:00 am Sunday morning, and we planned to end our day in Valdosta Georgia, just north of the border of Florida. We also planned to stop at Cloudland Canyon along the way, a Georgian state park that is "off the beaten path" and very beautiful.

But the crazy part came in when we spent more time at Cloudland, just because of the sheer beauty of the whole place, and the friendliness of the few people who happened

to be there with us (including the

owners of this Porsche parked next to our van, which put me in a precarious situation...which one to drive back down the mountain???).

Anyway, we where still pretty far from Valdosta when the kids were begging for sleep, and I was not interested in

driving another 6+hours on the day we were supposed to be arriving in Florida. So we stopped, got the kids as ready for bed as we could, brushed their teeth with plain water, filled the little kid potty (ewww) and got them in their PJ's (for Maria that is just undies and nothing else :), tipped the kids seats back as far as we could with all the luggage and food behind them, then daddy got some Mountain dew (ignoring the calories for the caffeine), and off we went. Anna was a real trooper.

We only stopped

for who hours along the w

ay from 2-4am, Anna slept on the floor under the kids feet while I tosse

d and turned in the front seats. I don't think we would request to sleep like that again under norm

al circumstances. But it worked this time.

I woke up refreshed (no joke) at 4am to the crickets chirping on my phone alarm. The only thing we weren't too sure about was checking into the hotel. We apprehensively called at 5am to ask what our options were. We are told 4pm was normal check in time, but w

e could check in as early as 7am. I was overjoyed.

And by golly we arrived in Orlando at 6:30 after a 20 minute

GPS mistake which took us to the wrong Lake Street in a little neighborhood that looked scary in the dark. As we pulled in to the Embassy suites at 6:30 the kids started waking up, to them it was normal to wake up and be safely in Orlando where mom and dad told them they would. But we don't want to take for granted all the little details that God worked out for us along the way. Yes, God really blessed us, either in spite of our craziness or because of it.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Driving through the Appalachians at Cumberland

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Sad to leave Nashville

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How many chefs care this much?

Yes, I think we found a very unique man. Someone who really cares about how others feel. He made us feel like family, or better, like royalty. The food he made at his restaurant Volare is unmatched: Anna’s Crab-stuffed Salmon, and my Chilean Sea Bass were so good they were almost spiritual. Every bite gave off a magical burst of flavors that kept our taste buds busy, and our souls praising God for such talent. Despite the busyness of the restaurant on a Saturday night, before during and after the meal he came out to just be with us, listen to the kids get to know us a little bit better, and just smile. I don’t mean to over do all this praise; but rarely has the world found a man with such visible a talent that also can focus on “people” as and balance those gifts of relationships as if people were what was really important to his world. Would you not agree that this is a rarely found balance? Our kids and we too love our new uncle Bobby Bell.
If you are ever in Nashville, stop by the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and see Bobby at the Volare Italian Resturant. (and don’t forget to ask for a free valet parking validation and save $25 on parking) :)

Of the event at: www.rayclan.com/roadtrip

Saturday, February 07, 2009

The Miracle Hotel Room

After the Mammoth Cave expedition this morning we did not have any plans set in stone. Our goal was to get two more hours south to Nashville see the and find a cheap place to sleep. On our drive down Anna searched for a hotel on our iphone but many of the known-brand hotels in Nashville were pricey. The King of all hotels in Nashville is the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and it runs $260-$300 per night with taxes, but it is the MOST beautiful place I have ever stayed at in my life. So anyway, about that miracle, after dinner at the aquarium restaurant we arrived at the hotel, but after a 10 minute walk from a nearby mall (because even parking is $20 at this place). We entered one of the three gorgeous glass-covered atriums just after dark. We wandered around a bit, watched the fountain/ligh

t show, stopped the kids from grabbing at the koi goldfish, and just enjoyed ourselves...we even commented that time spent without “somewhere to go next” is much more fun than having a rigid schedule. It was getting a bit late though and we needed to find a hotel room before the kids got too sleepy to walk. I told Anna that I would really like to spend the night here at the Opryland Hotel, and that we should pray and ask God to get us a cheap room. So we did. We held hands at the little koi pond with the gold fish listening and told God that we needed a place to stay tonight and that we would really like him to help us to stay here. As we started walking again I contemplated calling the reservation desk, I even pulled out my phone and looked at the number, but I got a sense that it was not the way God was going to bless us.
Minutes after, we walked past a familiar resturant, Volare, a fancy italian place: “$30 a plate” fancy, and we remembered that we ate there 3 years ago during a conference for my Dad’s company. Sam was just a baby, and when we asked for something soft for him to eat the Chef actually came out to our table and talked to us for few minutes. He told us about his family and his kids and his faith in God. He then brought us a bowl of blended up carrots decorated like it was for the president. He was the kind of guy whose manager you call to lavish praise upon, (which we did).

As we walked past the restaurant we recalled this event and tried to remember the Chef’s name: Freddy, maybe, something catchy that ended in a “y” for sure. He had made such an impact on us with his friendliness we thought it would be really cool to see him again and tell him how we still remembered how he took care of us. I approached the maitrde’ and asked if they had a very friendly chef whose name was Freddy or something like that. She recognized his description of “friendly” right away, which was no surprise, but his name is Bobby she told us. She quickly offered to go get him...and quickly hopped away before we could say that it was not important enough to pull him away from his work.

Out came the familiar face of Bobby Bell, the chef who cared about us like only a Christian ever could. He remembered us immediately, from 3 years and thousands of customers ago. In fact he told us that we had given him a Curious George book for his son the night he had given us our memory. He sat down on the stairs at the entrance to his restaurant, asked about the kids, what we were doing here, etc. We told him about our trip and how we plan to go to Sea World and back on a tight budget. “Good Luck,” he said. When he asked where we were staying and found out we were not staying at his hotel, and had not found one yet, he said, “wait here, I might be able to do something for you.” We waited for a few minutes, he came back and said to wait a few more. After waiting for about 10 minutes, he came out with a big smile on his face and told us normally he has to go though the HR department to get room discounts for family members only, but because it was late and at the last minute the HR office was closed so he thought he could go to the reservation desk with us and pull some strings. Right then and there he walked with us, about 20 minutes round trip, to the reserva

tion desk and got us a room for $49.95.
You can only imagine our joy gratitude that God chose to bless us through Chef Bobby Bell, father of four, and six-year-old christian. So God Bless Bobby Bell and his family for generations.

When we got to our wonderful room with a balcony overlooking an indoor tropical paradise, we got on our knees and praised God. Ask and we shall receive. Give Him our trust he will not forsake us. For He delights in providing us with our needs. And I am sure that he delights even more when we are truly thankful to Him. It is now 12:53 AM and I am going to go to sleep. Who knows what adventures lie ahead.