Some Time Away

From the Pastor:    Some Time Away

       Some time ago I wrote that Fr. Vincent generously offered to come and take my place for a while so that I could get a short vacation. I asked for suggestions as to where to go. The first suggestion I received was a great one: Blairsville, Georgia. It has been many, many years since I visited that small town but I thoroughly enjoyed myself when I was there. One time was in autumn and I was able to attend their Sorghum Festival. The days were cool, the nights were cold, and the festival was typical small-town fun. Good memories. But this time, before I had even looked for a place to stay, I got an email from some former parishioners who moved to Kentucky last year, the Hernandez family. “When we left we told you that you are always welcome to come and stay with us. The invitation is still open. We have plenty of space and a beautiful view of the hills.” So, although I was already dreaming of the hills of Georgia, Kentucky won out.
       I started planning my trip on Google Maps on the computer. I decided to take a leisurely route, staying off all interstate highways and traveling through the backroads into the Smokey Mountains. I told Kevin that, if he didn’t mind my lack of definite plans, I would just drive until I wanted to stop along the way and wouldn’t set a particular day to arrive. He was fine with that, so off I went. My first stop was in Lake Wales just outside of Orlando. Fr. Marshall was back in Florida visiting his mother and taking care of her for a while as her husband had died and she needed some assistance. We had a great chat and caught up on all sorts of things. He said to tell everyone that he misses you and prays for you daily. Toward late afternoon I said farewell to them and resumed my trip. Instead of using Google Maps I entered my destination into Waze, set it to “avoid highways and tolls,” and trusted that it would do what I programmed it to do. I was wrong. After driving for more than an hour it told me to get on Interstate 75 heading north. Strange. I knew I had told it to avoid highways. But Waze is pretty good at recognizing closed roads and detours, so I reasoned that maybe this was just a temporary thing. Sure enough, as soon as I got on the interstate it told me to exit at the next exit. I exited but at the bottom of the ramp it told me to get back on the interstate. Nope. I pulled over to check out the planned route. I should have done that earlier. It showed me taking I-75 all the way to Kentucky and getting off each exit and then immediately getting back on. Only a computer can be so moronic as to think that that is the proper way of following the “avoid highways” command. I unclicked the “avoid” boxes. It took me on I-75 all the way, with no exiting. I clicked the “avoid highways” box again and it took me all the way on I-75 but exiting and re-entering every off- and on-ramp. Nothing I did could get it to change. So I went back to Google Maps (both are owned by Google, by the way) and, sure enough, found that app working properly. I also concluded that I had gone quite a long distance out of my way to get to that stupid interstate that I was trying to avoid in the first place. I would have been better off with a real map! Maybe next time...
       By now it was time to eat and get a hotel and I was still in Florida. I sure am glad I didn’t plan my route step by step and make hotel reservations in advance, for I was quite content to just call it a day and be happy about being wherever I found myself. I slept for about 10 hours that night and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to sleep too well the next night. I shouldn’t have worried about that, either, for I slept for 9-10 hours each night for the first five or six days of my trip! In the morning I checked Waze and it still wanted to direct me to interstate highways getting on and off and on again. I still haven’t figured that out but haven’t bothered checking it since.
       Most of the time I took back roads that led from one tiny town to another and every once in a while the navigation system would take me down tiny roads within the tiny towns, roads that I never would have traversed if I was following a paper map. Some of them were delightful. Some were downright scary. But all were part of the adventure. As I said, I wanted to drive through the Great Smokey Mountains so I had to change the destination on the GPS so that Maps wouldn’t bypass that area. I took my time and many times had no clue as to where I was or where I was going to end up, and that was exactly the way I wanted it. It was a very relaxing few days of driving and sightseeing. I didn’t listen to much news (someone told me that Joe Biden was not running again, but that is about the extent of my keeping up with current propaganda). I didn’t respond to emails. I prayed a lot of rosaries. I loved every minute of the journey.
       Next week I will probably write about actually getting somewhere.

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka

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