Pastor Skar

     My original plan was to blog while I was on the trip.  I could not.  When I had Wi-Fi I did not have time.  When I had time, such as at the Bible camp where we stayed, I did not have Wi-Fi.  So my blogs are going to be retrospective rather than real time.      I spent a great deal of time planning for this trip.  In addition to a mission trip, I wanted the trip to be a sort of American heritage trip.  I also wanted to visit some famous crime scenes.  More on that later.  Time does not always cooperate with plans, so some of what I wanted us to see went by the wayside.  This first blog is going to be about what we missed.      On the first day we travelled 900 miles and 17 hours so we could stay at a motel next to a park where in 1934, two FBI agents battled it out with Pretty Boy Floyd.  Today there is a rock with a plaque on it that commemorates the Battle of Barrington and honors the ...

What an amazing place!  If you have never been to Green Lake, you need to plan for it and go.  The conference center is set on the shores of the deepest lake in Wisconsin.  They have added a huge administration and dining center since I was last here over 15 years ago.  There are tables for over 700 people to eat at once. Since 1500 people are here in attendance for the mission conference, we have to eat in two shifts.  Except for breakfast, the meals this week have been from various parts of the world.  Some of the dishes are a bit of an adventure.      We have morning devotions at 7:00.  Ripon, where we are staying is about 8 miles from the Convention Center.  However, the road between is under reconstruction, so the detour makes the trip about a half hour.  Most people, including us, have been lost at least once.  One night we had to act as guide for a couple women from California.  They had wandered around f...

A lot of history happened within two hours drive of Washington DC.  This was David's trip so I did not get to see much that was new for me.  It was fun watching David see it all though.  David did not like having his picture taken, so I did not take as many pictures as I would have liked.  I enjoyed my time with him.  He showed a great deal of interest in just about everything we saw. A cold and crisp day at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. This is the room where it all happened. The Liberty Bell.  We were there early before the long lines. David's shadow on the spotwhere Franklin hadhis outhouse.  He didn't want his face in a picture, so this is all he would consent to. David looking through the fence at Ben Franklin's grave. Reading the epitaph on James Buchanan's tombstone in Lancaster, PA. This was Robert E. Lee's view of the expanse across which he ordered Pickett to attack the Union cente...

Today we toured the U.S. Capitol.  I had scheduled a tour through Sen. Heitkamp's office.  Ben was our tour guide and he was very good.  If you ever go to Washington, call one of our senator,s offices and get a tour through them.  A public tour had about 30 people per group.  We had five in ours, a family of three from Bismark and David and me.  Because our group was small Ben was able to take us into places the larger groups could not go.  Ben was also very knowledgable.  He had done his homework.      The Senate was in session, that is if you call two Senators debating each other, in session.  What you see on C-Span is usually a congressman speaking to an empty chamber.  They act like they are speaking to a packed place, but they seldom are.  It is all just an act.      After we finished at the capitol, we visited the Supreme Court building.  The court was not in session so there were not any d...

Sometimes stuff just happens.  My favorite hat is a black drivers hat that I wear most of the time in the winter.  I wore it on this trip.  I should say I wore it at the start of this trip.  Somehow I lost it on the plane between Minneapolis and Washington.  I may have left it in the pocket on the back of the seat in front of me.      When we got to Gettysburg I decided to get a new hat.  We went to Walmart and I picked out a black hat.  It was not a driver's hat but it would do.  It actually looks like a SWAT team cap or a black army ranger cap.  I will count it as my souvenir from Gettysburg. (I also bought a model of a mortar since I was a mortarman when I was in the army)      When we got to Washington David started to pester me to get a drivers hat like the one I lost.  There are hat stores here and I am sure I could buy one for a hundred bucks or so.  But cheapskate that I am, my five dollar Wal...

There is so much to see in the museums on both sides of the National Mall I cannot possibly mention everything. I will list that which stands out.      Mueum of Natural History:  a huge stuffed elephant that dominates the rotunda, dozens of dinosaur skeletons, the Hope diamond, gemstones galore, and Egyptian mummies.      Museum of American History:  the section on civil rights from 1863 to 1963, the stories of Medal of Honor winners, the section on America at War, the section on Thomas Edison.     Air and Space Museum:  the Wright brother's plane, all the Apollo space stuff about how we went to the moon, the section on telescopes,  the section on aircraft carriers, the section on taking photographs from the air.  This last sectio n covered everything from the first pictures taken from the air in baloons and from cameras strapped to the bellies of birds to pictures taken from modern satellites.  Of all the museums...

The JFK grave has not changed any over the years.  Bobby Kennedy is buried 50 yards to the south on the same hill.  He hasa simple cross and his name on a small stone.  Ted Kennedy's grave is to the left of Bobby's and looks exactly the same.  To the left of that is a monument to Joe Kennedy who was killed in WWII when his plane exploded over the English Channel.  He was on a very dangerous mission.  His plane was laden with explosives abd he was to get it started toward his target and bail out, letting remote control take over.  Something went wrong and the plane exploded before he could bail.  His body was never recovered but he does have a humble monument next to his brothers.      Audie Murphy was the most highly decorated soldier in WWII, including a Medal of Honor.  His grave is just west of the structure where the Tomb of the Unknowns is. Murphy survived the war and went on to star in some movies.  He was killed i...