Abbotts go West Part 1: Bloomington to Utah

So we said goodbye to our friends...

... painted our walls (remember when we first moved in?) ...

... packed up our things ...

... and hit the road!!!

Silver Lining

A few weeks ago Ben and I taught a workshop for the local youth of our church at their annual youth conference. The conference was held about an hour and a half south of Bloomington and was in the midst of our packing, working, and hosting my mom, but we were looking forward to the event and discussing a topic we feel passionate about: people feeling like they don't belong, specifically at church.

The workshop went really well and it felt great to have a fairly large thing crossed off our list (another big thing was speaking at church that weekend... it was a really busy weekend). The kids seemed to enjoy the discussion and they got a really big kick out of Ben (he's pretty great). Free lunch was consumed, great conversation was had, and we left for home to work on the many things we had to work on.

Then, twenty minutes into our drive, our rear breaks blew up. We knew they needed work and we even had an appointment to take the car in the following Thursday (this was Friday...) which was the soonest the mechanic could see us. Nevertheless, the breaks decided that specific moment was their time to go. We pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot, learned we were in Washington, Indiana, and desperately searched for a mechanic that could squeeze us in. We drove a short distance and found ourselves "downtown" about two blocks away from Main Street. Washington is a seriously small town with seemingly little to offer; nevertheless, we decided to explore on foot while our car was getting repaired.

Almost immediately upon turning onto Main (only really a few blocks long) we stumbled upon the local museum. It didn't look like much, certainly only one, maybe two, rooms with handful of artifacts from town locals. Little did we know we were in for a treat!