We drove up on Tuesday and got there before dinner. We got settled into the hotel, and then proceeded to start our adventuring. Wednesday, we went to the Botanical Garden (where I wandered through a rose garden - pretty close to heaven), and Thursday we went to the zoo (where we petted stingrays!!!) Friday morning, we went to go see the arch, and that was a really neat experience - it felt like you were almost flying when you looked straight down from the top. Those were all really cool things!
We then decided to go to the city museum, because someone had recommended it to us. We got there, paid for our tickets, and walked through. First of all, the number of sweaty, screaming preteens that were present in the museum at the time we went was enough to scare anyone away. I'm pretty sure there was more than one school there at the time. Looking around, I saw young kids and teenagers alike running loose everywhere, the younger kids screaming, and the teachers/chaperones just stood there watching. It was chaotic. And hot. Secondly, as we walked through, it really wasn't a museum at all. We saw maybe 2 exhibits of the entire thing that were museum-like, with an aquarium inside and a cool little crafty area for kids to make stuff, but it was mostly a kid's indoor playground to run off steam. Lastly, some of the parts of the museum were borderline creepy. A little too creepy for a place for kids. Feeling tired and frustrated that we had wasted our money on this place, we walked back to our car, glad to feel not quite so claustrophobic.
Someone suggested we go to the old Union Station. We all agreed, so we plugged in the GPS again, and headed in that direction. Just around the corner from where the station was, we were stopped at a light, when we saw an older man running (I say running, it was more like plopping on each foot) through the street, seeming to pay no attention to the cars around him. He had several people swerving around him, including us, and he didn't stop or anything. We looked back after we had gotten past him, and we saw him open a MOVING car's door and hop in. It was really scary, and it freaked me out a lot. Dad came to the conclusion that he was probably on drugs because he didn't seem affected by all the swerving cars around him. I guess I got a good wake up call from being the sheltered homeschooled kid by witnessing something like this for the first time. (Or maybe it's because I've always lived in clean, safe places? Or maybe a combination of both?)
We drove to Union Station and parked the van. Walking inside, there was almost nothing but a few shops and a hotel. We stopped to get some sense of what was all inside when an older man came up to my dad asking for money. This also freaked me out a little, because whenever we had had someone homeless ask us for money, we would always be in a car on the highway exit or something like that. The point was that we were always in our [safe] car. Here, we were exposed. I don't want to say that I didn't feel safe, but I couldn't help but feel that way. After walking around for a few minutes, we walked back to the van and sat inside for a few minutes. Before trying to decide where we were going to eat for dinner, my parents commented on how weird it was that Union Station was like a ghost town compared to what it was even a few years ago. My mom then brought up that it might be because it was in the bad part of town and that people didn't go there anymore because they didn't feel safe being there. As my dad guided the van down the highway, I looked out the window and started thinking. All of a sudden, I didn't feel safe. This was one of the first times where I truly felt unsafe being somewhere on vacation. Another wake-up call.
The next day, we went to shop some more in another area around St. Louis, and my dad tried to use his credit card. It was declined. He had tried to use it earlier that morning but it was also declined. My dad then called the card company, and after several minutes figured out that someone had made an online payment of a small amount using our card number. We realized that someone at one of the restaurants had stolen my dad's credit card number and was using it. If I didn't feel unsafe and homesick for the somewhat safety of NWA, it was then. We had to cut the vacation short and pay our hotel bill early. Which was okay, because all of us really wanted to go home after that. We saw a movie later that night, and then today we saw a cardinals baseball game inside of Busch Stadium (Lindsey and I's first one, actually) and then drove home. Quite a vacation. Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun! However, all of us were really excited to go home.
I expounded on this whole trip to say that during this week, I realized just how much more there is to even the United States than Northwest Arkansas. The world is even bigger than that. In my head, I knew that, but I guess I needed to see it for myself to really learn that.
I also deactivated my Facebook account if you haven't already noticed. Why, you may ask? It's only temporary, but it was for several different reasons:
1. I was on it WAY too much. I was literally checking it every hour.
2. The News Feed was making me too depressed with my own life. It has made me unsatisfied with my own life with pictures of couples and statuses about getting married or engaged, job changes to say that people were going to be camp counselors at such-and-such camp, etc. Plus a random host of other annoying things that people say. It was becoming an annoyance to me, yet it was still an addiction that I had. So, I had to cut off that hand, so to speak.
3. I'm about to start a job and summer classes. I don't need any more distractions from either, especially since my GPA wasn't as good as I'd like for it to have been this past semester. I need to discipline myself in a lot of ways, and this was one of them.
4. I need to focus on making REAL friendships and relationships with people. Facebook for me has made it to where I can know everything about a person and yet know absolutely nothing about them. Friendships have become shallow for me because I have based them all on what I know is going on in their life from what I've found on their most recent status update.
5. I need to get out of this spiritual rut that I'm in. Yes, I'm in one. Until I can get back on the right track in this area of my life, I refuse to get back online.
These are only a few reasons, but I know there are others. I am not claiming to be better than anyone else by "fasting" from Facebook. This is a personal decision that I have made so that I can get some priorities in line and get back on track with some things. So, basically, if you want to know what's going on in my life, read my blog. Or shoot me an email.
Better yet, give me a call or a text. Let's get real.
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