Time ticks on, and as we draw nearer to the summer, more and more events are being announced across the country. And in researching our stops during the road trip, we came across two very interesting coincidences in our schedule, which will no doubt lead to some fantastic stories (and blog posts) in the future.
We were flipping through the channels at Joey's house a few days ago, and we passed by a particularly recognizable character preaching a sermon to a crowd of thousands of people. It was Joel Osteen, shown seated here, whose face is a regular staple of Sunday morning television on those channels that I always skip through. I paused, looking for a moment at the ludicrous size of the crowd in attendance, and realized how fantastic an experience this would be to somehow find a way into this crowd during our adventure.
Upon further investigation into the circumstances surrounding this Joel Osteen character, I discovered that he's the pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, which just happens to be the largest church in the United States. They have a weekly attendance of somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 people, and hold services inside the arena that was once home to the Houston Rockets.
And what do you know, we're in Houston on a Saturday and Sunday. We'd be extremely foolish to skip out on a godsend such as this. Gonna git me some religion down in Texas.
Then, we were taking a look at Billings, Mont., wondering what we'll be trying to busy ourselves with in such a folksy place as this. But what do you know, we're driving into town right smack in the middle of a festival called MontanaFair. This otherwise small and very distant city manages to attract a quarter million people during this week-and-a-half-long celebrations, which comes complete with rides, concerts, rodeos, bull riding and even had an event last year sponsored by the NRA.
If there's a way for us to get to know the people of Montana, this is it. What a great stroke of luck.
These two lucky occurrences will no doubt accompany a wide array of other fun, spur-of-the-moment activities when we move from place to place. There's not really anymore room for changes in our itinerary, so for now, we'll just have to sit back and wait as things come our way.
Ahhh, such is life. One big long road trip.
-Tom
(From top) Photo by cliff1066 courtesy Flickr.com; photo by AJ Gazmen courtesy Flickr.com; photo by Haley Rains courtesy MontanaFair.com
