Hollywood Casino Hotel and Campground, Joliet, Illinois
He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau . . . (more than 580 animals – goats, rams, camels (and their young), cows, bulls, and donkeys) He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself and said to his servants, “Go ahead of me, and keep some space between the herds.” He instructed the one in the lead: “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and who owns all these animals in front of you?’ then you are to say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.’” He also instructed the . . . others . . . say the same thing . . . For he thought, “I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me.” So Jacob’s gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp. ~ Genesis 32:13-21 What do we make of this? Jacob just finished praying, asking for God’s protection, reminding Him of His promise to multiply his descendants. The exorbitant gifts were to appease Esau’s anger. Even after 20 years, Jacob was concerned that his brother still held a murderous grudge. What does that say about Jacob’s experience with Esau? Does Jacob feel guilty for taking Esau’s birthright? Is he trying to make amends by giving so much wealth to Esau? So many questions! It doesn’t help that we don’t really understand the times back then. They had their social norms just like we do. And those social norms change all the time, don’t they? For instance, it used to be that men never went out without their suit, tie and hat. And women wouldn’t be seen without layers of clothing from their chin to the tips of their toes. And just look at us now! Was what Jacob doing a social norm? Or was he approaching out of an overabundance of fear and caution? Is he feeling protected by God? Or is he afraid God won’t show up? What if you were in his shoes? How would you react?
There’s a great bike path here that spans 96 miles. No way did we intend to do that – especially since you have to go back the way you came, making it 192 miles! But we could do some. We planned to head out and turn around when we got tired. That usually happens about 10 miles in. Or an hour. Whichever comes first. It’s not our legs, it’s the part the legs are attached to. I don’t know how people do long bike rides, I really don’t.
Anyway.
We set out, expecting a nice, shaded ride along the former I & M (Illinois & Michigan) canal. Remember canals? With locks? That helped cargo get from one shipping area to another? Pulled by mules? There’s another one near where we’re from – Canal Fulton, Ohio – the Ohio & Erie Canal, so we learned about canals growing up. In fact, there was actually a couple of songs about them – “Mule Skinner Blues” (which has nothing to do with removing their hides, and everything to do with training them) and “15 Miles on the Erie Canal”
I got a mule and her name is Sal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
She’s a good old worker and a good old pal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
It’s a really long song, but you can look it up if you want. 😊 But I have to say, of the two, “Mule Skinner Blues” is my favorite. It’s a lot of fun! What’s not to like about a song that ends with “cha-cha-cha!”? You can listen if you want!
Boy, I sure am chasing down a lot of rabbit holes today, aren’t I?
So Blaine loaded our bikes onto the back of the Jeep and we drove a very short distance to an entrance to the bike path, which was paved at first, and then turned into a nice, hard-packed gravel trail. So we’re la-dee-dahing along, until we came to a tree trunk blocking the trail, with no way around it.
So we went over it, and continued on.
It wasn’t long before we encountered downed trees and branches all along the way! Remnants of Tuesday’s tornado! What a mess! Some we could navigate, but there wasn’t a lot of riding going on.
It’s not really an orange.
The slang name is “monkey balls”. Gross!
Eventually, we came to an impassable mountain of branches. And men working up on the road. They were gathering up all the fallen stuff in people’s yards and the road. Quite a task before them!
We rode up the road (did you like my use of homophones? That’s words that sound the same but are spelled differently or have different meanings. English lesson for the day! And yet another rabbit hole. 😊) So, we rode up the road for a while, until we got to a place where we could rejoin the trail. And we went on for a bit, and then had to navigate through branches again.
Until . . . .
We finally came to the lock we’d been seeing signs about.
And that was the end of the line. There’s just no way to get around all those diggers and holes in the earth.
So we turned around, and did it all over again.
We just never know what kind of adventure God has in store for us. Today was great!