Intimate conversations and roadside wonders
A roadtrip adventure from North Carolina to Minnesota.
I love small groups. I lead three small-group Bible studies, and they are among the highlights of my week.
I love one-on-one conversations (grabbing coffee or breakfast with another man, for instance) and I love it when my wife, Anne, and I have lunch with another couple after church.
Small groups. Maybe just two people. In-person. That is how you have significant conversations.
Every time another person is added to the table, the conversation gets more and more watered down. It becomes a surface conversation that is dominated by the most extroverted people — and I belong to the tribe of introverts.
I have found that big holiday dinners — while wonderful in one sense because so many important people in your life are in one place — result in the least-significant conversations and do little to move relationships forward or deeper.
A main reason I started writing on Substack is to preach about the importance of small groups. “Preach” is the right word. I’m a small-group evangelist.
I think it’s Biblical. God interacts with us one-on-one. Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman at the well one-on-one, as he did with the Pharisee Nicodemus. There were 12 disciples, not 120. Jesus tells us that the Good Shepherd will leave the 99 sheep to find the one lost sheep — because every single person has value in God’s kingdom.
Yes, sometimes Jesus preached to the 5,000 at one time, but he comes to us individually. And we need to do the same with people in our lives.
Another love
Another thing that I love: Kitschy and quirky roadside attractions. You know, all those places you see billboards for on the interstate but never make the time to stop. Think the biggest ball of twine or giant Paul Bunyan statues or the Andy Griffith Museum or Dinosaur Kingdom, where there’s a depiction of a Civil War battle in which the North uses 30 fiberglass dinosaurs to fight the South. Lincoln had a few tricks up his sleeve, but then his dinosaurs turned on him and the Union troops!
For the last two weeks of August, I combined those two loves on a roadtrip from North Carolina to Minnesota. The main reason for the trip was to visit our son Joe, his wife, Erin, and their children. We usually fly, but this time we decided to drive the 20 hours (one way) so we could see friends along the way — and some of America’s great roadside attractions!
I love driving with Anne. It’s the ultimate one-on-one talk because it’s pretty hard for either person to bail out of the conversation at 70 mph. You’re stuck with each other.
And we have a great time, talking about every subject imaginable, playing the license plate game (we got 47 states on this trip), listening to podcasts (#1 Dad was our favorite), listening to the 70s channel on SiriusXM, oohing and ahhing during stops at Buc-ee’s, and searching for fun places to visit.
Below are the places where we stopped on this trip. I tried to pick one or two good photos from each spot so this post didn’t go on forever, but a couple of them deserved more.
It was seven days of travel and 10 days of visiting with family and friends, as we lived in the Minneapolis area for 28 years before moving to Charlotte a decade ago.
Let me know in the comments some of the great roadside attractions you have seen!
Clarksville, Tennessee
We stopped to see this mural commemorating The Monkees' 1966 hit "Last Train to Clarksville." The mural was painted a year ago on a pillar supporting the old train track running through the city.
The Monkees didn't write the song about Clarksville; they just thought the name of the city sounded pleasing to the ear. But the city embraced the hit (it got to No. 6 in the U.S.) — and The Monkees did film part of the song's music video in the city.
While in Clarksville, we also ran across a wonderful mid-century hotel sign. The Vacation Motor Hotel, which has a sign that looks a LOT like a Holiday Inn sign, has been converted to apartments.
In 2011, Tennessee Drug Task Force agents found 39 working meth labs on the property with two more under construction. 😬
Metropolis, Illinois
This is the home of the Super Museum, which contains the largest collection of Superman memorabilia in the world. A photo with the giant Superman out front is worth the trip (it’s all about the photos, right?), but we also spent nearly two hours in the museum.
St. Louis, Missouri
The Gateway Arch is more of a mainstream attraction, but it’s also the smallest of the U.S. national parks. Anne had never been there, and she loved the ride to the top of the arch.
Springfield, Illinois
The Lincoln Home National Historic Site. It was fun to see where Lincoln lived for more than 15 years before moving to the White House. The entire neighborhood was preserved and it looks much like it did about 170 years ago.
Atlanta, Illinois
Atlanta was a real gem. Only about 1,700 people live there today, but it was once a popular resting point on the old Route 66 midway between Chicago and St. Louis. There were once several gas stations in the town, along with giant statues to try to lure tourist to stretch their legs.
Galesburg, Illinois
As we were driving north from Atlanta, we were surprised to find Carl Sandburg’s birthplace and boyhood home in Galesburg.
It includes a museum and theater, and Sandburg and his wife are buried at the site. But unfortunately the house was closed the day we were there, so we could only wander around the grounds.
Sandburg was an American poet, biographer and journalist who won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln.
Also in Galesburg, we found the site where Lincoln had his fifth of seven debates with Stephen Douglas as they ran in 1858 to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate. Douglas won re-election fairly handily with 54% of the vote. Lincoln finally made it to Washington, D.C., two years later.
Dyersville, Iowa
This has been on our tourist list for a long time. It’s the home of where the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams” was shot.
The ball field, house and corn field were perfect, and you can play catch on the field and walk out of the corn field just like in the movie. It also has a great museum.
But Dyersville had a lot more to offer for a town of only 4,500 people. The National Farm Toy Museum also is located there, as is the Basilica of St. Francis Xavier, a gigantic, beautiful Catholic basilica. They say it’s one of the few “minor” basilicas in America that’s not located near a large city. It’s on the list of National Historic Sites.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
After four days of travel, we finally made it to our destination: The Minneapolis area, where our son lives with his family.
The first thing we did the next day was go to the opening day of the Minnesota State Fair, a 12-day extravaganza of quirky. We were part of a record crowd for opening day: 139,000 people. Minnesota and Texas probably have the two best state fairs in the nation.
If you go to the Minnesota State Fair, there are several must-dos. Here are photos of a couple: Take your photo with Paul Bunyan, and go watch as they sculpt the heads of the finalists of the Princess Kay of the Milky Way competition — sculpted out of butter!
Here are two more unique things to tell you about:
We watched comedian Nate Bargatze at the State Fair. The place was sold out, and Nate was hilarious.
He plays himself as an uneducated man who went to community college for a year and didn't earn any credits.
"I don't know anything about history," he said. “Every history movie I watch, I watch on the edge of my seat. I watched ‘Pearl Harbor.’ I was just as surprised as they were.”
Here's a review: https://shorturl.at/7fBo5
And I’ll finish with another mainstream event — a Minnesota Twins game with my sons, Joe and John. The three of us have probably been to more than 100 games over the years, but this one was memorable because in the second inning tornado sirens went off (no one left their seats 😂), the skies exploded with rain, and the storm produced a double-rainbow against a red sky. After an hour delay, they finished the game.
I have another roadtrip planned for the end of the month. Can’t wait!
Loved this! Thanks for sharing your adventures and your thoughts on small groups. I totally agree you. Christ gave us everyday examples of learning in intimate smaller groups.
I like the gas station and big boy stops. The baseball game would have been nice especially knowing no tornado occurred