God is always present, we're the ones who show up.

So, 3 hours, and about 200 miles west, you can Creek Lake and Wisp are. The trip up there wasn't quite as short as 3 hours because of the snow find yourself in McHenry, Maryland, where Deep storm that decided to come through right as I was leaving town. So this time around, it was 5 hours and 4 stops later, that I eventually found myself in McHenry.
There isn't a whole lot going on around there, but at the same time, just enough. It's a shame that I didn't find out about the "just enough" part until the last day I was there. Pat works allllll day so I had to wait until he got off work to have someone to hang out with. So from, 7am-7pm I was on my own. The first day, I thought I would ride into town, which happens to be 15 miles away, and see what was going on there. Well, they've got a Wal-Mart and a future site of Lowes, and that's about it. So all the sudden, I got this bright idea, that I would just go to a coffee shop and hang out. I went up to the customer service desk at the Wal-Mart, and the people looked at me as if I were crazy and told me that there weren't any coffee shops, but there was this cute store that I could probably go to "study." They sent me to an antique shop, with no place to sit and chill at all. So, I read in my car a bit, before the 4:30 showing of "27 Dresses" and by the time those huge adventures were over, Pat was home.
On the way to dinner that night, Pat showed a coffee shop not more than 5 miles on the outside of the town we were staying in. Awesome. I spent my day searching far and wide and there was one right under my nose. I spent from 12-5 on Saturday starting, reading and finishing "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell. It was good. It hit me the same "Sex God" did. Some parts took forever to get through, and other parts still have stuck in my mind.
One part that stuck out to me was when he said,

Somewhere in you is the you whom you were made to be. We need you to be you. We don't need a second anybody. We need the first you. (pg. 97)

This isn't something I struggle with a lot, but I think it's always refreshing to be reminded that we, the way we are, were made for a purpose.
What did I learn from this trip? That finding a chance to experience some real peace and a much needed quiet time, mixed in with lot of laughs and some good conversation with one of your best friends, is worth a 5 hour drive in the snow, anytime.