here we are but straying pilgrims

I spent fall break at a cabin in the woods of Bartlesville, Oklahoma. It was an extravagant cabin stacked three floors high with comfortable leather couches, flat screen televisions, a fully stocked kitchen, and a game room. Two large decks and a wall of windows offered a panoramic view of the pond in the backyard.

The weather was autumn and crisp, so we kept the coffee pot warm throughout the day.  

Our time in the cabin was relaxing. Mostly, I wore flannel shirts and fuzzy socks. Every morning, the girls and I prepared breakfast, flipping pancakes and scrambling eggs. Afternoons, I spent quite a few hours under a fleece blanket reading the Mark of the Lion series. At night, the boys grilled outside and sipped on bottles of Crème Soda. Us girls stayed in the kitchen dancing to Jojo and whipping up milk chocolate and dark chocolate brownies. We baked tator tots, chilled the Diet Cokes, and set the table with condiments and plastic plates.

Every meal was family style: we clasped hands and prayed, passed plates of food down the table, and when we were finished eating, the boys helped us clear the table.

When the kitchen was clean and the dishwasher was running, we stirred up cinnamon apple cider and caramel popcorn and the ten of us snuggled on the couch for movies.

One night, we ventured from the cabin into a nearby town and ate dinner at a local spot called Murphy’s. They were famous for a “hot hamburger”—a concoction of a hamburger stacked high with french fries and drenched in brown gravy. We called it a gravycide: deliberate and systematic destruction to our bodies. Our eager hands speared the french fries, twirled them around in pools of thick gravy, and greedily, we ate, and ate, and ate.

 

Perhaps the greatest part of Murphy’s, though, was the garlic sauce and crackers they provide to each table. I could have made a meal out of garlic sauce on wheat thin crackers. And much to our entertainment, the squeeze bottle allowed us to design our crackers with Greek club names (IX, Iota Chi) and of course, a reminiscent HUG cracker (Harding University—Greece).

The next morning, we woke up early, served an easy breakfast of toast, and packed our bags. We attended a small church in town, had a delicious home cooked meal for lunch, and then drove back to school, listening to the new Mumford & Sons album over and over.

This weekend spent in the cabin with some of my dearest friends was the greatest way to unwind from half a semester of school stress. I couldn’t have imagined a better vacation.