Chased the Goose...

...All the way up Pikes Peak! First I guess the title needs some explaining.  I've been doing a study of Mark Batterson's Wild Goose Chase with the guys in our small group and the term "Wild Goose" refers to the name Celtic Christians often used for the Holy Spirit because of His unpredictablility.  As I've read the book one thing that has really hit me is I need to do less planning and more following via spontaneous action in my life.  I tend to spend most of my time preoccupied with planning and strategizing, potentially missing out on some of the best things in life.  

Our original travel plan was to jam on through without stopping to maximize our time with family and friends in Denver but a last minute adjustment led to a hotel stay in New Mexico about 3/4 of the way through the trip.  After driving straight home I can confidently say the break alone was worth the stop but what transpired the next day was the true reason for our little detour.  Refreshed (mostly, aside from a 3yr old that woke up every hour throughout the night) and with a full day ahead of us we started driving without hurry, a few must-see (at least in our minds) destinations plotted on a map once we arrived.

 

Lunch at a Diners, Drive-ins and Dives spot, REI and a couple of sporting venues.  Sounds like a great afternoon, right?  Well, a couple hours into the drive I noticed a sign for Pikes Peak, not in a hurry I said "hey, that might be cool, what you guys think?"  Several hours later we had taken a hair raising but phenomenal drive up the Pikes Peak Highway

experienced the coldest weather (1 degree w/30mph winds!) the majority of us had ever been in and found out how "cool" Pikes Peak truly was

driven through Garden of the Gods

and were dining at a brewery in Colorado Springs, eating delicious pizza and sampling the house stout.  Certainly not what we planned for the day but it's one we'll remember for a long time and we even managed to hit a couple of our planned spots downtown upon arrival in Denver

As Batterson so eloquently puts it "When you're unsure about the future and what path(s) you should take, just remember-God wants us to get where he wants us to go more than we want to get where He wants us to go."