A few months ago a friend sent me a text message with a link to a 5k in the city with a message saying that we should sign up for it. Without hesitating we both signed up and even had two other friends join our team. We paid our non-refundable dues and that was that. A few weeks later we decided to finally start preparing for it. She did a lot better than I did, but we were both trying to run regularly. Then, just a few weeks before the 5k she severely injured her foot and my knees decided that I was not going to run any more. We still had planned on at least participating in the 5k even if it meant walking it.

Around 10:30 in the morning, the day of the 5k, I texted her asking if she was feeling a 5k or not. Our trip in to the city to run a 5k turned in to a day trip covering about seven hundred miles of the wild and wonderful West Virginia.
How we got from A to Z, I am not sure. All I know is we mutually agreed to do it. So, around 1:00 in the afternoon, we got in my car and off we went with no particular agenda in mind.

We ended up driving nearly five hours into Beckley, West Virginia. After a quick stop at the Tamarack, we continued on our adventure into Fayetteville to see the New River Gorge Bridge. We took some pictures, climbed a lot of steps, and back in to the car we went. We were going to try to find a swimming hole and then turn around to go home, but instead my friend suggested going a different route home and visiting the capitol building.

The trip over to Charleston was only about an hour long and we were quickly in front of the capitol building.
While I had been to Charleston many times before, I had never seen the capitol building and neither had she. This was probably our longest stop as we took pictures in front of the capitol building and then explored closer to the river. At this point it was about 8pm and neither of us had eaten a meal all day. So, we decided to stop and try to eat at a West Virginia original restaurant. Unfortunately, everything was was to crowded, so we got back in our car with the intentions to stop at a fast food restaurant.

I set the gps destination to Morgantown, West Virginia and once again, we hit the road. Our typical road trip fast food restaurant of choice is chick-fil-a, but sadly by the time we got to one, it was closed. Instead we settled for Wendy’s. We were both pretty hungry at this point that where we ate no longer mattered. We hit Morgantown around 11pm, drove through a bit of the town, and continued on to home.

All in all, we spent thirteen hours together from the time we left at 1pm until the time we got home a little after 2am. We covered approximately seven hundred miles and spent a total of about eleven hours driving. It was a great day spent with a friend that I have had my entire life. We had long conversations that ranged from serious to complete comedy. We laughed at ourselves repeatedly saying, “Who does this!? Who drives five hours to see a bridge!?”

At one point, we were driving on a back road through the woods with mountains surrounding us, windows down, and worship music blasting. In those moments it is so clear that there is a God and that He is an almighty, holy God. His creation is beautiful and I am in awe of it. I am thankful to have a friend to experience those moments with.