Category: Holidays

Southwest Florida Road-Trip

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date January 23, 2020

This past U.S. holiday weekend I enjoyed a 3-day / 3-county / 360-mile Florida road-trip to and from Fort Myers. It was my first visit to the region since last July. I always enjoy visiting Southwest Florida (Collier and Lee County). Usually I venture over there to see a concert at the Hertz Arena, and this trip was no exception.

My first stop though after crossing the Everglades via the Tamiami Trail was the flagship branch of the multi-site Collier County Museum in East Naples. It was my first visit since June 2012. Back then I thought it was my first visit ever – until I saw some of the exhibits outside – and then I realized that I had been there years earlier.

At the end of my 90-minute visit I picked-up a brochure for a nearby place that I never knew existed – the Naples Museum Of Military History – at the main terminal of the Naples Airport. So I went there, and I immersed myself in all of the awesome displays there. They were overflowing at the seams in the two rooms that they occupy there. They need more space, and hopefully they get it.

After that I took a ride out to the country and into the woods for another first-time visit ever – the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. What a wonderful and beautiful place this was – especially on a sunny and coolish day. I’m sure that it would be a miserable place to be during our 9-month bug season and especially our 5-month rainy season, but that was truly a great day to be outdoors strolling the 2.25-mile elevated boardwalk absorbing nature’s beauty – created by my Almighty God.

By the way all of the above was Day 1 of my road-trip ! Day 2 started in Fort Myers at probably their # 1 tourist attraction – the Edison & Ford Winter Estates. It was my first visit since April 2011. I love this place. I could work and have fun at this place after I retire from my military / civil service career. I took the 1-hour and 15-minute guided tour which was a lot of fun (even though I had done it before). I’d do it again !

On Sunday night I went to the Hertz Arena to see Franklin Graham conclude his recent tour of Florida. He led us in prayer for our nation and our leaders, and then he preached a classic Billy Graham Crusade sermon on Repentance & Salvation. That’s a topic that I’m quite familiar with, as many of my sermons are about the same. Jeremy Camp opened and closed for Franklin, as he performed 7 of his greatest hits. I’ll be seeing Jeremy Camp perform again at this very same arena in 6 weeks, as he opens for MercyMe.

Day 3 of 3 started back in East Naples at the Naples Botanical Garden – yet another first-time visit. I walked well over 3 miles for 2 hours at this fun place on a chilly and overcast morning.

I’ve got over 80 photos of this fun road-trip to and from Southwest Florida – also known as Florida’s Paradise Coast. At least 60 of those 80 photos will probably be uploaded and captioned on my Flickr site over the next few weeks. But I’ll close this blog post with a sneak-peek. It’s a photo of the chalkboard at the start of the boardwalk at the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary where visitors can write-down what they’ve seen along their walk on the boardwalk. A little less than 90 minutes later – there were more sightings documented on the chalkboard.

Tags Estero, Florida, Fort Myers, Naples

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2020

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date January 20, 2020

Darkness Vs. Light

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. (John 1:5)

Tags Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Holidays Military Nature Photography Travel

My Flickr Photostream

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date January 16, 2020

Happy Thursday my friends. It’s the start of a 5-blog-post holiday weekend here at #CountUp. As is always the case – weekends start on Thursdays !

2019 was a great year for one of my other longtime social media platforms – Flickr – where I store all of my treasured photos online – many for public viewing. It was my most active year (as far as uploading new photos) since 2015, and it was the first year since 2015 that I uploaded at least 10 photos per month for all 12 months.

I plan to do it again in 2020. I’m off to a good start so far with 27 photos uploaded this month (as of last night). I’m currently uploading (and captioning) the best photos of my recent Christmas Eve trip to Okeechobee Florida. I’ve currently got 21 out of 52 photos up now, and I’ll probably put up another 20 over the next few weeks. (Generally out of every 5 photos taken on any given trip – 3 to 4 make it onto my Flickr Photostream for all to see.)

Here’s a photo that is not yet up on my Flickr site:

That’s one of several military static displays located at Veterans Park in the heart of Okeechobee Florida where U.S. 98, U.S. 441, and Florida State Road 70 converge.

My Flickr Photostream – http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmday6567

You can follow me over there, or you can simply view my last 5 photos uploaded here at revchrismday.com. (They appear over on the right-hand side of the blog.)

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Sunday Scripture

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date December 29, 2019

On this 522ND and final Sunday of the 2010s I did what I’ve done for about 475 of those 522 Sundays, and that is to praise, worship, and celebrate our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ with my brothers and sisters of my church family.

I opened the service with God’s Word from First Thessalonians Chapter 5 (9 to 11):

For God decided to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ – not to pour out His anger on us. He died for us so that we can live with Him forever – whether we are dead or alive at the time of His return. So encourage each other and build each other up – just as you are already doing.

We had an unusually well-attended Sunday morning service for the final Sunday of the year – during the peak of holiday vacation time. In fact it was actually one of our biggest crowds of the year !

Today I led with my 30TH sermon over the past 3 years and 3 months. It was a groundbreaking sermon for me personally, and one that I was most nervous about. It’s the first time I went unscripted. I essentially had no idea what I was going to say until I actually said it. I used Internet memes to tell the story of how great our God is.

Earlier this year I began saving, collecting, and organizing Internet memes – mostly from Facebook. I then came up with the idea of preaching an entire sermon based solely on memes. Then I decided that it was a silly idea – perhaps even corny. Then I kept thinking about it, and praying about the best way to have a few dozen memes tell the story that I wanted to tell without the usual full manuscript that I write, edit, rewrite, enhance, finalize, rehearse, and print for each of my typical sermons.

I preached “Ways & Memes” today. It lasted a little over 45 minutes, and I think that it went fairly well considering I was out of my comfort zone at the pulpit. It can be rather risky giving me a wireless mic and 45 minutes to preach without a script, but I managed to do so without saying anything controversial.

Here’s 1 of the 30 memes that told the story of God’s Way:

Jesus Is

My next sermon is already half-written, and it’s titled “Church & State”. I hope to preach it to my church family in January or February. Meanwhile the saving, collecting, and organizing of Internet memes continues on. I’ll start compiling a new batch for “Ways & Memes 2” later in 2020.