Category: Travel

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Blogging Driving Travel

1,000 Miles

♫ But I would walk five hundred miles
And I would walk five hundred more
Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles
To fall down at your door ♫

No. I have not walked 1,000 miles this year. I’ve walked over 700 miles though. In 2019 (a “normal” year) I walked about 900 miles. Same for 2018.

This past Monday I hit 1,000 on my odometer of my new car – in my 116TH day of driving it. That’s an average of less than 9 miles per day. It was a tough 1,000 miles. I get the feeling that the next 1,000 miles won’t take another 116 days to do so. Looking back to earlier this year I actually drove 1,175 miles in June and 1,227 miles in July – mostly in a road-trip between South Florida and South Alabama. I don’t have any long road-trips like that one planned anytime soon; although, I am planning a trip over to Southwest Florida towards the end of March. By then I expect to be over 2,000 on my odometer.

Now that the weather is cooler, dryer, and nicer here in South Florida I plan to get out more, and drive around to various tourist attractions near me. I may even drive down U.S. 1 into the Florida Keys. The “18-Mile Stretch” is what we call the stretch of U.S. 1 between Florida City (mainland) and Key Largo (top of the Keys). I live about 3 miles from the north-end of the stretch.

I haven’t driven down to the Keys in about 6 years. (I was last in Key West not quite 3 years ago via cruise ship.)

I think that an ideal trip would be to drive southward into the Keys on a Monday or a Tuesday, spend a couple of nights in Marathon or Key West at a hotel, and then return northward on a Wednesday or a Thursday (avoiding all weekend traffic during this “high season”). Of course I’d have a list of fun places along the way that I’d want to visit.

Yeah let me get started on that list and that road-trip planning. I got excited just writing about it !

All rights reserved (c) 2020 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries

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Bible Blogging Christian Church God Holidays Ministry Scripture Travel Weather

Sunday Scripture

Greetings my friends ! This is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us be thankful for this new day that our God has blessed us with.

It is Sunday November 29TH 2020, and I am back home in South Florida from vacation with my family in North Texas ! I was there for 8 days, and as always it was filled with food and fun. We celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas together – known in our family as #ThanksChristmasGiving – a tradition that goes back about 15 years every traditional Thanksgiving Day. I got some great gifts this year !

My return trip back home via American Airlines was quite the bumpy ride. It was also a longer than normal ride. It took a more northerly route than its usual direct flightpath due to severe weather along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. But the ride – even at 35,000 feet above southern Arkansas, northern Mississippi, and northern Alabama – was quite rough – with the A321 Airbus jumping up-and-down and swaying back-and-forth in the ferocious winds along both sides of a strong cold front. A few passengers got sick. I was worried for a few minutes that I was getting sick as well, but luckily I was OK.

Once we got above North Florida the ride suddenly became smooth and trouble-free. It remained that way for the rest of the trek to Miami International Airport.

Well just as I have done for the past 3 years on the Sunday after Thanksgiving or the first Sunday of December – I’m preaching a full sermon to my church family this morning. I got the word late this past Wednesday night in North Texas, and I was actually writing a brand new sermon in-between my family-time. I finished it late yesterday here at home. I’ll be preaching on “Spirit & Truth” today – mostly from the first-half of John Chapter 16.

When the Spirit of truth comes – He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own, but will tell you what He has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring Me glory by telling you whatever He receives from Me. All that belongs to the Father is Mine. This is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever He receives from Me.’ (John 16:12-15)

All rights reserved (c) 2020 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries

Categories
1980s Blogging Career Driving Military Music Radio Travel

My Top 5 Hits RETRO – 1985

Every Friday I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 15, 25, 30, or 35 years ago this weekend (rotating each week).

It’s the 4TH Friday of the month, so I go back 35 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday December 01ST 1985:

  1. “We Built This City” – Starship
  2. “Separate Lives” – Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin
  3. “Part Time Lover” – Stevie Wonder
  4. “Say You, Say Me” – Lionel Richie
  5. “Never” – Heart

It all started right here with this chart. What was a hobby for almost a decade prior became official, as I sat down with paper, pen, and pencil, and I wrote down my Top 20 favourite songs of the week. (And since I was living in the south of England at the time I had to learn to adapt to their proper spelling and pronunciation of certain words, so it was “favourite” – not “favorite”.)

During the peak of this hobby in the United Kingdom I was producing on paper a Top 50 hit music chart twice per week !  YES – I really got into it. I eventually scaled back to a standard Top 40 chart once per week, and that continued for almost 7 years until I took a 3-year hiatus from 1992 to 1995.

Starship’s “We Built This City” was my favorite song at the time. It was actually spending its 3RD week at # 1 when my very first chart was written down. It was also my favorite song as I drove 700 miles from Chanute AFB Illinois to McLean Virginia at the end of October 1985. It was the perfect driving song for what was my longest road-trip (with me driving) of my life at the time. After I flew to my new home in England it reminded me of America as I discovered a brand new country for the first time in my life.

During those early days in England I listened to the hottest hits in my military dormitory room on GWR (97.2 FM out of Swindon Wiltshire) and BBC Radio 1 (1053 & 1089 AM).

Every 4TH Friday of the month for the next 2 years I’ll share my life and music with you, as I look back at those fun times across the sea as a late-teenager.

Next Friday on RETRO I’ll go back 15 years ago to December 2005.

It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with 2 more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for going RETRO with me !

All rights reserved (c) 2020 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries

Categories
1990s Blogging Career Military Music Radio Travel

My Top 5 Hits RETRO – 1990

Every Friday I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 15, 25, 30, or 35 years ago this weekend (rotating each week).

It’s the 3RD Friday of the month, so I go back 30 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday November 18TH 1990:

  1. “Praying For Time” – George Michael
  2. “So Hard” – Pet Shop Boys
  3. “Something Happened On The Way To Heaven” – Phil Collins
  4. “Something To Believe In” – Poison
  5. “Impulsive” – Wilson Phillips

It was a very British Top 3 on my chart 30 years ago this weekend. That Pet Shop Boys track was brilliant – and very underrated. I loved its breezy orchestral “underground” feel. It was a British and European pop smash, but here in the U.S. (and Canada) it was mostly a hit in the dance clubs. It was a bit too extreme for its time for Top 40 radio which was skewing more towards the safer Hot Adult Contemporary format at the time.

And speaking of Hot A.C. Phil Collins had the perfect track for the format. It’s one of my favorite songs from him. Deborah Cox scored with a HI-NRG dance cover of the track 13 years later in 2003 that peaked at # 4 and spent 32 weeks on my chart !

RAF Fairford

This past week marks 33 years since I’ve been back home stateside following a 2-year military stint working and living in the south of England (RAF Fairford). I vowed to return to the U.K. for a visit back then. It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s not over yet. Next Friday on RETRO I’ll go back to the very beginning of this weekly hit music chart hobby – 35 years ago to November 1985.

It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with 2 more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for going RETRO with me !

All rights reserved (c) 2020 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries