Trappist Abbey--How not to hitchhike

As it turns out, the "monastery" that Gus and I stayed at is called "Trappist Abbey," and supports itself through bookbinding, fruitcakes (most of which are sold around this time of year) and forestry (which they do just for fun and to be good stewards of the land they are stewarding.)

On Monday we left to go hitchhiking down to the Trappist Abbey, but started out a little late (in the afternoon, due to several important last-minute errands). So we ran across several freeways in our attempt to get to a good hitchhiking spot (kids do not try this at home :)) Don't worry, we looked both ways. Finally, we put up our sign (for the next largest town) at a bus stop. After about twenty minutes, and a bus or two going past, we decided we'd use some of the money we'd earned as sign holders in order to take the bus to Sherwood (I quickly asked the bus driver whether we could get a bus from Sherwood to our final destination--Lafayette, and another guy on the bus answered "Yes.") So we got to Sherwood and waited around for the LINK bus, a locally run shuttle route that was manned by an older man who didn't always stay completely on the road!! He was willing to go out of his way a little for some of the people on the bus, so Gus and I were hoping he would be able to drop us off sort of close to where the monastery was--but he ended up taking us right to the main driveway!!!!(which was probably five or ten minutes out of his way). Looking back, I'm just profoundly grateful for God's graciousness to us (in so many ways--the man who knew about the LINK bus--that he just happened to be riding at that time, through the Link bus driver going out of his way, etc.) --that we didn't have to walk for ten miles to get to the Abbey, and that we got there before dinner time (hadn't had anything to eat all day).