Retrospective -- Addendum I

I hadn't any more than posted our retrospective on full-timing than Gary asked, "why didn't you write about all the churches?" I didn't write much about them during our travels and it was something very dear to me so I will write this addendum.

When we set out, I avowed that I would get to a physical church every weekend that I possibly could. I simply did not wish to rely on TV Mass; it is just not the same and I doubt I would have been as faithful to it. So I found a website, The Catholic Directory ( http://www.thecatholicdirectory.com/) that located church choices for me all over North America. Out of about 190 weekends I went to a physical church about 180 of them with TV church on the rest. When wintering I went largely to the same church for weeks at a time so I would guess that I went to about 120 separate churches. I went to some of the most well know of cathedrals and basilicas -- St Patrick's in New York City, Notre Dame in Montreal, and St Paul's in St Paul. The Mass at Notre Dame was in French which I don't know so I mainly prayed.

But there was many a fascinating tiny little parish like the pine wood church of West Yellowstone, the very simple board church of Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, and the tiny Desert Mission of Torrey, Utah.

Among the ones in between, there was one in Myrtle Beach we coined "the tuna church" because the "Our Lady Star of the Sea" made us think of Starkist -- it had a beautiful "porthole" of a stained glass window. The one in the home of our mailbox in Livingston, Texas had the most beautiful of altars.

Of course, let’s not forget how much time we spent in Las Vegas.  I had a small church within walking distance from the Freemont Street Experience and St. Joan of Arc accepts casino chips in their collections.

I often wished that I would have maintained a separate blog just to record each and every of the lovely churches that I visited. But as this hindsight now is 20/20, this addendum will have to suffice.

And now I have my own church – Holy Spirit in Mims, FL only about 3 miles from where we now live.