Rocky Top

   Everyone needs a place to retreat when disastrous news, like cancer, suddenly smashes their world to pieces.  Even Jesus went to the garden of Gethsemane to pray and to beg God for a different course.  For the Hall family, their retreat was Rocky Top, a 350-acre ranch overlooking the Brazos River in Texas.  Here they began to "think and pray things through as a family."  For over a decade, the ranch had been their "geographical anchor" and it soon became a "war room" to fight the cancer.  Ron describes those times saying, "Conflicting emotions layered those days at Rocky Top.  Our optimism and confident prayers for healing were real.  But like rain falling from a sunny sky, Deborah and I sensed without discussing it aloud that her prospects for a long life were grim. (Pg. 134)"  During their time at Rocky Top, the Halls received good news and tried to find optimism through the bad.

Pictures of Rocky Top:

"By December 21...we had our miracle.  "Cancer free!" exclaimed her surgeon. (Pg. 154)"

"Deborah had regained a few pounds  and a flush of color.  Had our guests not known her condition, they wouln't even have suspected she was ill. (Pg. 154)"

Brazos River- Rocky Top Lower 40
"[Deborah and I] watched the eagles feast on spawning sand bass and marveled at the savage midair battles they sometimes waged over a catch... the only sound for miles was the wind shimmering...(Pg. 156)"

"Ill, but determined to enjoy the season, Deborah watched expectantly for...the birth of our longhorn calves.  She named two of them Freckles and Bubbles, and I didn't roll my eyes. (Pg. 155)"