Awesome Amazing Grand Canyon

(7 Oct 2010) When the word awesome was popular to be used for everything from "these eggs are awesome" or "you have an awesome tan" or "that was an awesome shot", we took a different tact with our kids. We encouraged them not to use this great word for everyday things, but to use it as a word of reverence. A word set apart for God alone and the things he has made.

To that end AWESOME is a perfectly fitting word for the Grand Canyon. We had just a half-day to visit this incredible site and chose to go to the popular south rim. We got a quick orientation from a friendly park ranger at the visitor center and set out walking on the paved Rim Trail. From the very first view the canyon took our breath away. Not from being scared at standing on a rocky ledge next to a 5000 foot drop off, but from the shear grandeur and majesty of the views. We took our time walking along the rim of the canyon oohing and aahing at this amazing work of God's creation. This truly is a place that must be seen to be believed. The shear size of the canyon - 277 miles long, 10 miles wide, and 5000 feet deep - means that any picture you take is like taking a postage stamp size picture of a football field and expecting that to tell the story. We ended up hiking about 5 miles along the south rim then took the free shuttle bus back to the main visitor center and got in the car to head to a prime viewing spot that the ranger told us about to watch the sunset. We got in place about 30 minutes ahead of time. The wind was gusting probably 20 to 30 mph and the temperature was dropping. We put on all the clothes we brought, braved the elements and were glad we did. Our camera is not good enough to capture the different nuances in the shades of color inside the canyon that occur as the sun is settling into the horizon. We did get some shots looking away from the sun on the canyon walls which give a sense of what we saw. A dusky sort of haze muted the colorful canyon giving it an almost ethereal mystical look.
This is about the 25th National Park we have been to on our trip. It is right up there with Yellowstone as the overall highlight of our travels so far. You really have to come here and see it in person. You will never use the word awesome lightly again!

Newest AF Pilot

(1 Oct 2010) Joy and I came to Del Rio for the 3rd time in a year to join the celebration and accomplishment of our son-in-law CJ completing Air Force pilot training. His parents and sister were able to come down from Alaska to join the festivities so it was a real family affair. Besides winding down his program the kids faced the daunting task of packing up their household goods getting ready to move themselves in a U-Haul which included "clearing" base housing which can be the government nightmare it sounds like. Joy and I came in early to take granddaughter Kylan on a trip in the motorhome for a few days to lighten their burden. In the course of that trip our RV fridge went out for the 4th time in 5 months so we broke down and bought a new one and had it installed.
The festivities for graduation included on Thursday evening, a special retreat ceremony and fly-over with the 3 types of planes they use here, a Friday morning breakfast followed by the graduation ceremony and presentation of the coveted Air Force silver wings, and an evening formal banquet. It was a full day. Katie pinned CJ's wing on after the graduation in front of the T-1 trainer he spent the last several months mastering. On Thursday and Friday we had the privilege of "flying" the flight-simulators used to instruct pilots here.
Saturday we loaded the truck and finished cleaning the house and then had our own family presentation ceremony. Finishing pilot training is an all-around team effort and CJ knows he could not have done it without Katie. Her support was essential to his finishing the course. The family gathered at our RV to give Katie a gift of pregnancy massages and CJ a statue of an eagle in flight. The eagle is to remind them both of the realization that we can't do anything in our own strength, but only as we "wait upon the Lord will we renew our strength and mount up with wings like eagles" (Is 40).
The baton has truly been passed. It was a year ago to the day (1 Oct) that I officially came off the roles of the Air Force. Like ours, CJ and Katie's event marks not only an end, but a beginning. We are looking forward in anticipation to all that God will do in and through them as they commit themselves to him.
We said our tearful good-byes this morning and are already looking forward to a January visit to Fairbanks where we will greet the newest baby Elmes.

Joy's Dream House

(Haceta Head, OR: 24 Aug 2010) After only three weeks cruising the Oregon Coast looking for our future perfect home, we found it! It's got everything she wants. Big front porch. Unique. White picket fence. Ocean view. Unfortunately it's the old light keepers house at Haceta Head Lighthouse. They have turned it into a B&B so someday we may stay there just to see what it would be like.
Oh well...we'll keep looking.

Home

Seaside, OR (Aug 6, 2010) So we made it. It was somewhat anticlimactic after all these months of traveling. There was no banner, no band, no one to pat us on the back and exclaim about how amazing it was that we had come from Virginia to Oregon and all we have seen and done. Just Ed and I crossing into Oregon from Washington state and a sign that said "Welcome to Oregon". But it was enough. In fact it felt right, like coming home. It was an overcast, drizzly day as we drove into Seaside and got ourselves set up at the campground. The drizzle stopped and we decided we NEEDED to see the Pacific Ocean today so we bundled up and started out. By the time we got there (about a mile and a half) blue sky was breaking through and the sun was peeking out which we took as a gift of God, just for us. We walked on the beach for awhile and I wished I had not dressed so warmly! A wonderful welcome home! So...WE MADE IT!!!
As if it were there just to add an emphatic punctuation to our own cross-country journey we snapped a picture of the Lewis & Clark statue in Seaside with the appropriate inscription, "End of the Trail". By the grace of God and in his providential plan this is not the End, this is the Beginning!

First Visit to Newport WA

(Newport, WA: 31 July - 4 Aug) My step-mom Nancy has lived in northeastern Washington State for 10 years. Until now we had never been able to visit. The story is worth telling of how she came to be here. When my Dad was alive they retired from the Navy and moved to Snohomish, WA. My next door neighbor in the dorm at Bible College had taken a church in Maltby WA a few miles from where Dad and Nancy lived. They ended up visiting the church and meeting Dan and Deb Peterson and became regulars. Dan and Deb are our age and ended up also having 3 daughters nearly the same ages as ours. Dad and Nancy sort of adopted the Peterson family or the Peterson's adopted Dad and Nancy. Whatever it was God was in it. They all grew in their walk with the Lord and became a support for each other as God would have it. My Dad died in 1994. About a year later Dan and Deb moved with their girls to Newport, WA. Dan and Deb invited Nancy to move near them, but it took some time before she was ready. About 4-5 years later Nancy moved there too.
We were able to go to church with Nancy; a church where the Peterson's were one of the founding families. It was fun to put faces with names of people Nancy has spoken of and have been a big part of her life the past 10 years. The church body takes seriously the scriptural admonitions to take care of widows so Nancy has been well looked-out for. Monday night we had a dinner with Dan and Deb and the two oldest girls, Mishael and Melanie, and their families. (Youngest daughter Kelly works as a nanny in Chicago). The girls married guys from the fellowship and we enjoyed getting to know Zach Miller, Mishael's husband, and her daughter Morgyn. Melanie is pregnant and not feeling well, so we enjoyed watching Josh, her husband wait on her hand and foot. Daughters Abigail and Anna were full of energy but also helped Mom. Joy had the special blessing of holding Mishael and Zach's newest addition, Philip Emery, the baby boy taking my Dad's name as his middle name.
It was a good time and good to know, now that we're on the left coast, it won't be 10 years before we visit Nancy and our friends in Newport again!

Sustain Life Workshop

Homestead Heritage craft village near Waco TX

Grist Mill at Homestead Heritage near Waco, TX


Woodworking display at workshop in Lewiston, ID


Quilting display at Lewistion, ID


Joy recovering from nearly fainting in the Idaho heat


Chris & Destiny in Lewiston

(Waco, TX 23 June and Lewiston, ID 31 July) I've been waiting to blog about this since June. When we left Katie and CJ's in late June and before we caught up with Joy's family in Dallas we visited a craft village near Waco, TX. I saw a flyer while checking in to an RV park and thought it looked interesting. The village is called Brazos de Dios or Homestead Heritage and is in a little spot in the road called Elm Mott, TX. It is a laid out like an old community would have been in the days of say, Little House on the Prairie (one of Joy's favorite shows). There is a grist mill where they grind their own grain, a building where they do all the spinning and weaving, a blacksmith shop, a woodworking shop, and a cafe' where everything is made from scratch using mostly ingredients from the homestead.

We were impressed with how friendly everyone was and after questioning found out that they are a Christian community. They are committed to living simply in the traditional lifestyle of an agrarian, family centered community. In the course of our visit we learned that they had been working out this idea in 3 different states over 3 decades. Everything they have learned to do living off the land for their own sustainment they also teach. One whole aspect of their ministry is education of these "essentials". They are just beginning to take their teaching "on the road". We learned they are at the front end of opening a traditional crafts/sustainable living teaching center north of Lewiston, Idaho and were partnering with several groups there to host a Sustain Life Workshop at the end of July to help jump start that work. As we made our way visiting the different buildings around the craft village we shared some of our story about just retiring from the Air Force and RV'ing across the country as we move back to Oregon. So here we are in the middle of Texas in June saying to folks we had just met that we might see them in Idaho at the end of July. Just before we finished our tour a couple came across the campus and introduced themselves. The young man asked me if I was the retired Air Force guy? Word had gotten around quickly. We met Chris and his new wife Destiny. We came to find out that Chris had gone to the Air Force Academy and had flown F-16's. He got out of the AF 3-4 years ago and came to this community to see what it was about. He never left.

It didn't take much adjustment to plan our trip to make it to Lewiston on 31 July. We found the fairgrounds where the workshop was to be held arriving early to make sure we could park the RV. We hadn't been their 10 minutes when we started meeting some of the people we had seen in Texas. They brought all their goods and 150 or so people from Texas to support the workshop. They remembered us and said they wondered if we would make it. We had a great time and went to several of the seminars and demonstrations. The cheese-making seminar was fun and we ended up buying the cheese-making kit and cheese press so we're ready to start a new hobby when we get settled. Joy visited a pottery demonstration and we watched the woodworking guy start with a log and turn it into a Windsor chair (well the steps to make the chair). We found Chris and Destiny minding the Kettle Corn tent and met and visited with Chris' parents who live in Boise, ID. Joy had a brief sense of feeling light-headed so Chris and Destiny got her a chair and we sat in the shade of the tent to finish our visit. Chris was so thoughtful to give us a gift of a music CD produced by the ministry. We have had two brief visits with these young folks and ended giving hugs as we departed wondering if and when we will see them again.

We're not sure why God had us connect with these people, but they love Jesus and their approach to Christian community is compelling.

Captivated by Breathtaking Beauty

(Yellowstone National Park, July 26-29) I could be talking about my lovely wife, but in this case I am not. Spending several days at Grand Teton National Park only heightened our anticipation of what Yellowstone Park held in store. Making it an even more special blessing was being able to share it with our dear friends Bill and Sara Payton.
We had high expectations for the great beauty at Yellowstone, so no surprise there, what blew us away was the great diversity. Some of the first people to see this place and return to describe it to others were the mountain men/fur trappers of the early 1800's. Known for their tall tales anyway, their stories of bubbling mud pits, geysers spewing hot water hundreds of feet into the air, a mountain lake as big as a sea, a grand canyon miles long split by a roaring river with not less three 100' tall waterfalls within a mile of each other, to say nothing of the plethora of wildlife...from wolves, black and grizzly bear, moose, buffalo, elk, antelope, deer and badgers. If you haven't seen this place in person you too might accuse someone of lying or at least truth stretching when describing this place. But it's true, all of this and more packed into this small corner of God's creation in the northwest corner of Wyoming and southwest corner of Montana.

Each day held wonderful surprises for us. We prayed before launching out on our first day that we would see a wolf and a grizzly. We had been driving in the park less than an hour in the morning when a gray wolf crossed the road right in front of our car! A short time later we saw a grizzly bear from long distance. Some time later we saw a crowd gathered a little off the main road, we made it back there to see a large group with binoculars, spotting scopes etc. watching a wolf about 1/2 - 3/4 mile away who had made a kill of an elk or antelope earlier in the day. The wolf was protecting her prize and alternately gorging on the fresh meat and taking it uphill into a stand of lodgepole pine where it was supposed she was feeding a den of young cubs. We even saw her fight off a coyote trying to steal her fresh kill. We stayed there almost an hour watching the amazing scene.

Over the 3 days we saw more buffalo than anything. Bull elk were majestic with their huge antlers still growing. We learned that elk lose their antlers every winter, which explained the elk antler arches we had seen at the city park in Jackson, WY.

We enjoyed two days with Bill and Sara and a third on our own. On the second day with our friends we spent a lot of time in the Old Faithful area of the Geyser Basin. We knew generally the Old Faithful geyser, what we didn't know was the Geyser Basin is the largest concentration of geysers and geothermal activity in the world. This was the area that made early explorers sound like liars...it truly is unbelievable to see.

On our last day in the park we saw more of the same amazing wildlife and scenery. We took lawnchairs to the edge of an overlook of Firehole Canyon and the Firehole River enjoying our lunch while being serenaded by roaring rapids. On a drive to Butte Lookout above Yellowstone Lake we found a spot with a sign that said we were at the point farthest from any main road in the lower 48 states! Driving nearly to the east entrance to the park we got in several "critter jams" -- traffic jams due to buffalo watchers, which delayed us considerably. It was nearing sunset and we were still about 40 miles from the north entrance where we needed to exit to get back to our RV park. It had been a good day enjoying the beauty, but nothing super-spectacular and then the Lord gave us icing on the cake to what had been an amazing 3 days. First we enjoyed a gorgeous sunset, then as dusk was setting in we saw a Park Ranger up ahead on the side of the road which is usually a good sign that something was stirring...we got there when only a few cars had stopped and there in the distance making its way down a steep ravine was a huge grizzly bear!!...there wasn't a place to park, so we kept on, but we both got a good look at it! But God was not done. I had wanted to see a big horn sheep. There was just a glimmer of light left in the sky and we were about a mile from leaving the park, wending our way down into a canyon to get to the main highway. We turned sharply through one of the switchbacks and saw a photographer set up on the side of the road looking high up at the rocky cliff, and there in perfect profile were two big horn sheep! One standing and one lying down with their heads held high as their majestic horns caught the last rays of the days light. We probably only had less than 10 seconds of viewing before going around the corner, but it was enough to see a breathtaking site and breathe a prayer of thanks to our Great Creator God for this special blessing, this special time to enjoy it with friends and each other and a special thanks to this special place.

Whitewater Rafting Take 2!

Gallatin River, MT (July 25, 2010) We left Bill and Sara Payton in Colorado with a germ of an idea to come and join us on our Yellowstone Adventure. We were so excited when they called and said they were coming. Our first order of business was a whitewater trip. Ed made our reservations and Sunday the 4 of us headed out to the Gallatin River in Montana. The weather was gorgeous and was supposed to hit 90 degrees which I think it did! We were hoping for some III/IV class rapids but because of the time of year it didn't look like that would happen. But it was a great time and we had a blast. It was a little bit more exciting than the first trip with more rapids and less leisure time in between. We were also impressed to have a local celebrity in our boat, a DJ for the "soft rock" station in Bozeman, MT who had also appeared in the movie "A River Runs Through It". But what made it so much fun was sharing the experience with our friends.

Another Rained-on Hike

(Grand Teton National Park, WY: 21 July 2010) What is it about us and hikes that we always get rained on? The first day here we went to the Ranger Station and got the map for the various hikes in the area and found the one that looked interesting. 7 miles around Jenny Lake with a spur hike of .4 miles up to a place called Inspiration Point. Joy was concerned about the bears in the area so we got the briefing on all the appropriate precautions. The hike we chose is a very popular hike so there were bound to be lots of people making people noises to make it less likely we would run into a black bear or a grizzly. We have 3 full days here and wanted to do a hike and a bike ride at least. We checked the weather and decided Wed would work for the hike. Only 20% chance of an afternoon thunderstorms. We thought the hike would take about 4 hours so we got on the trail by 1030. We had barely made it a mile and the sky started darkening and we heard thunder in the distance. There were a lot of people on the trail, some not dressed for weather. We passed one family that was just out in shorts and tee shirts, just as they were making the U-turn to head back to the Visitor Center to hopefully miss the coming onslaught. Fortunately we thought ahead to bring our windbreaker/rain jacket as well as the handy-dandy lightweight poncho's that Emily gave us for Christmas. We were about 2 miles into the hike when the rain started coming fairly steady. We're good, we thought. Waterproof hiking shoes, raingear, we'll be fine. It wasn't the gully-washer thunderstorm we had in Hot Springs, but it came down steady. We made it to the half-way point around the lake and we're still enjoying ourselves. We took the spur hike up to a beautiful falls called Hidden Falls and then branched off from there to climb the 700 ft path up to Inspiration Point. This point is on the west side of Jenny Lake and literally in the shadow of the Teton Mountain Range. It is still raining with periodic lightening and thunder and we're slogging on. We make it to Inspiration Point, elevation 7200' according to the sign, and we look out from the view from this precipice overlooking the lake, prepared to be inspired, to a foggy mist coming off the lake and we can barely make out the trees on the other side. We had to take it by faith that it was indeed an inspiring view. We had water, but it was recommended not to take any food to lessen the chance of attracting bears. We had to make a "go-no-go" decision to continue around the other side of the lake or to head back the way we came. There was also a shuttle boat to this side of the lake that would have taken us back to the Visitor Center. Though beginning to tire and starting to get hungry we decided to press on around the lake; that is when it started not being so much fun. There had been a fire in 1998 up the nortwest slope of the mountain above the lake and while growing back it was still kind of ugly. The rain is continuing to fall as did our spirits. There are hardly any people on the trail now, and Joy is getting anxious about meeting up with a grizzly. She picked up some rocks and started banging them together as we hiked (really...they tell you to do this!). She mumbled something about not knowing what she was getting herself into, when she agreed to go on this hike with me. We made it around the north end of the lake to a trail marker that reminded us we still have 2.8 miles to go to get out of the rain and back to our car. We entered a very thick growth of forest still hugging the edge of the lake. Joy picks up bigger rocks and starts banging louder and more frequently. We start a conversation, talking loudly, just to be cautious. I stepped over some bear scat about this time, but I wasn't about to tell her. I was walking in the lead, so the bear would get me first, and I certainly ratcheted up my awareness level. After 4.5 hours we made it back to the Ranger Station. We had hiked almost 9 miles the rain finally stopping about 10 minutes before we ended. I was wet and tired, but still thought it was worth it. Joy was wet and tired and is having second thoughts about ever going on a hike with me again!