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!

Hatch Reunion

Cowboy cousins

Uncle Danny and oldest son Dan (aka Deed),
retired USN Master Chief



(Ft. Morgan, CO: July 17, 2010) So there we are sitting in the amphitheater at Mount Rushmore waiting for the illumination show to begin when Ed's phone rings. Going backwards in our journey was something we didn't plan on but Ed's Uncle Danny was planning a Hatch family reunion back in Colorado and would really like us to come. So Friday, 16 July, we drove back to Colorado for the Saturday reunion. My side of the family has never had a reunion, or at least I've never been invited to one, hmmm. Anyway, we went, met a lot of people we'd never met before, Ed got to see some people he hadn't seen in many many years, had some good food, and just got to know some of the Hatch family a little better. It was fun and we're glad we went.

Another plus of going back was our friends from New York, Bill and Sara Payton had sold their house, and moved to the Denver area and we had missed them on our first time there. So we got to have dinner with them and get caught up from when we saw them in April.

Now, back to Wyoming!

Spearfish Canyon, SD

Spearfish campground view


Devils Tower WY -- first national monument

Climbers on Devil's Tower


Deadwood, SD


Shootout play act in mainstreet Deadwood, SD

(Spearfish Canyon, SD July 16, 2010) We left the Mount Rushmore area and drove to Spearfish Canyon to camp for a couple of days. This is a beautiful area and the campground was really nice and quiet with just the sound of the creek lulling us to sleep at night. About 4 miles up the canyon from where we camped scenes from the movie "Dances With Wolves" were filmed.

We took a short trip across into Wyoming to see Devil's Tower which was pretty cool. We hiked the mile and a quarter around the base of it and were able to see about 6 people attempting to climb it. There are science reasons the Tower is formed liked it is, but we liked the Indian story that a giant grizzly clawed the column from top to bottom, hence the long sharp columns that appear somewhat uniform from top to bottom.

From there we drove to Deadwood, Wyoming where Wild Bill Hickock was killed. We hiked the mile uphill to the cemetery where he, Calamity Jane and Seth Bullock are all buried. It's pretty much a tourist trap town and we didn't stay long but we did stay long enough to see the traditional street gunfight demonstration.

Harney Peak Hike

(Black Hills, SD: 16 July 2010) After all the driving and touristy site-seeing we figured it was time for a hike! So, we headed to the Black Elk Wilderness and Custer State Park to climb Harney Peak. At 7,242 ft. Harney Peak is the highest point between east the Rocky Mountains all the way to the Pyrenees Mts in Europe! The climb is steep (about a 1500' gain in 3 miles) and rocky but not too difficult. The view is another amazing sight. We had a picnic lunch up there and watched the oxygen-deprived Least Chipmunks run around like they were crazy. The hike down was much easier. We made it a loop by going a different way and saw the Cathedral Spires, another beautiful Black Hills rock formation. Another remarkable thing about the hike is the number of people we saw. This is a wilderness hike mind you and we must have passed 80-100 people in the 3-4 hours we were on the trail. Families with young kids, older couples (way older than us!)...some hiking in flip-flops no less!

Wall Drug, SD

(Wall, SD: 15 July 2010) From the Badlands we made a touristy stop at Wall Drug which was another one of those places that "they" tell you you "have" to see. A couple started this place in the 1930's as a highway stop for travelers. The trouble is no one stopped. As a last ditch effort to stir up business they put up signs for hundreds of miles in all directions advertising free ice water for all who stopped. This was the 30's and most of the roads out here were still gravel-dirt. That was all it took. People stopped for the free ice water to cut the dust and the rest is history. The place has grown into a real quirky/gimmicky kind of tourist stop that actually was pretty fun. They even had a wall-mounting of a "real" Jackalope! And they still give away free ice-water!

The Badlands, SD

(The Badlands, SD: 16 July 2010) The day after visiting Mt Rushmore in the heart of the Black Hills we headed east to the Badlands. This was a do-it-cause-you're-in-the-area event, not something we planned ahead of time. The Badlands form an interesting transition between the Great Plains and the mountains and they are simply AMAZING. AMAZING in a completely different way than Mount Rushmore. The pictures say it better than words, but what you can't get from the pictures is the size the huge vistas, humongous panoramas of these odd formations of rock, grassland, hills all smashed together and going on for miles and miles and miles.

Custer State Park

(Custer State Park, Custer, SD: 17 July 2010) Custer State Park is absolutely gorgeous. We were thrilled to see buffalo, big horned elk, white tailed deer, prairie dogs, and mules as we drove through the park. Named after George Armstrong Custer, the park encompasses some of the area explored by a Custer led Army expedition in 1874. The US had signed a treaty with the Sioux Nation in 1872 agreeing to not try to take the Black Hills, an area long held sacred by the Sioux and other tribes. Though authorized by the Army, Custer's expedition itself was probably a violation of the treaty. What made matters worse, one of Custer's men found gold in French Creek (picture at very top). That kind of news can't be kept secret. Soon the Black Hills were swarming with miners trying to make it rich. It was only a matter of time before the Army was sent to protect the miners from the Indians. The US broke the treaty and the Indians eventually lost their lands. Custer would die at the Battle of Little Big Horn, in Montana, about 150 miles west of here in 1876. He was killed by the same Indians whose lands had been turned into mining camps in these Black Hills.