Endings and Beginnings

Well, I realized I have not blogged in some time. No particular reason – just not much noteworthy going on I guess. It was a good summer – we enjoyed our family and all the activities in our valley – the music and cultural events were wonderful. There have been some community concerns – discord and contention - which has not added to our peace and tranquility but life goes on and as long as we move ahead, things generally work out OK. Because of that we took several trips over the last few months. We went camping 3 times up in our Canyon – to 3 separate campgrounds. And learned to enjoy our camper and relax. We also took two trips to Yellowstone. The first one we went with our friends, Mark and Carolyn Baird. We have known them since our California days and enjoy traveling together at least once a year. The second time we went on our own and took some hikes and because it was around the second week of September we were able to see many of the animals who live in the park. Huge herds of Bison, some Elk and even two wolves!

This week we just returned from a week long + trip to the Canadian Rockies. I had heard form years about Banff National Park at Alberta and wanted to see the area and Lake Louise. So we took off passports in hand. What a good time we had. The people were gracious and the country is beautiful. The wonderful beauties of the area did not let us down and we saw waterfalls, glacial lakes, rushing rivers, glaciers, ice fields and one lone Elk or Caribou we were not sure which. We decided to drive all the way up to Jasper, located about as far north as Edmonton AB. That area was beautiful also and each corner turned offered a new place to explore.

The only drawback for us was the cost. We knew the exchange rate was not in our favor but only by about 5 cents. But the price and cost of things was so high! We paid well over $5 a gallon for gas by the time we figured out the computation from liter to gallon. Something about our Scotch/Irish nature rebelled at paying so much for the ordinary things. One sad and one happy thing occurred in September. The sad thing is that our grand daughter, Katie and her husband Nate moved to Pennsylvania (Nate graduated with his Masters and found work there) and they took their baby, Porter with them! We are going to miss that family beyond measure! The happy thing is that our grand daughter Rachel told us she is expecting another baby in April! Their Noah will be 2 in March, so life moves on.

We are beginning to realize that we are now the older generation for sure. It is strange to know that we are in the last decade(s) of our lives. But for now we are going to enjoy this time in our lives and find ways to serve and be happy.