Home at last

Arrived back in Duval Sunday night
and basically collapsed for the three days
with fits of cleaning/organizing thrown in 

Bought around 15 containers to hold all my art supplies in the library and reign in the monster which has been residing there for an number of years.

Good to be home. 

Home again - sort of...

Here in Weyburn, 
My Uncle Darrell and Aunt Joyce's 40th anniversary.
Nice end to a long trip 
meeting with lots of family and friends
Home tomorrow afternoon.

Sweet home...

Vancouver

Finally arrived back in Canada last night,
the border guard didn't even ask for any id!
Just 
Where are you from
where have you been , how long
is that a Saskatchewan License plate
Ok thank you...
Hmmm
Good to be home(ish)

Boulder City

Going back a week or so....

left Zion to meet up with Paul Romero and Karen Lundgren in Boulder City Nevada
Tom and Lori had a shoe show in Vegas to attend, so i looked after the kids for a few days
Lake mead (where we camped) was formed by the building of Hoover Dam
and is currently about 20 feet lower than peak levels.

the place is desert and feels barren and so very foreign
hot and dry
The air conditioner actually worked so hard it froze up
and had to be defrosted
Took the kids to the pool,
Went to Bonnie Springs
a re-enactment of an old western town
complete with hangings and gunfights.
Mackenzie was in fine form
taunting the gunslingers to shoot him and then running
behind either myself or his siblings
I took some footage of the gunfight.
Also there was a petting zoo
where we were able to feed birds and turtles

Hoover dam was amazing
the amount of work required to create it
the massive scale
and amount of water it holds back
I crossed several of the aqueducts which stem from it
while heading North through the Californian deserts
water so important
and our next political test
they will be coming for our water
for this dry and thirsty land

every day we would go swimming
either in the pool at Boulder City or in Lake mead
the water levels are so much lower
that the sand dumped in to form a beach
is now 1/2 mile up from the waterline
the bottom is mud and rock

Mackenzie had found an aerobie frisbee on the bottom of the lake
and was quite proud of himself
only to loose his grip on it while swimming and had it disappear again
Some time after that Mackenzie and Jackson
in usual form were alternately fighting/playing and confusing the two
When Max starts screaming
"I lost my shorts, I lost my shorts"
seems Jackson had pulled them off of him
and now they too like the aerobie were gone.
Max was alternately laughing/distressing over this situation
though several butt revealing surface dives documented the level of his concern
we wrapped him in a towel and made it back to the van without incident
Quite a funny time

The next day after a long tour of Hoover
we rolled back in for another swimming session
Emma, having become quite fond of collecting clamshells
was divng again and again for them
the boys were some distance off doing their own diving,
though not for shells, but
for mud with which to assault each other
After many dives
Emma surfaces with a big grin on her face
"I found Mackenzie's shorts" she exclaims
Stunned i stare at the red and white trunks in her hand
and break out laughing
Max hears this and comes to see
before he can get there
we stuff the pockets full of clamshells
and when he arrives tell him that while the shorts were underwater
the clams moved into them
His mouth gapes in astonished wonder at this news
His siblings help him figure it out.

God is so amazing at helping us find things we've lost
Like our childhoods and innocence again

After giving over the shorts Emma dove again
and came up with a dollar bill from the bottom
Truely amazing!

The rewards of persistence

Here in Washington

I'm always astounded at the beautiful places God provides
This home on the banks of the Columbia river
So lush and beautiful
a place being renewed
the old house being renovated and done right
the yard full of berries and the old trees from a historic orchard
now grown over.
fresh blackberries and plums baked in a tart
A place of refreshing and calm
to rest and catch up with myself
assess and breathe

Monday off to Vancouver BC.
One week left

I guess I'm getting tired

Written on the 9th August 2006

Into what do I go>?

Another long drive,
for what I ask
This all seems so selfish
this trip
this journey
all about me
have I helped any
Have I led any closer to you Lord?
I fear not

Cable cars in San Fransisco
glimpsed from behind the glass of my van
It's been a long day
driving to get to another campsite after dark,
another place arrived unseen
to be discovered in the morning.

I've felt like you brought me to the desert Lord,
but here I've lost contact with you
lost even the thought of you
just drive
drive on
and drive more
No more lonely drives Lord,
You said I was not built this way
"It is not good for man to be alone"

Yet in so many marriages I see no good in being together
Why is it that way lord?

I'm in Northern California
Near Westwood on the coast
I'm expecting dawn to be incredible
Yet I'm heartbroken at being on this trip alone.

This leg of the trip has turned into rushing to get to where I know there are
friends waiting for me.
I don't care about the stuff inbetween

I skipped almost the entire coast of California up til this point
No one there to meet me
No one to share it with except vicariously online
and that is not enough
No hand to hold at the beauty
no shared words at the marvels
Nothing but the same internal monologue
trying to describe new experiences

How to be alone?

when the world demands you hook up
enveloping yourself in another
even if it only lasts a day, a week, a moment
you can throw them off like an old coat
and pick up a new one at the outlet mall

I hear the waves crashing
past the edge of the bluff I am camped on
Like hopes I have for the future
I wonder what they will look like
and what the shore has become because of them
Find out tomorrow i guess.

Time for sleep

Lots to catch up on from the days past.
So very much
Mexico
Las Vegas
Boulder City, Lake mead

1-Aug-06 Angels Landing

Sunday July 30

got up early this morning
and heading up for a last hike in Zion

To climb 1500 feet up to the top of
Angels Landing
The peak on the right in the picture
One of the most strenuous paths in the park
Pretty much the exact opposite of the canyon hike
long steep trails up the side of a mountain
with a view of the larger Zion canyon

most of the trail was in shade
and starting at 7:30am was a good idea
parts of the trail were less than three feet across
with a straight drop of around 1000 feet

The weather was wonderful
light clouds and cool morning air

1-Aug-06 Still more Zion

Still more Zion

Saturday July 29
Today went canyoneering for the first time ever
This feels like the best day of my life

Spry Canyon

Met with Rob, Tom's teammate for the upcoming race in Baja
who took us early this morning on a most phenomenal trip
I had no idea what to expect
Tom told me that we were going to rappell into a canyon and then hike out
what a rappell and what a hike

We entered a wide canyon and hiked up and across some dry slippery slickrock
up over a crest and then dropped down into a slot canyon
a deep narrow cleft in the mountain
carved by years of water rushing through in the short heavy monsoon season rains

Incredible beauty around every turn
Rob told us that there were 13 rappels on this route
WOW
Some of them would be over 100 feet

The first rappel was a steep slope,
with a pool half way down
and another pool at the bottom
I thought to myself,
this is pretty easy
and took the first trip down
It had been a couple years since climbing
and then only on the wall at Arlington

The next series however,
Narrow cracks,
Anchors attached to logs which had jammed in those narrow cracks
Deep unavoidable pools at the bottoms
one of which we had to swim with our packs and harnesses on
And drops down past overhangs where all you had was the rope and your trust in it.
no wall to place your feet on
dangling 75+ feet in the air
What a scary, exciting feeling

At the bottom of one rappel
Tom went first and managed to miss entirely the pool at the bottom
I came down next and went in up to my thighs
Linda was third and asked us how deep it was
we both related our experiences
and she attempted to swing over closer to the exit
stepped down and fell backwards
onto we thought her butt in shallow water
because she was in up to her shoulders
We laughed hard
until she said she couldn't touch the bottom
She was Standing up!
at this point our laughter was almost disabling
as she clambered out onto the sand
Rob finished coming down
and was scouting the next drop
while Tom started pulling the rope down
part way into the task
Rob stopped him and said we might need the rope attached to the upper anchor
to continue down
one end of the rope was already out of reach
in the attempt to retrieve it Tom fell into the same hole
only his was total submersion
in some pretty stagnant water
Linda had the last laugh

I never thought I would have such an amazing opportunity
The entire hike took around 7 hours
I'd do it again in a heartbeat