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Taido posting today…
I had another post sort of set and ready to go, but it was way too colored by the sense of incompleteness I’m feeling in being separated from Alison for two weeks. While I’m certain you would have loved insight into what has sometimes been described as a slightly inaccessible psyche, that day is not today.
However, I would like to acknowledge what a rare and wonderful gift this summer has been for me. This journey began largely because a group of saints saw fit to extend to me (and my family) a study sabbatical. Funny how those words – ‘study’ and ‘sabbatical’ – which had such a romantic ring to them at the beginning of the summer now sound like a contradiction of terms.
And yet, it was with eager expectancy that I looked forward to the opportunity to read and research and be stretched in my appreciation for the intricacy and splendor of the Scriptures. Never mind the fact that most people here spend six months to a year to write their theses. I was confident that I would have it all ‘wrapped-up’ by the time I headed home.
But with each passing week, I became more and more aware of how little I knew and how ill-prepared I was for the task at hand. So as the end of summer loomed larger and larger, I had to face the reality that despite many long hours of study, I was not going to be ‘done.’ While painfully humbling (and those who know me will see that as a welcome development), the time spent investing myself deeply in study has not been without lasting reward. With any luck, I’ll finish the thesis around the time Simon graduates from high school.
My life has been enriched both from the stretching and the humbling, but the biggest lesson has taken more time to learn. From the outset, I was eagerly looking forward to the vacation/road-trip/camp-out of a lifetime. With the beauty of the Pacific Northwest as our backdrop, the setting couldn’t have been better. Mountains and oceans. Hiking and biking. Stories and campfires. Wandering from one spectacular destination to the next. A new adventure at every turn.
An entire summer spent ‘living the dream’ and being together.
And they are, of course, one and the same. This deep need that each of us has to be with another. That truth wasn’t found in any of my books (or the countless footnotes). It was a lesson learned on the trail, in the pop-up, around the table, amongst the homeless, over coffee, through gmail, in state parks, and right here at “chino house.” And with this realization, I’ve had to un-learn that ‘the dream’ must be found somewhere else or in doing something else.
Instead, the dream will resume for me in a couple days… with my family… at home… surrounded by people who love and are loved… amidst a community of faith striving to live the much larger dream… together.
Here’s an understatement for ya…
My kids are ready to be home.
We’ve been on the road since Memorial Day weekend, and they are just done. Done. Mary Polly has been lobbying for several days now to just drive nonstop until we get there. The boys seem to be communicating their readiness to be out of the car by constant fighting and/or whining. The noise level in the van was beginning to be unbearable, and it was threatening to put Mother and Daddy over the edge. So, yesterday morning Daddy cut up a Yellowstone flyer and gave each child three “tickets.” He said he was going to take away a ticket every time someone made an ugly noise from now on and when we stop to eat, you have to have a ticket to get out and eat with us.
Here’s what qualifies as an ugly noise.
Tattling
Fighting
Whining
Asking too many questions
Hitting
So far, though many tickets have been lost, no one has had to miss a meal yet. And there seems to be less fighting. So maybe we’ll make it the rest of the way home without anyone losing an arm.
Let’s just say that blogging from the road in the last week or so has been a challenge. Besides the previously mentioned computer issues (toddlers and laptops are a bad combination), we have been on the go in a way that has just not allowed for finding internet or even writing. Let me see if I can paint the picture for you.
Aug 19
Woke up in Bellingham, Washington
Fell asleep in Jasper, Alberta
Aug 21
Woke up in Jasper, Alberta
Fell asleep in Lake Louise, Alberta
August 23
Woke up in Banff, Alberta
Fell asleep in Glacier National Park, Montanta
August 24
Woke up in Glacier National Park, Montana
Fell asleep in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
August 25
Woke up in Yellowstone
Fell asleep in Hoback, Wyoming
Today
Woke up in Wyoming
Going to sleep in Park City, Utah (in a house!) at a friend of my parents.
Get out a map and look. It’s insane. I’m not even going to try to describe all we have seen. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. When we crossed the border from Alberta into Montana, Daddy said, Well, we just finished our long detour on the road home, was it worth it? We all said that Yes, it was worth it. It was not without incident, but it was definitely worth it. Amazing scenery and loads of animal sightings vs. lots of hours in the van and Transition Day every day. I’d have to say that it was Lake Louise that tipped the scales in favor of the grand detour.
Sorry, I’m not a very good blog hijacker. More like a sit-in. Anyway, the Glaciers and Grizzlies post from Alison is likely the last we’ll have from her before the epic journey wraps up on Friday.
Don’t worry. Everyone is ok. Everyone that is except for the ‘loaner’ laptop. You may remember that earlier in the summer some Seattle-ite took it upon him (or herself) to un-encumber us of our brand new laptop. A generous family member sent a spare computer our way, and the posts have been coming steady ever since.
Until a couple of days ago.
One of the bears that Alison mentioned mauled the unsuspecting VAIO.
Actually, no.
It was mishandled near a glacier and it was swallowed up by a crevasse.
That’s not quite true either.
A well aimed Sigg bottle cast from the hand of an impetuous two year old brought on the ultimate ‘Shut Down.’ I’m not kidding. That is the one-hundred percent truth.
I promise.
TC posting…
No, this isn’t a Martha Stewart tip. Just me giving a shout out to Donald Miller for his prayer at the DNC.
We haven’t actually seen any grizzlies (yet?) but the alliteration was just too good to pass up.
I am currently in the Canadian Rockies with my four children and my parents. Oh yes, Taido got a relief driver and gave us the slip so he could study without interruption for the final two weeks. So far he has missed a lot of time in the van on the road with insanely loud Chinos and several nights of setting up, camping and taking down in the rain. I know he’s really kicking himself.
On the bright side, we have seen five bears. We saw a mama bear and her two cubs climbing down from a tree. We watched them for almost half an hour. It was amazingly sweet. The kids went nuts. Even Simon was pointing excitedly.
And today, we drove the stunning Icefields Parkway from Jasper to Banff. We got enough breaks in the rain to see the glaciers and waterfalls all along the way. Mary Polly, Daddy and I even hiked the short trail up from the road to touch the toe of the Athabasca Glacier. The boys response when asked if they wanted to hike up and see a glacier, I don’t want to hike anymore. It’s too cold. Whine. Whine. My reply, Fine then. MP and I got stuck in some glacial silt. Both of her shoes came off and Daddy had to carry her back to the car. We were all covered in this gray muddy substance before it was over with. I’m not sure my poor beloved hiking boots will ever recover. Still, we touched a glacier. The path up was fascinating because it had markers where the glacier used to be according to years, showing how much it has receded since 1885 and on up to 1992. You hear about the glaciers shrinking, but it was crazy to actually see it. The markers where it used to be. It’s sad.
Actually we saw a lot of sad exhibitions today on how our lifestyle affects the earth. Lots on global warming. And then we also read a lot about the danger to the animal habitats that the throng of visitors is every year. The kids watched this sad movie about a grizzly bear whose comfort around people eventually lead to its death. And there was a book about another similar bear. I had read in my guidebook that they are trying hard to do more to protect the area’s grizzly population, and we definitely saw evidence of that today. There are trails that are closed this time of year because they are part of the grizzlies’ grazing grounds. The kids were all impacted by all the protecting animal wildlife propaganda. They are all about the plight of the bears right now. And not so much about learning the facts about glaciers, which is ahem, what I told them we were learning today.
ME: Everyone tell me three things you learned about glaciers today.
COLE: Ummmmm, I forgot already.
BEN: Glaciers are cold.
MARY POLLY: You can get your shoe stuck in the mud if you hike up to a glacier.
We are really making up for all these missed days of school, I tell you. Maybe their teachers will only ask them about bears.
This is a blog hijacking!
Alison and the kids hit the road yesterday, leaving me all by my lonesome at the Bellingham train station. It took me pretty much the rest of the day to recover from the shock of watching my family pull away in the BMV with pop-up in tow. It was so early that it was still dark. And it was raining. Get the picture?
And now, I’m back in Vancouver for two weeks to finish up my studies at Regent. But the blow of abandonment was softened some by my Vancouver hosts, who are redefining the word ‘hospitality.’
But they – that is Alison and the kids – are currently deep in the Canadian Rockies with little hope of ever finding internet or anything else approximating civilization. Jasper, Banff, Glacier NP, Utah, Colorado Rockies, then back home. So we may or may not be hearing from Alison for a while.
That’s why I’m taking over. I really won’t have much to say. I tend to be the strong silent type. Anyway, if you are not nice, I’ll post pages from my thesis up here. And we don’t want that to happen, now do we?
One last note… I failed to mention that Alison is not alone with the four kids in the hinterlands of Canada. She’s adventurous, but not crazy. Her parents flew in Monday, and they are escorting her back to life, love, and learning on Cedar Street.
you know you’ve found our campsite when you see the row of hanging “g” and bum genius diapers. years from now when i don’t change diapers anymore, i imagine i will still remember the diaper rainbow that hung on the camp clothesline this entire summer.
So we didn’t have our new camera yet when a mosquito turned Simon into a miniature boxer in Crater Lake, so we arranged for it to happen again last week at North Cascades National Park. Only believe it or not, it was worse last time.
He is drinking his soy milk from a new cup we got at Starbucks last week that says on it I went everywhere today. Surely no other two year old could possibly be more worthy to drink from this cup.
Friday morning
August 15, 2008
I woke up early this morning to the smell of coffee. I peeked out of my sleeping bag to see if Taido was gone yet. He took off before we were awake, not to study as usual, but to answer the call of the Cascade glaciers that has grown so loud in his heart that it must have been ringing in his ears to the point of making him irritable. We have hiked all week, but we have not climbed a real mountain. To be honest, the kids are sick of hiking, and since we don’t want to risk their abandoning such a blessed pursuit altogether in rebellion against us, Taido left to make a real climb on his own this morning, unable to talk anyone into getting up early with him and making the ascent.
So I stayed in my sleeping bag and finished the book I’ve been reading in the early morning light. After over and hour of reading in the quiet camper, I closed my finished book and rolled back up into my bag, thinking about how this morning, this day will probably be the last of its kind for a very long time.
Tomorrow we head early for Seattle to set up camp and see old friends. Then Mary Polly and I have an early morning boat to Victoria to catch on Sunday. My parents arrive on Monday. Tuesday we will say goodbye to Taido and set off for home. The long way. We will have wonderful adventures. I prayed this morning that the van would make it through them all and bring us safely home. Where re-entry promises to be a little harsh. School and the central time zone are calling. Driving to football and piano. Fixing food for a crowd in my kitchen. Hot fall weather. I may not sit with a book in my camp chair again until sometime in November when we go on our annual fall camping weekend.
Of course, right now I am so looking forward to all these things. I would be lying if I didn’t say there have been many moments in the last weeks when I have dug around in the van for the calendar so I could actually physically with my finger, count the days. I am ready to be back at my table, welcoming and feasting and loving and being loved.
But today. I am going to enjoy the last slow day of our summer. Relish the opportunity to finish a book in one sitting. To ride a bike around the loop. To watch a Stellar Jay dart to and fro. To share a bowl of trail mix with my nine year old. Maybe wash and hang a few diapers. Break up a couple of fights. I have no mountains to climb today, and I am just fine with that.
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