Hope for Navigating Life | Help for Navigating Yellowstone
It Changes Everything
The pontoon pulled away from the dock and turned toward the open water where we drifted past brown and pastel cabins tucked into the trees along the shore. Under the influence of the overcast day, that was all there was to see. The sky, typically the star of our...
Why Summer Matters
A tiny ball of feline fluff has taken up residence in our garage. She moved in at the invitation of our youngest, herself a petite bundle of boundless energy. Our girlie made the little grey cat a bed, set up a feeding station, and installed a litter...
The Bird and the Wire
Summer mornings, I walk the gravel line between the drone of highway traffic and the twitter of birds in the pasture. A road that knows few cars and fewer houses, its ditches prosper rabbits and bees and the birds which lay down my...
Celebrating Spring
Spring is well underway and I'm celebrating. Some of these celebrations are borne from intention while others occur as naturally as breath. They are, in random order: Color Green grass and leaves, flowering trees and shrubs are here. They've created a feast for my...
What If?
My husband was away recently for a few days of out-of-town work and instead of going to sleep at reasonable hour, I stayed up and binge read the blog of a writer I'd heard interviewed earlier that day. I read her entire blog--all five years of it--over the course...
One Step Toward Perspective
It's early April, and here in the midwest, already spring's verdant march across the lawn toward the front door is more than a hint or a dream. The bright landscape leaves no question that winter, though it could at any moment clench its frosty fist, has lost its...
The Wonder of Winter
There is a time for everything. I know this. I believe it. The thing is, when a sliver of life overwhelms me, I forget it. I tend to operate on the assumption that whatever is going on in my life--good or bad, joy or sorrow--will last forever. The seasons, especially...
On Breaking Trail
We pulled into the gravel parking lot at the base of Bunsen Peak, piled out, grabbed day packs and water from the back of the vehicle, and set off. Dust had barely begun to accumulate around our ankles when we saw him: a lone bison, a bull, just twenty-five feet off...
Everywhere
We've taken to watching a little football at our house on Sunday afternoons and when the talk turns to the Super Bowl, I remember the day I found some unexpected beauty in Yellowstone. Oh, I expected to find beauty, but not indoors, not around the television, and not...
A Great Deal Of Good
Two Septembers ago my family spent a few weeks in South Dakota. It wasn't a vacation; it was a working trip. My husband tucked us away in the hills and commuted every morning into Rapid City. The kids and I did schoolwork and read and whiled away the remains of the...
A Little Thing
The littlest things make a difference, little things such as bits of scarlet in a tangle of brown on a winter's day. It's often true, what Blaise Pascal wrote: A little thing comforts us because a little thing afflicts us. A little thing can make all the difference....
Roads in Transition, Part 2
On December 12 the National Park Service posted a news release to inform the public that Yellowstone's interior roads would open on December 15, just as predicted. Yellowstone's fall and winter travelers knew when the road crews would start to let the snow build, when...
Room, Or No?
The year I got married, my husband’s mom told me she’d read that the Christmas season brings thirty-nine additional items to a woman’s already overflowing to-do list. At the time I thought the number seemed a wee bit overstated but with age and experience, I've...
Roads in Transition
The sun dawned in the steely sky and peeked through trees veiled by the falling snow. It had begun the night before and lingered, fine and heavy, through the day. “It’s slick,” my son told me when he returned from his mid-day Calc class. I must have looked concerned...
Gifts
Fall is days from turning in its papers for the year but between the early sticking snows and arctic blast I nearly missed it. And not only its existence--I almost missed its gifts. Fall is my favorite season but it just didn't look like its typical self this year....
Anchor
Once in a while, we encounter the remains of a colossal tree on the trail. Sometimes we find an immense trunk laying on the ground rather than stretched to the sky. Usually, though, it's a remnant of a root system tipped into the air that gets our attention. We always...
Before It Blows Away
The screen door crashed and muted footfalls raced across the carpet. “Come outside and look at the sky before it blows away!” called my littlest girl. “Before what blows away?” “The sky, it’s beautiful! But the clouds are moving really fast. I’m afraid you’ll miss...
For When It Rains On Your Parade
A few Saturdays ago, I woke to thunder and began to pray that it wouldn't rain. Seconds later, I realized that it was 6:30 a.m., the time when my post The Best Thing One Can Do was scheduled to land in inboxes, mine included. I wasn't following Longfellow's advice...
Rest Area Closed
Two years ago my family, parents, brother and sister-in-law, nephew and niece, along with the ones who live in my house--the whole tribe—made the drive to our current summer gathering place: Campfire Bay in Minnesota. That was the year that the Minnesota government...
The Road Ahead: October
My oldest childrenwere six and three when Jonah—A Veggie Tales Movie came out. When we went to see it, they hopped down the street toward the theater with glee. All their favorites were on the big screen: Bob the Tomato, Larry the Cucumber, Junior Asparagus, and...
The Intruder
A low rumble of a growl, that’s how it started. Our first camping trip found us buried further down a country road than I had ever traveled, stuck on one of those rural grassy drives between dusty gravel and green pasture. The little red Plymouth Sundance that I...
What’s a Little Rain?
Dad and I went to Yellowstone about a year ago—just the two of us, to the Lamar Buffalo Ranch, for a nature writing class—and we did some hiking and camping along the way. Most of the time, the end-of-August days delighted us with warm sun and cool air, but the...
On Trials Shared
Gary Smalley, founder of the Smalley Relationship Center, says that the secret to a “close-knit relationship is shared experiences that turn into shared trials." He mentions camping as one source for shared trials and a potential relationship-building activity. Makes...
The Road Ahead: September
One Sunday I walked out of church into the late morning sun and noticed a friend's sweet daughter prancing around near the street. She skipped right over to me when I called to her. I got down on one knee so that we could see each other's faces and we talked about...
Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Proverbs 4:26
