Lessons from Yellowstone (+ Yellowstone Guides)
Cicada Song
Every summer the cicadas sing their song. Every summer it starts too soon. Every summer it makes me sad. It made sense when I was young. The cicada’s song signaled school’s imminent return. I enjoyed school, so maybe it didn’t make sense, but as a child, it was the...
On Finding an Abiding Strangeness
Mom and Dad first took my brother and me to Yellowstone when he was eight and I, twelve, to show us a world away from our little town but the showing began long before we packed the car and went west. When I was young we lived for a short time on my grandparents’...
For This Summer: Letting it Go
Each summer we gather with my husband’s family at his parents' house. We converge on their home in vehicles stuffed with people and dogs, books and toys, luggage and anticipation. Mixed among all those are the lingering imprints of our lives. I can pack. What I can't...
When We Make Our Way Back
The last fight between my brother and I involved a fun-size Snickers bar. We were on our way out for a day of downhill skiing and both had our eye the same treat. He was twenty. I was twenty-four. We fought over candy. Travel has a way of bringing it out in people. It...
For This July: Lifelong Learning
A few months ago, Emily at Chatting at the Sky wrote a post about what she had learned during the previous month. Her list was filled with the serious and the lighthearted and it made me wonder what, if anything, I was learning. By the end of the day, I had my own...
A Hiker’s Tale
On a lovely day, when our family was driving from one place to another, we detoured through a state park. It was a good day for a hike, so we got out of the car and onto the trail. It began atop a meadowy ridge where we walked together until the trail turned downward....
Waiting for the Pool to Fill
We wore the road to Norris thin. Home to a geyser our family favored, it was a must-stop. Every time. Echinus’ eruption cycle was short, thirty-five to seventy-five minutes. A half-mile path through the woods led to the broad depression in the earth that was its pool....
Of Recipes and Risk
My brother and I were just a little finicky when we were young. We didn’t like oatmeal. We hated onions. We loathed sandwiches. And what is typical lunch fare for a family at a national park picnic area between hikes? Sandwiches. Eventually, we grew out of it and now...
Part of the Journey
Even though Mom and Dad first took us to the mountains when we were little, little enough that my brother and I had matching blue and white jackets, it wasn't until we went to Yellowstone that we really hiked. Our early forays on the trail were not entirely...
What Do May Flowers Bring?
If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring? Pilgrims, of course. Of all the cards I have received in my life, you would think I would remember one more profound. No. I remember this. A silly joke that comes to mind more often than seems right does...
For This May: Progress
Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress no matter how slow. ~ Plato At nine o'clock one year ago tonight, my Dad inched his way through our door, upper body resting heavily on a walker, toes laboring to do the work that his missing hip...
Perspective
It could be anything – a soccer game, a wedding – and if it is to be held outdoors, the weather becomes a plot driving character in the day’s story. Like the girl from the nursery rhyme, when it’s good, it is really, really good, but when it’s bad? It might not be...
For This Spring
Because we like snow, we watched it swirl through the branches of the tree that sits between our house and the pond. My daughter spotted a robin – our first of the year – perched on a branch, proof that winter will yield to spring. It will release its hold on the land...
For This March: Great Expectations
It’s hard to beat the Tetons. They are beautiful. It is easy to see why people would be in a hurry to arrive. Even so, there is beauty in the delay, if only we will slow down long enough to see it. Once, when we had driven up into Yellowstone from the Tetons, we met a...
A Tree’s Tale
My husband is a mountain goat, climbing and clinging to the unlikeliest of spots with ease. Our children take after him and as soon as they are able, they scramble after him. Those poor, sad souls who aren’t yet able to climb with their daddy stay behind with me, and...
A Good Name
Last summer I met the son of a favorite great-uncle. My whole family was staying at a Minnesota fishing resort and when he came by, I, because I don’t like to meet people, at first let my mom go greet her cousin by herself. Eventually, though, I decided to be a...
For This February: a Look Back
I made a discovery this morning, the kind of morning that takes place in the middle of the night. The wind from the snow storm woke me up and because it is pointless to live with snow if I am not going to enjoy it, I got up, happy just to be awake while the snow fell....
Bends in the Road
I found myself staring at my computer screen, rather shocked at what I had written. What had started out as a simple story about my little girl’s foray into the world with her Pa and how it carried over into our family’s life on the trail had turned, unbidden, into...
On Finding It
Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Matthew 7:13-14 I think this is the road...
On Vision and Purpose
Three simple verbs for this new year: Restore. Retrain. Remember. To remember is the most difficult. Three reminders for the new year: From the Word: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk...
For This New Year
Last January it occurred to me that I was without focus so I decided it was time to set some goals and get myself back on track. I stuck with this quest for about a month before my enthusiasm waned and it all got set aside. I told myself that things had just gotten...
Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Proverbs 4:26
