~along the road to home~

     Good morning dear friends and family from our home  along the Western Slopes of the Centennial State of Colorado.  It's early here and not even Sally the dog is stirring long enough to beg me to let her outside for a bit.  My guess is that she is tucked in safe and sound underneath our bed and that she's catching up on her rest too. As for me, and I'm sure for Mike as well, it was good to be back sleeping in our own  bed after a week's worth of travelling to the Pacific Northwest and the west coast of this great nation of ours.  I got a pretty good night's slumber last night and today it is back to school/back to work for the both of us.  I have missed the "18" and I am ready to meet them once again this morning.

     I cannot even begin to imagine where the last nine days have went.  Shoot, one day I'm at the Montrose airport saying "good-bye and see you in California" to Mike and the next day I'm sitting here shaking my head in wonder, understanding full well the saying "time flies".  I had a wonderful visit with my son and daughter-in-law while in Washington State and met my brand new, one-month old granddaughter, Catherine Lois for the first time.  After visiting their home, I flew mid-week  to Ontario, California where Mike met me at the airport and from there we drove  to Twentynine Palms.  There I met members of my Renfro Family and what a joy it was to connect to people that I had only heard about from Mike.  We began our journey back home to Montrose early on Saturday morning and arrived back here mid-morning yesterday.  A trek of nearly 2,000 miles for me was completed, praise the good Lord above without incident or problem.  I'm most thankful for that blessing.

     There were lots of things I learned along the way and perhaps shall write of them in blog posts to come.  For this day, I am choosing for this post to be a pictorial one of some of the memories that are now tucked deep into my heart.  It was a little expensive to take this trip but I learned long ago what probably you have learned as well and that is that "money comes, money goes".  It was most worth it to me to have done this, what a gift to have gone. 

"What a blessing to finally hold a sweet little one-month old baby who has become my very first grandchild.  Even though we live so very far apart from one another, I will carry her with me in my heart for as long as I shall live."

"I'm glad for the chance to have met her, to listened to her cries and to see the little smile that came across her dear face from time to time.  She held on to one of "old lefty's" fingers tightly and that felt so nice.  Even a little baby can offer the healing power of the "human touch" without even knowing it.  They do it because it just comes naturally to them."

"The view to be seen from along the road near their home.  It reminded me a bit of my journey to Maine a couple of years back and the mountains put me in mind of Colorado.  There was nothing that looked like Kansas there but then again, it's not supposed to!

"It was nice to meet Mike's step-mother, Maggie Renfro and to be a guest at her home in Twentynine Palms.  She's an artist, such a good one and she taught me how to do some origami while I was there.  I'm not much of a creator of things but I surely do admire those who are."

"This is Mike with his Uncle Mike, Aunt Marli and Maggie.  I was so glad to finally be able to meet all of them, good folks who opened up their homes to people sojourning from places far away.  We got to see Mike's cousin Erin as well.  Now we are strangers no more."

"We made the trip to the Joshua Tree National Monument in Twentynine Palms while we were there.  Although I could never live in the desert, there are many beautiful things there.  I was reminded just how topographically varied our country is and gained a great respect for the people who live in the drought stricken state of California."

"Holy cow, we weren't in Kansas OR Colorado.  We were driving smack dab, right straight through the great Mojave Desert, something I had only heard of before this trip."

"We made a side trip off of the beaten path to visit the Grand Canyon in Arizona.  We were witnesses to God's creation of this vast and most stunning place.  It was my first time to see it and some day I will return again.  If you haven't seen it yet, it's definitely worth the time to get there."

"Dang it!  We were thirty minutes late to the Four Corners Monument but at least could take our photo at the sign marking the entrance to the park.  It's really not all that far from where we are here in Montrose so we'll return sometime this summer and visit it again.  Kind of a weird feeling to see the signs announcing your presence in four states simultaneously.  In Kansas, much of our winter weather began in this region of the world and marched its way across to dump snow or other winter time precipitation upon us in the Sunflower State."

"I was so happy that Mike was able to bring back many of his late father's belongings this trip out.  One of the things he packed into our car was the flag and plaque from his dad's retirement from the Navy back in 1973.  Although I never got the chance to meet him, I have grown to know him through his son."

"From the days of my youth, the sign I left on the beach at Whidbey Island.  If it were against the law to make a peace symbol in the sand, I'd gladly do it regardless and by the way, I'd be SURE to sign my name to it.  It's timeless and STILL the hope of a world filled with conflict and strife.  Who knows?  Perhaps some day we shall see it come to pass."