~and we wonder where it all went~

And so tomorrow the calendar shall turn the page to "October".  My only question is this.

"Where did the first 9 months of 2015 go?

It is now well over 4 months since Mike and I arrived here for a new life in the Lone Star state of Texas.  It was a wet and chilly Sunday morning when we pulled out of the driveway back in our old home in Montrose, Colorado and headed southwest.

800 miles to the southwest.

I remember breathing a sigh of relief to have made it up and over the 12,000 feet summit of Monarch Mountain.  The snow and ice was still up there, even though summertime (at least by the calendar) was only 3 weeks away.  When we came down to the bottom and headed towards the beautiful town of Salida, I realized that no longer would I have to worry about whether or not that old mountain pass would stand in the way of my getting to wherever I wanted to go.  That worry was now over and from the Atlantic Ocean side of the great Continental Divide, the journey looked to be smooth sailing all the way.

For all intents and purposes, it was.

For the last 94 days we have made our home here in Texas.  We have begun to learn what we need to know in order to survive here.  No longer do we marvel at the mention of sweet tea in every other sentence and believe it or not, once in awhile I have caught myself uttering the strange word "y'all".  We feel to home here.  It seems as if Kansas is just a short distance away and when you are used to driving over 12 hours to get home from the mountains, the 5 hours that it takes now are a slice of that proverbial "piece of cake".  For that I am most thankful.  

But where has the time gone?

January of 2015-The sheep came down from the high country to graze and clean out the alfalfa fields next to our old country home.  What a sight to see!  I miss that once in a while.  We didn't even know that we would be moving away come the summer.

February of 2015-We took Sally for a walk one very snowy and cold Saturday afternoon.  Still we had no inclination of what would lie ahead of us.  Soon we were to find out.

March of 2015-We began to think about moving to Texas for a variety of reasons.  Job security for both of us was at the top of the list.  Still we had no idea where we would land, only that Montrose would soon no longer be our home.  I began to realize that I would have to say "good bye" to a wonderful bunch of first graders.  These special little ones were only a few of them.  

April of 2015-Finally we narrowed down the choice of where to move to the general vicinity of Wichita Falls, Texas.  It was time to begin to pack up, sell what we really didn't want to take with us, say our farewells, and prepare ourselves for the changes that would lie ahead.  We paid one last visit to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and marveled that the snow was still on the ground up there.

May of 2015-3 garage sales, a couple of hundred moving boxes, so many sad "good byes", and one moving truck later, we were ready to leave.  Neither of us have looked back.  Ever.

The final 3 months of 2015 will undoubtedly race by us and soon we'll be sitting here looking 2016 square in the eye.  Mike and I both remarked the other evening that it seems like time speeds by here in Texas even more quickly than it did in Colorado or surely even in Kansas.  Not sure what to make of our observation, only to remind ourselves that we should live our lives to the fullest each and every day.  One thing remains for sure.

Time flies as you are living this thing called "life".

~it was a sight to behold~

Sometimes you just have to choose between two things.
Stuff that really needs to be done tomorrow and the stuff that won't be around again for a long, long time.

Fortunately I had the good sense to choose catching a glimpse of the lunar eclipse two evenings ago.  I was doing a whole lot of paper grading that Sunday evening and even though I'd heard it was going to be happening, I had forgotten until it had already started.  Thankfully I'd received a reminder from a friend who asked if I was indeed sitting outside and taking in the sights.  Since I was not, there was only one thing to do.

I told Mike on my way out the front door that we had forgotten about the eclipse and that I was going out to watch.  A moment or two later, Mike joined me with Sally the dog and together for the next 20 minutes or so we gazed up into the heavens and watched that beautiful full moon seemingly disappear.  From our vantage point on the front porch we could see it happening right before our very eyes.  The beautiful nighttime sky here in our part of Texas was virtually cloud free and with the evening temperatures in the 70's, it was a perfect evening to be a witness to God's wonderful creation of the moon and the stars.

We tried to take pictures but with our little phone cameras the images didn't come out as well as we would have hoped for.  After several attempts we did get a couple of them that were pretty fair.  One thing I have learned in the recent years of my life is that sometimes the best photos will never be taken with expensive cameras.  Rather, those kind of photos that will remain with you forever, unfaded with the passage of time or accidentally deleted from a cell phone, are those that will be taken and stored within your heart.

The next full moon lunar eclipse will appear once again in 2033 in the 78th year of my life.  The papers that I was grading that evening were mostly finished when I got back in and the remainder were taken care of yesterday morning at school.  In retrospect, I have come to one conclusion.

I'm glad that I chose the right thing to do.
It's all about in how you look at things.

This was my message to Mike this morning in our daily journal that we keep with one another.

Back home in south-central Kansas, atop the highest mountains of Colorado, or here on the plains of Texas, that old moon was a sight to behold.

~take care~

With just slightly over a month before my 60th birthday arrives, I have come to one startling conclusion.  

The time flew~

I've been sick this week.  A couple of times I began to believe that they made the old saying "sick as a dead dog" just for me.  After coming home Saturday evening from a great two day visit to Kansas, by Sunday my nearly 6 decades old body began to ache.  Big time.  I had no fever and only just a slight cough but I simply felt horrible and I wasn't sure what had hit me.  Sunday was a blur and after sleeping away most of the day, you'd think I'd have been better but I was not.  Even though I went to school on Monday, I ended up coming home at noon and sleeping away the rest of that day too.  By Tuesday things were slightly better and although I'm still fighting a crazy cough, I believe I'm on the mend.  

For now.
Until the next bout comes once again.

All of my life I have been a good one to practice that proverbial "burning the candle at both ends" approach to things.  It seemed I was never really satisfied unless I was doing a dozen things, sometimes simultaneously.  I could manage it in my younger years but as the years have flown by I have noticed that it takes a whole lot less time to get my body stressed out and a whole lot more time to recover once I get sick.  You'd think there would be a lesson in there somewhere but as of yet, this school teacher has failed to learn it.

My blog post message to you all this morning is short and sweet.

Please dear friends take care of yourselves.  Even in a time when there are nearly always a thousand things to do each day on our own "to do" lists, there is not a one of them that cannot wait until tomorrow (or next week for that matter) to be done.  Some of them can actually be scratched altogether. There is no chore that will ever be more important than taking care of your health. 

From here in the land called "Texhoma" I am alive and nearly well.  I pray the same for you dear friends and family wherever you may be.  Welcome to Thursday, September 24th, 2015, one very great day to be alive in.  Rejoice and give thanks.

The little nine year old girl that I used to be often times got sick.  There were the regular old childhood diseases of that day like chicken pox, measles (both kinds), and mumps.  I got them all.  Yet the worst kind ever was the whooping cough and even though I was only 4 years old, I remember it as if it happened only yesterday.  There were so many times that I'm sure that my parents worried that I'd stop breathing while I was coughing but I made it.  Because of all I went through as a little kid, I have always been a firm believer in vaccinations.  I wish those kinds of things would have been around to help me and a whole lot of other kids who had to endure those awful diseases.  Despite everything, I have had the most wonderful life.

~and one of those people was me~

It was a beautiful day in Sedgwick County, Kansas for yesterday's annual "Walk to Defeat ALS" of 2015.  I made the quick journey home to join my sister-in-law, nephew, and other friends to walk in memory of my late brother, Mike Scott of Haven, Kansas.  I was so very thankful that I did.

There is something very heartwarming and most poignant about seeing the placards of all those folks who have experienced the heartache of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or more commonly called ALS.  The signs bearing their names and photos lined the sidewalks in the area around the Waterfront on the eastern side of town, giving testament to the fact that Lou Gehrig's disease isn't particular about who it affects.  Men or women, young or old, rich or poor, it doesn't really matter.  When ALS strikes, it does so with a vengeance .  Right now there is no cure yet researchers continue to try and find the manner in which it begins and how its progression goes.  

May there some day be a cure.

This was my 3rd time to be able to walk the slightly over mile long route and even though I had to drive 5 hours from here in Texas to be able to do so, it was so very well worth it.  Each year it seems as if the number of walkers grows steadily larger and sadly, the number of signs erected to honor both those living with ALS and those who have already passed away from it grows larger as well.

It bears repeating over and over again.  
May there some day be a cure.

The sky was a beautiful color of robin's egg blue with a smattering of white clouds floating in it.  There was a bit of a breeze and the temperatures remained quite pleasant in the mid 60's.  It was nice to get the chance to visit with a dear friend named Lori from back in our days of growing up in Haven.  Lori joined us for the walk yesterday and how wonderful it was to know that she cared enough to take the time out of her busy Saturday to do so.  

At about the quarter mile mark we came upon my brother's sign with his picture placed upon it.  I love that photo of happier times for him as he flashed the "peace" sign for all to see.  Whenever I see that sign,  it's as if he is sending a message to us all.

"Don't worry about me.  I'm ok.  Hey, I am even better than ok!"

This year we left him some of our own personal messages on his sign and actually that felt kind of nice to do.  It's been 8 years now since he left us and even though we miss him each day and continue to love him still, time went on.  Life went on as well.

I have about 12,000 gazillion hours of work ahead of me this day with more things to accomplish than I will ever be able to in the course of one day.  Being gone for two days to Kansas will tell on me "big time" but I do not care.  It will all get done and what doesn't, well it probably wasn't all that important to begin with.  I did the right thing by being in Kansas and honoring the memory of a man who meant the world to a whole lot of people.

And one of those people was me.

We found his sign in record time yesterday along the water's edge.

I was so happy to run into several people that I knew from back home in Haven and Hutchinson.  This is my good friend from high school who was there walking for someone as well.  It had been a long time since I had seen Elaine and it was surely good to visit with her for bit before the walk started.

Telling Mike hello and how much he was still loved and missed by all of the people that he touched in his very short life.

The Mike Scott crew from the very first time we walked for him a few years back.

This is my little sister Cindy with me at our first walk in 2010.

Mike served in the Army during the Vietnam War.  According to the ALS homepage, military veterans are at high risk for being stricken with the disease.  My cousin, also a military veteran, died of ALS a few years before my brother did.



To learn more about the disease of ALS, please go to the following website~

www.alsa.org

~from the really great teachers~

I have found myself upon God's mighty anvil many times in this life of mine. 
Sometimes it hurts.  
Always it's for the best.

This life of ours is one of constant refinement and for me one thing is surely for certain.

The good Lord above is not nearly finished up with me yet.

I may have been a teacher for nearly 4 decades but that surely doesn't mean that I know everything there is to know about it all.  Life as an educator has been a most interesting one with never one of the those proverbial "dull moments".  Things change constantly, especially in the world of technology.  I've always found myself a step or two behind in that regard.  All I can say is this.

Thank goodness for kids!

I've never used the piece of technology called a "smart board" before.  I have seen them in plenty of classrooms in the past 5 years but just never had one of my own to use.  This year I do have one and although I knew that they could really help to enhance a lesson, my technology phobia started to rise each time I thought about using one.  Little by little I am getting better at it but every once in a while a little glitch will pop up and that's when I rely on the "spirit of youth" to come to my assistance.  It happened just yesterday.

The interactive board wasn't doing what it was supposed to for some reason.  Little weird things kept showing up on the screen.  No matter what I tried to do, I could not get them to go away.  I'm sure that I must have had a look of desperation upon my face.  That's when one of my students came to the rescue.

"Mrs. Renfro, it looks like you need to do a little calibration on your board right now.

The puzzled look on my face gave way to my lack of knowledge as to what in the world she meant.

"Don't worry.  I'll get it for you."

And with the touch of her finger, she did just that.

Lessons in humility are ones that I tend to learn the most from.  I'm always teaching the kids life lessons but yesterday the life lesson was taught to me.  I started out my career in the land of the mimeograph machine, a now antiquated method of running off copies for classroom use.  I admit that I am nearly 60 but in my own vain defense I started teaching at the END of the mimeograph era.  It looked something like this.

Now those were the "good old days" and we never even knew it.  Mimeographing was a messy process and one that usually always left your hands with blue ink all over them.  One thing I do remember about using them was that teachers were generally way more choosy about what kind of a worksheet they thought students should have.  I'm guessing that students in 1979 did not see nearly as many worksheets given to them as students do today.  I've never been a fan of putting yet another piece of paper down in front of a kid.  I think that is partly due to the way I began.

I hope to have two more years after this one to find myself in the classroom.  The year that I celebrate my 62nd birthday will undoubtedly be my last one.  40 years in the field of education is my goal and one that I pray to attain.  In the 2 1/2 years that remain, I am sure that I'll be learning even more things that I do not know.  More than likely that knowledge will come from the really great teachers.

Kids.

5 years ago seems like such a long, long time.  It was the year that I only thought I was ready to retire.  (Avenue A Elementary School at Hutchinson, Kansas 2009-2010 school year)

~and we started a new tradition~

We started a new tradition, Mike and I.
All it involves is a pen, a journal, and a few moments of our time each day.

This is us, by the way, just a few hours before we loaded everything up that was ours in Montrose, Colorado and made the move to Burkburnett, Texas.  800 miles was a long ways that day.

We began this new practice of writing to one another each evening, telling one another whatever it was that was on our minds that day.  A week has passed now since we commenced doing it and even if we only had the time to write a few lines, both of us have kept up with it.

A journal of remembrances is what it is, filled with the hand scrawled notes of two people from the "land of long ago and far, far away".  Nothing fancy and surely nothing profound, that is unless you are us.

We hope to keep it up for a long time, for whatever days the good Lord has in mind for us to be together.  The pages are filled with simple things, stuff that we probably both already knew about one another but never bothered to say.  Things like "thank you" for the ordinary.

It's just a journal, purchased for under $10 at Walmart.  Yet even in its humbleness, it means so much more to us than that.  It is our documentation of life and the many blessings that will be ours to receive.

I told Mike from the "get go" that no matter what we ran into in our new life here on the plains of Texas that as long as we were able to hold hands and stick together that nothing could ever be too bad.  It hasn't been easy but we have made it regardless.  Life was good in Colorado and without a doubt this much I do know.

Life remains good here as well.

(There's kind of a joke to the making of this picture of our two hands.  "Old lefty's" skin was pretty messed up in the bike wreck and unfortunately it sags down quite a bit, making my hand look about 100 years old.  Whenever we take this kind of photo, Mike always takes his right hand and pulls the loose skin back out of the way so at least for a moment my left hand appears kinda/sorta normal.)

~when your birthday is in Heaven~

     Today would have been my mom's 95th birthday and with the business of life these days, I had almost forgotten it until this very moment.  Hard to imagine her at 95.  In my mind she is still frozen in time on the day that she passed away at age 87 back in 2007.  Her own mother lived to be over 105, in fact she was pushing her way towards 106 when she too left us.  Mom always said that she never wanted to live to be 100 years old and with failing health, she was more than happy to check out from this life in the wee hours of the morning on that early autumn day of September 25th.  

     We were all there during her very last hours while drifting in and out of consciousness as she headed towards a place way better than this one will ever be.  It was hard to watch her go but there was no way that we would ever have left her alone.  The nursing home bed that she was lying in wasn't very roomy or spacious but I remember about an hour before she finally died that I climbed into bed and laid down beside her.  As I held onto her frail body, I put my head on her chest and cried like a baby.  I knew,  just like all of my other siblings did, that it was now time to let her go.  It doesn't matter how old a person is because one thing remains for sure.

     It is hard to let a parent go.

     In the 8 years since she has now been gone, so much has changed.  She would be surprised (well maybe not) that I am still teaching.  I'm sure mom would really be amazed that I got married and moved away to the mountains of Colorado for two years.  Moving to Texas might have been a bit of shock for her as well but in all things, I think she would remain proud of me.  My mother would still have been encouraging me all the while and telling me not give up, even when things looked nearly impossible to accomplish.  So many times I feel as if she is still around me and I feel her presence, especially in times of sadness or despair.  I miss her and I love her still.

     She was my mom.

This photo was taken in 2003 right before she had to leave to enter long term nursing home care in Hutchinson.  The 4 years that passed between then and her death in 2007 were some of the longest ones that she had to endure.

In much happier days for her, 2001 back in Hutchinson, Kansas.

She would have been happy for me that I no longer had to go through this life alone.  If she could have been at that wedding back in 2013, she'd have been sitting right there on the front row.  Of that young man from "the land of long ago and far, far away", Lois Scott would have approved.
     

~tonight on purpose~

Tonight on purpose I chased the sunset.
I checked online to find the time that golden orb was due to disappear from the sky and I went in search of it.

7:49 p.m. Burkburnett, Texas time and it looked like this.

Doing so tonight here on the plains of northern Texas reminded me of how I used to do it back home in south-central Kansas.  From the vantage point of my old house back on 14th Street in Hutchinson, I wasn't able to see much of the sunset.  There was just too much that stood in the way of my viewing it.  For a really good sunset picture, I would often times drive up to the top of Rayl's Hill out on East 4th Street near the beautiful city cemetery that sits atop it.  From there the view of the sun sinking into the western horizon was always magnificent and beautiful.  I could witness it every night from that vantage point and never grow tired of it.

Ever.

Back when Mike and I still lived in Montrose, it was easy to see the day's end come about from our home that set atop a little hill just outside the city limits.  Night after night, I would head outdoors with my camera in hand and just start taking picture after picture as I watched day turn into darkness.  I never grew tired of it either.  Pictures like the one shown below fill the pages of my camera's memory.

I always loved the view between the old Cottonwood trees in our front yard.  In the background is the Uncompahgre Range looking due west from our home on Locust Road.

Although I love being back on the Great Plains, I have missed not being able to just look out my window and see the exact moment that the sun disappeared leaving behind the last vestiges of the day's light.  It was something that I took for granted during the two years that I lived in southwestern Colorado.  We live in town now and too many houses lie between us and the open prairie where picture perfect sunsets can be found.  I have been yearning to see it once again and so tonight I decided that there was no better time to find the evening's sunset than right now on this good day.

I'm not sure what it is about sunrises and the accompanying sunsets that I am drawn to, now in my older years than seemingly ever before in my nearly 60-year old life.  There is something about them, something that reminds me of the brevity of the day and the brevity of life as well.  They remain a sweet remembrance of the blessing of being alive yet one more day.  

Somewhere out there today was another person's very last day on earth.  They shall no longer see the sunrise or set from this vantage point in time yet, I was blessed.

I might have had to chase after it and perhaps it was not the most spectacular one that I have ever witnessed but at least for one more night, it was mine to see.  The true beauty of the sunset may lie in that very fact.

In the very least of things, I do so give thanks.

and because I still can

     Two weeks from today I will be heading back home to south-central Kansas in order to participate in the ALS walk that is held each year along the Waterfront in Wichita.  It will be the third time that I've been able to go and I'm looking forward to being back with family and friends for the morning.  Those who come to the walk do so in order to honor family members that have been affected by the ravages of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, better known as ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease.  I lost my brother, Mike Scott, to it in the fall of 2007.  My cousin, Forrest Ewy, succumbed to the very same disease a couple of years before my brother died.
   
     Any disease is horrible, especially when it is happening to you or your loved ones.  When they say "ALS sucks", they really mean it.

     I'm nearing my 60th birthday in just about 7 weeks more.  My brother died when he was 62 and as I near the age that Mike was when he left us, it surely gives me lots of time to pause and reflect on life and its fragility.  Back in August of 2014, I came up with a list of 60 things that I wanted to try and do before I turned 60 this year.  Although I've accomplished several of them, there remain many that will be impossible to do this time but that's ok.  It doesn't matter.  The important ones I got to do and the rest will find their place on a different list of things to accomplish.  There is one though, #37 in fact, that I am finally working on.

     "Stay healthy."

     You know, I used to think that taking a nap when you found yourself plain old worn out and tired was a waste of time.  I don't think that way any longer.  Even though I do get up in the morning rather early by most normal standards, I try my best to make my way to bed somewhere around the 9:00 in the evening hour.  For the past few weeks I've done a way better job in being aware of what kind of food I was putting into my mouth and asking myself if I really did need a second helping of anything.  I continue to write as much as possible because I know that banging out my thoughts on the computer keyboard is my best bet in fighting depression and anxiety, both of which have had their hold on me throughout my adult life.  I've got a long ways to go before I feel comfortable in saying that I'm as "healthy as a horse" but that doesn't matter.  What matters is the "trying to get there" in the first place.

     September 19, 2015~
     I am walking for my brother and in memory of all those who have passed away from ALS and if anyone would ask me why I'm doing it, the answer would be so very simple.

     Because thank the good Lord above, I still can.

     See you in Wichita!

                       Team "Mike Scott" after our first ALS walk in September of 2010.

     

To learn more about the disease of ALS, please check out the following website.

                                                www.every90minutes. org

   

~and about the big mountain~

~from here on the plains of Texas~

For some reason this morning I decided to check the weather report for Monarch Mountain back in our old home in Colorado.  I was curious to see what the conditions were even though I know that no snow has fallen for several weeks up there.  The mountains were bare as I expected them to be.  It won't take that many more weeks though until the snows return and sooner or later the ski season will open up once again.  Skiers by the score will come and go each weekend and during the holidays to enjoy a sport that I never once had the desire to try out.  

They live for it.  This "accident prone" nearly 60-year old woman does not.

Monarch Mountain and its summit at an elevation of nearly 12,000 feet was always kind of a scary place for me in my drives to and from our home in Montrose to my old home in Hutchinson, Kansas.  There were times when I crossed over the pass in the darkness of the early morning hours and many of those times were in the dead of winter.  In fact the very first time I did it was in January of 2013.  I had absolutely no idea of what I was doing or where I really was.  I knew that I was climbing in elevation because the engine of my old Honda Civic was telling me so.  For the entire journey from the base at Salida until I reached the bottom of it about 60 miles from Gunnison, I was the only person on the snow covered road.  Looking back at it now, I am so glad that I had no idea where I really was.  Mike and I would probably have never met if I would have.  

I miss my dear friends and colleagues back in Montrose and Olathe, Colorado.  Their friendship saved me from myself so many times.  They helped me to get through my homesickness which in turn saved Mike and I a whole lot of grief.  I miss the sight from our kitchen window there.  Each morning the San Juan Mountains were there to greet us.  Old Silverjack was always there too.  The beauty of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and the Grand Mesa are not seen here in Wichita County, Texas.  It's true that the scenery of Colorado is beyond compare sometimes but one other thing is also true.

I do not miss the worry of having to cross over Monarch Mountain if I want to go back home to Kansas to see my family again.

Geographically we are now in a totally different realm.  We live in the area called "Texhoma" and it is called that for good reason.  Just a couple of miles up the road is the state line for Oklahoma.  Even after being here for over 3 months now, we still find it kind of strange to know how quickly we can go from one state to the next.  The land we now live in had just come out of a 5-year drought when we arrived.  Two weeks before we left to move here, they were in record breaking flooding.  Mike and I had no real idea what we would find before arriving here.  We came with an entire moving truck filled with our belongings, a cat and a dog, absolutely no jobs for either of us and oh yes, one other thing.

We came with faith.
Faith that we were doing the right thing.
Faith that God would provide for us.
Faith that even if we ran into trouble, we'd make it ok.

Now over 3 1/2 months later, we are alive and well.  Thriving and surviving here in this new homeland of ours.  Both of us found jobs that we love to do, Sally and Crosby have acclimated themselves to new surroundings, we no longer get lost as we drive around town, and we are pretty much a straight shot (kinda/sorta) 5 hours north back home to Kansas.  

I got an email this past week from an old friend back in Hutchinson who wondered how things were going.  She asked if we felt like this was "home" now.  The answer to that is pretty simple.

"Yes.  We do."

At the top of Monarch Mountain during one of the many times I crossed over it to get back home to south-central Kansas.

This was during spring break of 2014.  It was so hard to believe how much snow was really up there.

I will always remember the day this photo was taken.  Mike and I had gone to the top of the Grand Mesa in June of 2013.  We found snow still underneath these trees.  This Kansas farm girl was really surprised.

Christmas of 2013.  There was NO way that I was not going home for Christmas that first year. Nothing was going to stop me.

~and I remember my father's advice~

My father was a very wise man, one who imparted a plethora of advice and wisdom to his little girl.  I am reminded of most of it each and every day.  Even though he has been gone since 1982, I still try to take it to heart in all of my daily doings.  One of the first ones I remember him telling me as a young driver in my teenage years was this.

"Peggy Ann Scott, do not EVER let your gas gauge go below the 1/2 full mark!"

Yesterday I forgot.
Big time.

I leave in the very early morning hours in order to arrive at school by 6:30 a.m.  I prefer to get there about an hour ahead of time in order to get myself prepared for the day.  I said my good-bye to Mike and started out of town, making my way towards the winding roads that take me to Petrolia.  I was only about 12 miles from home when I heard a dinging sound and looked down to see "LOW FUEL" displayed across the dash board.  Geesch!  I looked at the gauge and saw that I had only one tiny bar left of fuel remaining.  I hadn't even bothered to check it to see how low it had gotten.  I had just gotten in and started on my way.

It's amazing how quickly a person can do the math.  The display said that I could make it another 38 miles before I was totally at 0.  I knew that I had another 15 miles to go before I reached Petrolia and so I began to pray that I would make it.  By the time I got to the orchards near Charlie, the normally green fuel gauge bar had turned to fire engine red.  I thought I had about 22 miles of fuel left but even that information was no longer displayed on the dash.  I had 8 more miles to go at this point and to be right honest, I figured I was doomed.  In the proverbial "no man's land" of back country Texas not checking to see how much fuel I had left was looking to be disastrous.  I had nothing else to try accept to just keep going on.  If I simply just ran out of gas, sooner or later a school bus would have to come along and see me.  But in the meantime, it would mean having to sit alongside the road in the dark.

Praise the good Lord above, that did not have to happen.  By the time I saw the city lights ahead, I knew that I would make it.  I've never been so happy to see fuel pumps in my life and I didn't care one bit that the gas would cost me nearly 50 cents a gallon more than I would normally have paid at home.  It was 14.76 gallons of fuel to fill a 15 gallon tank very well spent.  

I'd made it but not by much.  In 44 years of driving on Kansas, Colorado, and now Texas roads I never once found myself in this kind of predicament.  I had always heard the expression of "going in on fumes" but never realized what it really meant until yesterday.  A whole lot of praying went on in 15 miles, more so than the usual yesterday morning.  My prayers were answered and all ended up well.  

I was just 27 years old when my father passed away.  He loved me very much and never wanted any harm or danger to come to me anywhere, but especially behind the wheel of an automobile. My guardian angel was surely with me yesterday and one thing remains for certain.

My father was a very wise man.

John B. Scott, Jr. at home in Hutchinson, Kansas.  This picture was taken about a month before he passed away.

So thankful that he could see me finally cross the stage at graduation day from Sterling College back in 1979.  Three years later he would be gone.  I miss him and still love him to this day.

~and when you least expect it~

In November of 2011, I had the occasion to visit the state of Iowa and in particular to see the famous covered bridges of Madison County.  The journey was a very quickly planned one as I met up with friends who happened to be there visiting as well.  I'd never driven so far on my own before but when I left after school that Friday evening I had no fear at all of making the trip solo.  It would be my first visit there but at age 54 I figured that there would be no better time to do so.  So I went and had a great time. 

One thing I noticed along the way, especially after heading east out of Kansas City, Missouri was the fact that everywhere I looked it seemed that there was the carcass of a dead deer lying on the shoulder of the highway.  I lost count after about 20 of them and as day turned into night I'm certain that there were plenty more that I could not see.  It was in the heart of rutting season after all and I am sure that there had been plenty of unsuspecting drivers who had encountered them along the way to wherever they had been heading.  The death toll for the deer was rather high by my calculations.  That Saturday morning as we ventured out into the countryside from the small town of Osceola, it was apparent that a whole lot more deer had lost their lives.  About every couple of miles we saw the remnants of animals who had been hit by drivers who came across them along the way.   

In the "car vs. deer" game, the end result is usually not the best for the deer involved.

Standing on the Roseman Bridge-Madison County, Iowa in November of 2011.

We knew the danger of deer around us all the time when Mike and I lived in Montrose, Colorado for these past two years.  Deer were in our yard on a sometimes daily basis.  It was fun to watch them come up toward the house and skirt around to the other side of the road past our old Cottonwood trees.  Sometimes they even got brave enough to let me take their picture before they hurriedly scampered off for the safety of the woods across the way.  Even though they were beautiful we never forgot to watch out for them as we drove along the road into town.  Many times they crossed the street right in front of us and at the very last minute we would have to slam on our breaks.  Deer are unpredictable and when one crosses the road it is generally followed by a few more.  I'm thankful to have never hit one before and I hope I never do.

They were so beautiful!  Their majesty and elegance always shone through every time that I saw them.  Such wonderful creatures.

Now in northern Texas we not only get to remember to watch for deer but also for wild hogs as well.  We didn't realize that they were this close to our home here just across the Red River but they are.  They are not the kind of animal that you want to come across anywhere, either as you drive on the road or look out your back door to find them digging up your flower beds or gardens.  These feral hogs are not friendly pigs like E. B. White's "Wilbur".   I've been advised by many of the locals around here to be watching for them as I travel the back country roads to and from school.  I'm not too crazy about hitting one of those things either so I try my best to remain on the alert, especially in the darkness of the early morning hours as I wind my way to school along the river and creek banks where they like to hang out.  

Life seems to be full of times when we come across things when we least expect it.  A deer in the roadway or an old momma sow leading her litter of babies across the highway right smack dab in front of you are only a couple of those times.   From the lifelong comfort and security of my home on the Kansas prairies, I never expected to experience life in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado or on the plains of Texas.  After being alone for many years, I never once imagined that sooner or later I would meet up with this kid I knew from the "land of long ago and far, far away" either.  

Yet 2 1/2 years later Mike and I find ourselves heading through this journey together. 
Even with the unexpected, one thing shall always remain true.

Life is still very good.

The day after we were married back in May of 2013, we went back to visit our old high school in south central Kansas.  It seemed strange to be standing there together in that hallway.