Sadness

My husband I and attended a memorial service for a twenty-nine year old woman today.  She grew up on our street, although she didn’t attend the neighborhood school with our children they knew her and her older brother Alan. Crystal, her mom and her 10 year old daughter came to the recent neighborhood block party. Her mom told me Crystal was going through a divorce and was back home living with her while she sorted things out. Her husband was abusive. She had finally gotten the strength to leave. Her mom was really hopeful for her and also glad that she was attending church and helping out with the youth.

Last week Crystal was shot to death by her husband as she returned to their house. I don’t know all the details about why she was coming there that night, maybe it was to pick up their daughter. He was angry at her for being late or something and shot her and again twice more after she fell. Her daughter was there.

Is there any doubt that we live in a fallen world! Just like that many lives are shattered and will never be the same. This world as it is is not our real home for those who follow Christ. It is but a shadow of the new earth to come. There is grace in this world but it is not the norm. It is like a delicate flower that appears briefly then is gone. As Christ followers we are tasked to bring grace into this world, but it is a tall order. This world operates on power and influence, it can be ruthless. Evil lurks.

I appreciate the servant pastor who conducted her service. He brought the simple gospel message of comfort and hope to those gathered in the small humble church. Every seat was filled and the overflow people stood along the sides and in the back. He voiced the torrent of emotions that everyone was experiencing and the questions and the second guessing and encouraged everyone to give them over to the Savior and to let Him replace those with peace over time. Crystal knew Christ despite a turbulent past and a teenage pregnancy. We can rejoice in that.

Don’t get too comfortable here, this is not our final home. Thank Jesus for that, the new earth will be beyond our imaginings. No more tears.

Late Summer Happenings

The weather in the latter half of August was unseasonably hot rising into the upper 80s and low 90s, although we did get some regular rainstorms to cool things off a bit. As I write this our weather has changed and today’s high was 60 degrees with rain off and on.

Our single tomato plant was slow to ripen this year, but we are finally getting some smallish tomatoes. We will only have a couple weeks till we get a freeze so the green ones better hurry up.

Steve and I participated in “Convoy of Hope” when they came through Cheyenne. They hoped to serve 2,000 people and over 4,000 actually came through. Disadvantaged folks got shoes for the kids, haircuts, family photos, career services, counseling, health services, a meal, groceries to take home and a whole bunch of games and fun for the children. It was all free. It was hosted by a cooperative effort of over 20 churches. Steve helped to record video and I was his assistant, we got to interview people.  Here is a link to a short video that Steve made for one of the organizers. https://www.facebook.com/ConvoyOfHopeCheyenne

 

I had a nice birthday. Our Colorado family came up and took us out to dinner and Steve baked me a cake. They all sang to me and Maverick sort of got the idea that it was my birthday this time with a little pointing. Ha.

I got some great books about New Mexico as we are looking into a vacation rental for the month of February this winter.  Emily had a role in the selections I know and we now have information on scenic drives, 100 hikes and places off the beaten track. Now we just have to secure the right house to rent that we can also bring Penelope along to. The first one we tried for was great with a wonderful view of the mountains but was already rented for February.

Another birthday gift was the decorated “garden stones” with handprints of Callie and Maverick. They are too cute to put outside so they are on the wall shelves in the “grandkids” bedroom/sewing room. I love them! One dainty girl handprint and one wider boy handprint, so fun. Of course the moms helped get the imprints in July.

One day Steve and I took a drive just for the heck of it and ended up in Chugwater, Wyoming. We enjoyed chocolate malts at supposedly the oldest soda fountain in Wyoming. The rolling hills and huge expanses of sage and prairies are beautiful and still mostly green this year. The skies are truly dramatic with the thunderstorms and lightning strikes.

On Friday we spent the night in Loveland so Erin and Chris could go on an early morning long hike up Longs Peak. They left before dawn and we got to spend the day with Mav. We took him to the Greeley Train Museum full of “little trains.” http://www.gfsm.org/pcindex.html  It was quite a set up of model trains and lots of train memorabilia. They had probably ten men running trains of 50 or 60 car length traveling around a huge assortment of scenes. We wore him out I guess, he took a four hour nap when we got home!

P.S. I think if you double click on the pictures it will enlarge them a bit.

Hiking off-trail in the Snowies

After a couple weather postponements we were finally able to do our planned hike at the base of the Snowy Range this week. The area is not a good place to be when the clouds build up and the lightning starts.  During the recent monsoon weather pattern the early mornings are sunny but then the heat brings on the clouds by midday. Wednesday was the first day that was forecast to be drier.

We started our hike about 10:30 am and it was beautiful and clear and just a little cool. Our hiking companions were a couple we know through our church and our youngest associate pastor who had not been to this part of Wyoming before.

The destination was the debris area from a plane crash in 1955. A plane carrying 66 passengers veered off course somehow at night and flew straight into the face of the mountain range and of course all passengers perished instantly. After all the remains and personal effects were recovered the site was also blasted. Today all that is left is the twisted metal parts of the fuselage and bits of the wings strewn over a boulder field below the immense rock face.Rick had grown up hearing the tale and had always wanted to visit the site for himself. The rest of us went along out of curiosity. 

We started out on the Lakes Trail and then almost immediately veered off that trail to skirt around the end of one alpine lake then over a ridge to face a daunting boulder field that had to be crossed to get to the crash site.The boulders were especially challenging for me as some of them wobble and there are deep gaps between them that seem to go into the depths of the earth. The best strategy is to just plot a course and keep going, if you stop you don’t want to move at all it is too scary.

We did make it over to the debris field near a beautiful mountain meadow full of flowers. Most of the debris is hidden in the boulders though. There is a mangled engine and lots of aluminum parts with rivets strewn over a large area. Rick hiked up higher and found some landing gear.

I found an old Pepsi can but not from the wreck as it had a pop top so it was too modern to be from 1955.

After finishing that hike we drove down the road to Lake Marie and I took the classic Snowy Range picture with the lake in the foreground and some pictures from the area where the water spills out from the lake and cascades on down creating a waterfall. The flowers there were vibrant.

Another beautiful day in God’s sanctuary.  

Tie City Trailhead

We hiked from a new to us trailhead recently. Driving up to the Lincoln head monument at the summit of I-80 between Cheyenne and Laramie and exiting there and taking the Happy Jack Road, it is the first trailhead parking area that one comes to. We were there on a weekday so there were only a couple other cars there. We passed (or rather they passed us) a few mountain bikers on the trails and one trail runner. 

It was great to get up hiking again close to home. The different kinds of yellow daisies were in bloom as were the purple asters. The grasses were tall and lush from plentiful moisture.  We kept to the higher trails and avoided the low lands not wanting mud or insects to be a factor. There were long stretches through open sage and also through the fragrant pine and aspen forests.

There were bright orange arrows spray painted on several trail junctions and orange streamers tied on trail markers for some kind of event that was apparently coming up to mark the route. I got a kick out of a trail called “Phil’s Pholly” and took a picture of it.

It was quite warm in the high 80’s so we all drank a lot of water including Penelope. If we don’t give her water she will seek out whatever nasty pool of standing water that she can find!

It was a lovely day. We hiked for a few hours with plenty of up and down to get some good exercise. One trail is called "Roller Coaster."Penelope tried out her new footstool that S. made for her to climb back into the car when she is worn out. She needs to get used to it still, isn’t sure she can step on it officially yet.