Road Trippin'

 I received a gentle reminder that it's been a month and half since my last post. (Has it really? Indeed, it has!)

it was minus five degrees (celsius) on the north shore of Lake Superior, plus wind chill

We hit the road on April 28 to attend my little brother's wedding in British Columbia.

Four kids, a tent, a sizeable cooler, and lots of audio books. It was awesome. A bit chilly, but awesome.

 No hotels or restaurants for us. We're much too poor cool for that!

Rafe getting his crawl-time on a crawl break

I made three or four loaves of sourdough, a gallon of home-made yogurt, and a gallon of granola. We bought our beloved smoked kolbassa and a bushel of apples at the farmer's market on the way out.

We couldn't seem to get enough of rocks!

or water....

Paddington Bear and some truly awesome 1970's melmac. Why did they stop making it?

Will and I are in awe of this country. The size of it. The glory and majesty and variety. From cacti in the badlands to snow peaks in the Rockies to the endless skies of Saskatchewan to the barren, thundering shores of Lake Superior. We just couldn't top marveling.

And as if that weren't enough, we were not eaten by grizzly bears, and our car did not break down. And we kept our hands clean of fast food (with the exception of twice), so that was a relief.  

Best of all, seeing my littlest brother, my baby brother, so happy....what I saw, that is, through rivers of hormonal tears—I don't do well at weddings, nor do any of the females in my family, we're a sappy lot—was worth the whole trip.

Dancing is a good outlet. They should have dancing at funerals too. I'm going to request a DJ and a strobe light and beer and a disco ball for my funeral.

But back to weddings. There were many happy meetings at this wedding: the surprise arrival of my brother from Sweden, meeting my new sister-in-law's sweet home-schooling family on their ranch in the Caribou, seeing old friends, and perhaps best of all, meeting all my young cousins grown-up into such fine, beautiful men and women. Happy meetings.

I'm a bit shy about sharing family photos here. You'll understand. (And in the end, most of my pictures were of rocks.) But I'll probably share a few more moments from the trip, as I sift and sort through pictures and stories.