We have six great kids the youngest of which and her husband took us traveling in their forty-foot "coach" this summer.  Can you imagine a son-in-law so nice he takes you with him to his class reunion?  Well, actually, we tended our eight-year-old granddaughter while they attended the reunion, but it was 1500 miles from home, and we saw many sights getting there and coming home.

The first stop (after driving through Yellowstone Park, watching Old Faithful erupt, and seeing a real live young grizzly bear on the hillside as we drove by) was the Buffalo Bill Museum.  From the statue of Sacajawea standing before the entrance to the mounted grizzly that looked just like the live one we had seen in Yellowstone, this museum is a treasure trove of western memorabilia.

We own a J. E. Stuart painting of Mt. Hood at sunset.  He painted a number of originals of that mountain.  Guess he wanted to get it right.  We had heard that the Buffalo Bill Museum had a large collection of his work, and Wendell (my husband) strongly desired to see it.  Unfortunately, they had only his "Splendid Geyser" displayed, or so the docents informed us.  Stuart had several "periods."  The first was his Wisconsin period.  Those paintings are gloomy--meadows in the rain, for example.  The Yellowstone period came next.  The Buffalo Bill collection is likely from this period.  Then the Alaskan government commissioned Stuart to create paintings of Alaskan scenery for their buildings, and so he spent a number of years there.  Our painting is from his West Coast period, his fourth period and said to have produced his most joyful work.  He stayed on the west coast for the remainder of his life.  We began to leave the museum a bit disappointed.  Finding our way through the three buildings that make up the museum is like navigating a maze of corridors,but as we turned one of the corners, Stuart's "Yellowstone Falls" appeared directly in front of us.  We recognized it immediately, as we had seen it pictured in miniature.  We gasped at its beauty and size.  It is immense and captures the falls in sunny bright color.  I suppose the museum would like to own it, but it was only on loan from another museum.

From there we went to Hart Mountain to visit the Japanese Relocation Center.  The local people have done a wonderful job of helping the public feel what citizens of the United States were put through because of fear of anyone Japanese during WWII.  From there we traveled to the Crazy Horse Memorial, Mt. Rushmore, Latter-day Saint historical sites in Illinois and Missouri, the Caterpiller Visitors Center in Peoria (site of our son-in-law's reunion), the Lincoln Tomb and home in Springfield, Illinois, and the St. Louis Arch.  We even saw a few old friends along the way, people from different times and places in our lives.  And as Son-in-law Bill says, "This is the way to travel."  Just be sure to tow a small vehicle to get around in after the coach is parked.

I'm Back

I was bitten by ants while planting my garden on 30 June 2013!  They apparently liked the taste of my legs, for they took more than one hundred tastes.  Thus began a year of misery characterized by huge blisters ultimately diagnosed to have nothing to do with the ant bites but a disorder with an ugly name, bullous pimphegoid, to go with the ugly blisters.  Frequent doctor visits ending with a hospital stay took a lot of time and more energy than I possessed.  My goal for winter writing thwarted, my blog fell to the bottom of my priorities list. 

I got so technologically rusty that I had to call my grandson to help me get back to the blog composition page!  He has a degree in computer science, but I think my eight-year-old granddaughter could have gotten there for me, too.  Why is it that children catch on to technology so quickly and it is like Greek to we older folks?  It seems that Google had thrown my password in the trash for lack of use. 

I did do a little work on short items while I was ailing, especially after the hospital visit and a change in my prescriptions.  That's when my health began to improve.  Seems I had developed an allergy to the sulfer in my medications, and sulfer is the culprit in the blistering disease.  I say "is" because I'm now labelled "allergic" to it.

I considered not raising a garden this year, but which is harder and which is less productive, keeping weeds down or growing food?  I chose to grow food--with kind help getting the plot ready by men from my church.  My 2014 garden has already produced lettuce, radishes, and cabbages, and zucchini has begun to flood the neighborhood.  The ants (which I can't seem to get rid of) are scurrying about, but they haven't bit me this year, knock on wood.

In late spring I began writing again in earnest by preparing three entries to the Idaho Writers League annual contests.  I have won many prizes in those contests, so I  have hopes to take some places in them again.  During my illness, I wrote sporadically, and my article about Camp Floyd State Park in Utah came out in the August/September issue of Idaho Senior Independent.  Seeing the published article rivaled the check in how good it made me feel. 

And now I'm Back and ready to share.

Sometime during this difficult time, I turned my special feeling about marriage into a poem, perhaps inspired by my husband's dash with me to the ER and constant attendance at my side while there.  It follows:

 A Marriage Metaphor

 

Getting married is like jumping into a swimming pool together:

There you will keep each other from drowning in loneliness

And protected from forces that try to pull you under.

Love is fragile:

Submerged in your pool of love,

Buoy each other up with tender, caring hands.

In this pool where the husband and wife share everything,

Let nothing or no one push you out of your place,

Not even your children.

As you are blessed by God,

Bless each other with your goodness

And celebrate the pool that surrounds you

Replenishing this treasure from heaven with love

To keep it filled

Eternally.

My usual practice is to revise/rewrite/edit anything I write many times before presenting it to public view.  However, "A Marriage Metaphor" appears above exactly as I first wrote it.  It came from my heart.  It is honest.  Perhaps it lacks in poetic devices, but I think I shall leave it as is.  I hope it gives readers of my blog a certain insight into who I am and the very long relationship my husband and I share.