Tag: peace

Good Friends Make Us Feel at Home

We arrived here in Phoenix Arizona last Saturday to stay with our good friends, Terry & Virgie. We knew they’d make us feel right at home. And they sure have!

Over the past year we’ve been through Phoenix several times and each time we’ve stayed with Terry and Virgie. Our friendship is closer now than when we knew them in the Sacramento area for several years. They are a very loving and warm couple who have opened their hearts to us and Fiona. Joel and Terry could sit all day, talking business, playing music. Virgie and Fiona love to bake together and Virgie and I have had some good chats.

Since we’ve also house sat for them, we’re very comfortable here, know where everything is and how they like it. We’re especially enjoying using the pool every evening since we’re have 100 degree plus days! Fiona really likes swimming at night with the pool light on and looking up at the stars.

Today Virgie leaves on a trip. We’re still here another day or so. But she knows we’ll take good care of Terry and her home and that when she returns we will have left behind a tidy home and extra toilet paper in the guest bathroom.

Yesterday Terry said, “You guys always leave before I’m ready for you to leave!” He admits he’d say that no longer how long we stay. We really enjoy being here and are so glad to know we’re “home” when we come to the Wilson’s place. Thank you!

No Travel Plan Survives Contact with the Pavement

A few days ago Sue told you about being stuck over night in Bakersfield because the roads going south were closed because of the snow. Yes, in California, you can close the carotid artery of the state with snow, unlike, say, Wisconsin.

Anyway, we had a ball. We never would have planned most of the stuff we did on that drive; sleeping in the car in a WalMart parking lot, f’rinstance. We left early to get here early. Sue finally has contact lenses again instead of her outdated glasses, so she can drive at night and we would have. We’ve driven 25 hours with nothing but naps. I wouldn’t do it often, but we were so antsy to get going that we were ready to leave at 4:30pm Sunday, and drive ’til 7 the next morning. That’s not what happened.

What happened was that we discovered, again, that we can do pretty much anything, and if we can’t do it, we can survive it. We can’t control the weather or road closures, so instead, we controlled our reaction. We enjoyed the silliness of, after making it out of Canada, Wisconsin, South Dakota, and more last November, being snowbound in southern California fer cryin’ out loud.

We saw Tehachapi covered in snow. (Jerry and I are going to organise a business retreat there. Interested in some of the most humanistic, practical, fun business training in existence? Gimme a shout.)

We reminded ourselves that no one was waiting up for us. We had no deadline, only a goal, and a loose one. I drove under the speed limit. We stopped to look at stuff. Fiona trudged through snow in a Walgreen’s parking lot, just because she wanted to. We sat in a StarBUCKs in Bakersfield and just puttered while Fiona ate the free oatmeal one of the baristas gave her (“I’m a mom and I just thought she might like some; is that okay?” Um, yeah, you can give our little girl breakfast; sure!)

You can’t plan trips as great as the ones that happen on their own.

I noticed something as I drove. When I glanced at Sue, there were different lines on her face. For quite a while, they’ve been worry lines; stress lines. We’ve spent some time doing things we needed to do the past couple months; time getting ready for should instead of want. Now, the lines are smiles, peace, thoughts, prayers.

Lines on the map don’t mean much to me anymore; I can go anywhere and be happy. It’s what I read in my wife’s face that tells me whether we’re on the right path.