Recent musings:

17 years ago, I heard these words with respect to parenting my child: “All this hardship is given to you because God knows you could can handle it. My life is easy because God knows I can’t handle any of what you are going through.”

For 17 years I have pondered this statement set, spoken by someone without much analytical prowess, spoken by one whose shell was thin, spoken by the person closest to me at the time. At the moment I heard these words, my mental state transitioned from belief to knowledge regarding at least two things about the beautiful world I found myself living in:

1. Not all people have the ability to think well before speaking.
2. All people speak before thinking at least once in their lives even if they possess the ability to think well before speaking.

While these statements appear to reside in the realm of the obvious, it is important to assess statements in light of a person’s particular abilities.

If a person does not possess the ability to think well before speaking, then their statements should never be taken as particularly thoughtful. Instead, their statements maybe accidentally true, but based on emotion, or untrue, but based on emotion, or true and based on something other than emotion, but never true and based on sound analysis prior to the utterance. In general, then, their statements should not immediately be trusted as conveying truth.

If, on the other hand, a person has the ability to think well before speaking, then a conversation about any proposed statement can be pursued and looked at every which way.

This brings me back to the original statement set proposed by my close friend 17 years ago, the statements I have agonized over and examined every which way ever since.

“All this hardship is given to you because God knows you could can it. My life is easy because God knows I can’t handle any of what you are going through.”

Immediately after hearing these statements, I causally believed them to be true, and the heaviness of those beliefs weighed on my shoulders for years after. I immediately wondered what Niagara Falls of trials were headed my way over the next possibly-many decades of my life, trials that I could do nothing about. This put me into a passive position with respect to my life, as well as the lives of my children. I have since come to believe that these statements, taken together, are false.

Packed into these statements, meant as a strange and estranging compliment of some sort, are the following assumptions:

1. The events of the months 17+ years ago were hardships.
2. God was purposefully giving me hardships.
3. I am the sort of person who can endure hardships relatively unscathed.
4. God withholds the mercy of an easy life from me.
5. There is an amount of hardships that must necessarily be spilled upon the earth, and they are spilled upon those who can endure them simply because the can endure them.

1. Since that day, I would say that I have, indeed, endured a waterfall of events in life that many would consider to be hard. Indeed, I would agree that on a typical night, I fall into bed and consider that the day was hard. A Niagara Falls of Hardship? I would not say so. However, I believe many would consider what we have endured to be not only a Niagara Falls but the contents of all of Lake Erie dumped on our heads on a daily basis. I would say the difficulties we encounter are relatively mild when one considers and compares our lives to the lives of others. Dare I say “most others?”

2. Does God set out to dump hardships on a human being? My own beliefs about God lead me to believe that certainly He does at times. Job, of course, is the quintessential example of such dumpings. However, if one searches the Old Testament, or nearly any ancient text, one finds that hardships experienced by humankind are generally a logical consequence of human actions. The evidence simply does not support any sort of god hovering in the heavens with a bucket of troubles and a great need to dump them out on an unsuspecting victim. Moreover, if one examines the event of hardships in my life over the past 17 years, one would find that there is a human action or set of actions preceding the hardship, and the hardship is a logical consequence of that action or set of actions. Could God have prevented any one of the hardships if He choose? Yes. However, God’s ability to prevent a hardship and refraining to do so does not imply that God, then, purposefully gives hardships.

3. Am I the sort of person who can endure hardships relatively unscathed? No. Humans are not that sort of creature. The nature of souls strictly implies that harm from hardship causes change. One’s handling of one’s soul and care to mind how one changes has a direct effect on whether that change results in perseverance or a metaphysically fractured soul. It is the scathing that allows one’s to grow or diminish.

4. Has God withheld the mercy of an easy life from me? Decidedly no. To state otherwise would be to ignore the physical and spiritual luxuries that pad the landing of my soul as it is battered by life’s events.

5. Finally, is there is an amount of hardships that must necessarily be spilled upon the earth, and they are spilled upon those who can endure them simply because the can endure them? Again, the evidence does not generally support an answer in the affirmative. While there are some who believe there is a balance of good an evil that must be maintained, the ontological statuses of hardships and evil are not necessarily related. Hardships belong in an entirely different conversation than evil.* Instead, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the belief that human action can and does result in various measures of hardship on those around and proceeding from the actor or actors. The same can be said of natural events, such as mudslides, tsunamis, volcanoes, etc.

Why is any of this important? Because when one chooses to take on the consequences of another’s actions, one must expect that the seriousness of any consequences must mirror the seriousness of the initial action. No person can peer down the timeline such that one has full disclosure as to the consequences one will encounter. Instead, one must suspect that one’s own actions can alter the course of the potential consequences of the original actions. Evidence from daily life supports this suspicion such that the suspicion becomes a strong belief over time. Certainly, any parent who has caught their child diving head-first towards a concrete slab (or any other surface) after that child has acted upon the decision to jump from an unstable or high surface knows that one’s actions can alter the consequences of the actions of others.

I have written a lot about adoption and how life as an adoptive family can be drastically different from family life of those with only biological children. There are many reasons for that difference which I will not go into now. Each adoptive parent has to continually come to terms with the unique challenges they face with respect to each of their adopted children each day. Understanding that I am not somehow a dumping ground for God’s leftover hardships has been soul-changing over the past few years and has made me see God in a new light. This understanding has also brought it’s own challenges, waves of anger at various strangers who are some long dead and some living still whose actions still directly affect a child living in my home, and joy and gratitude that I am a result of the actions of a different set of people whose actions helped to make me the sort of person who has become good at catching my children when they fall headlong towards the metaphorical concrete slabs of life.

In the end, though, what I should have recognized is that the statement set was spoken by someone who does not have the ability to think well before speaking. She has the ability to allow her emotions to properly inform her statements, but not her thoughts, at least not to the extent one would need to think prior to proposing such a value-packed statement set.

* One can argue that without evil, hardship would not exist, and that may be true. However, that does not then imply that hardship is always evil or is equal to an evil.

Proverbs 14:26

Whoever fears the Lord has a secure fortress,
and for their children it will be a refuge.

My father died. Until yours dies, you don’t understand the tragedy, the rift in the fabric of creation, left by the death of a parent. That is as it ought to be. This is one of things one is not intended for us to understand until it is our time to experience it. Right up to the point of death, you don’t believe that your parents are subject to this banal event. There is no such thing as life without them. They are your origin, your stronghold, the genesis of your own legacy. A thing once began cannot be erased. But there you are, reading those words: “The doctor just called. He’s gone.”

Every person with a good father would say the same thing. “My dad was different. He wasn’t like other dads.” I say the same thing, but I believe that in the grand scheme of dads, mine was unique. He was not better or worse than others, just not your run-of-the-mill good dad. His was called to the Lord’s work without letting on that he was in the trenches. As we have heard over and over since his death, “he was a legend.”

My dad lived his life in compartments. He had a vibrant home life. He had a vibrant work life. He had a vibrant social life. He had a vibrant life of ministry. The common thread that ran throughout his life, though, was a vibrant adoration for God our Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth. People knew my dad in maybe one or two of these nooks and crannies; only his family experienced his life in in its fullness.

Each of us kids spoke about my father at his memorial service, and each struggled to communicate the extraordinary man our dad was. We tried to give a picture of just how epic my dad’s life was. Here is the script of what I said at my dad’s memorial service. I copy it here so that anyone who wants to begin to understand my dad’s total devotion to the Lord can have just a taste of his example.

“I remember my Aunt Nancy telling me when I was a little girl about the time my teen-aged dad hitchhiked across the country from Vista, California, to Morris Plains, New Jersey, sometimes even hitching a ride in the coal cars of trains, so that he could visit my very fancy great aunt. When he arrived on her front lawn, my fancy great aunt thought he was some homeless hippy. She soon realized that under all that grime and dirt and hair was my dad, and she was so very happy to see him!

I once asked my Oma what my dad was like as a boy. She said, “He was kind and thoughtful, and I always knew he wouldn’t get into trouble when he went on adventures.” 

I know exactly what she was talking about. My dad was the kindest, most thoughtful, most adventurous man I have known, but I saw every one of those adventures through the lens of his prayers for his children. That kind, thoughtful, adventurous boy grew up to be a man who showed his kindness to me through his thoughtful prayers about the adventures life I was so obviously headed into. He prayed, ‘Please give my children wisdom in whatever they do in life.’ ‘Please teach their hearts to love you more and more.’ ‘Thank you for giving us health and good things to eat and a good place to live.’ ‘Keep my children safe and guard their hearts so they can grow up to serve you.’ His prayers and adages were the liturgy of our upbringing, as poignant as Augustine’s own confession, ‘You move us to delight in praising You; for You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.’

And so, my dad gave me the desire to boldly take on every adventure the Lord brings my way, no matter how dangerous or how hopeless the cause.

And adventures did abound in our family. My dad raised us as free-range kids who played in the mud holes he dug for us, climbed the mountains he took us to, took wild rides in the dune buggy he built for us, climbed the trees he grew for us, swung on the swings he hung for us, and our souls consumed this great nation God has allowed us to live in as we rode in the back seat behind our dad. ‘Look out the window, this land is your land, and this land is my land.’ I believed him when he told me he was a race car driver as he sped around the corners of Lake Wohlford Grade at top speed. He erased my childhood fears by his quiet self-assuredness in the face of danger, and fears were replaced by fearlessness. I could not begin to count the number of times a friend or adult asked, with horror in their voice, ‘Does your dad let you do that?’ to which I responded, ‘My dad was the one who taught me how to do this.’

But the thrills my dad led us into were only the smallest part of the wisdom in adventures he prayed for us. When I was about 12 years old, I began to know my dad as an adventurous warrior in the army of the Lord. He was Patrochlous fighting for the Achians in the Trojan war, fighting the battles others refused to take on. He joined the battle of loving the unlovable, trusting the untrustworthy, employing the unemployable, teaching the unteachable. At that time I began to work at VIP, and my dad and I had many long car rides to and from work, and I asked questions. There were many people working for him who didn’t look so good, didn’t smell so great, and didn’t speak as cleanly as one might expect. He told me, ‘Well, that man just got out of prison and I think he will change if he is given the chance.’ I interpreted that as ‘God brought that man my way so that I can join the fight for his soul.’ And so he hired the lost, the broken, the high, the criminal, the least of these. He employed the dying grandfather who needed that job to help feed his grandson, even though in the end he could hardly perform his job. He hired back the drug addict he had to let go the year before. I asked, ‘Why did you hire him back?’ ‘Because one of these times will be the time he turns his life around.’ And he prayed for most, if not all, of these folks. I once joked about his shop as one big halfway house. He looked at me with a pain his eyes that penetrated to my very soul and said, ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.’ My immature mind mocked his efforts, and he still prayed that I would be wise and believed that God would answer his prayers. He got it that in God’s eyes, I was no better or worse than the felon I stood next to as we endlessly stamped numbers onto parts. My dad got that and jumped into that battle, flaming sword held high, and prayers to the almighty God on his lips.

So my dad brought me into adulthood with my heart burning for adventure, my mind verging on wisdom, and my soul understanding that the greatest adventure of all is to never say ‘no’ to even the most terrifying challenges the Lord brings our way. ‘Does your dad let you do that?’ has been replaced by my peers saying, ‘How do you do all that you do?’ My reply for years has been this: ‘My dad prayed that I would be like this.’

My dad’s story hasn’t ended. In fact, we know what happened next. As he wakened among the sheep, he heard the Mighty King say, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then my dad answered him, saying, ‘Lord, when did I see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did I see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did I see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer him, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

But when my dad sees me again in heaven, he will give me a huge hug and snuggle his beard on my head, and he will say, with that joyful mischief in his eyes, ‘Well, here you are. You sure did dawdle long enough!’ And I will look at him and say, ‘Oh, I see you are saving some of your lunch in your beard.’ And he’ll reach for the bit of ambrosial banquet the Lord prepared for him, and he will say, ‘Yes, and that was the most pleasant repast.'” 

~ Kurt George Ackermann ~
Born: May 17, 1949, Orange, New Jersey
Died: October 13, 2023, San Diego, California

Despite best laid plans, children packing boxes means that we may not find our cooking tools in a timely manner upon unpacking. I brought my Instapot in the Suburban with me, anticipating such challenges. We had bean soup, ham soup, split pea soup, vegetable soup, more bean soup, did I mention ham soup? Then one day, a bit of silver and a bit of black peeped out of a box, and there were the pots and pans, and then the utensils, and so after a week or so, we feel just that much closer to settled. It’s amazing how soup can nourish all of life in its simplicity!

There is joy in so many little things in this house. For instance, the stairs are something I never knew we needed! Atticus has found that he can bound down the stairs, catch the banister pole at the bottom and fling himself into the mud room. Great joy! He has been prohibited from doing so, as one day the pole will dislodge and fling into the mud room with him. The stairs come down into the kitchen, and in the mornings, sleepy children come down and sit on the stairs, leaning their heads against the rails while they watch me making breakfast. There is nothing quite like a beautiful child sitting on stairs, trying to make intelligible morning sentences. And then stairs are a toy to send a slinky down. How did I not know we needed stairs in our kitchen?

And we find other beautiful things in boxes. Atticus found his tap recital costume, and for several days, we were treated to tap dances and flashes of green as he dashed by. I found a wooden bucket I didn’t know I owned and thought it would be very keen to send Judah’s baseball snacks in it. He didn’t see the quaint value in the presentation, but he did come home with an empty bucket. We used egg cartons as padding in fragile boxes (I mean, our chickens haven’t laid a single egg in California since November, so why not put those cartons to good use!), and since our hens are busy thanking us for moving by blessing us with nearly a dozen eggs daily, we are putting them to good use! For several days we had temperatures in the teens. Our eggs came to us as egg slushies that needed to thaw before beating. Now I understand why there is a custard shop on every corner of Springfield!

My kitchen is seriously adorable. I must mention that. It’s not because I had anything to do with it. The former owner put a lot of sweat equity into this house, and her kitchen design is perfection!

New friends are everywhere here! We have met our neighbors to the north of us. There is a house where the parents live, the house where she grew up, and her father grew up before her. There is a house where the daughter lives, a house she lived in since she was in second grade. The son lived in our house until he sold it to us. It has been very upsetting to his mother to have him move so far away…all of 1/4 mile away. But people here often stay on the property their ancestors claimed before the last century. To leave the land is a sign of everything changing. The original claim may only have 50 acres remaining, but it remains!

The bull next door belongs to this legacy. The pond my children swim in has been a place where children ran and played and worked the ground for over 100 years. These kids are simply carrying on the spirit of family and life that already exists here.

Our barn is an interesting space where the old is at the heart of the new. The old barn remains, and the new structure was simply built around it. In the loft, Judah found a boat buoy made of Styrofoam and immediately understood the treasure in it. The barn doors on the north side need to be replaced, so he took one of them to build a raft, named it ol’ Bessy 2, and it now has more hours of use than the house.

Last week was icy and snowy, this week is warm and sunny. Tomorrow it will rain. Right now, though, these kids are all glowing and free, their hearts are beating strongly in their brave, wild chests, and there is nothing more perfect than that!

Well, when you raise kids free range, you might have to say something like that. “Don’t swim in the pond in February, even if you are wearing you warm winter jacket!” You wouldn’t think I would need to say this even once to children when the pond was frozen over just the day before. I had to say it twice, to two different children, at separate times, in one day.

Oh, wait, you thought they were wading in with their boots on? No, no. That would be lame and ridiculous. No. They were swimming. Fully submerged.

After a warm shower and a scolding for leaving their soaking, pond water jackets on the mud room floor, they decided to put those Palomar Mountain sleds to good use. I expect more soggy, frozen boys running into the house with a story of an unstable sled that threw them into the water.

Speaking of boys, these particular boys now have their room put together and cozy. Judah picked out the bedding and decided where everything went. We are pretty proud of that closet, since the room had no closet when we moved in.

Their room is like a bunk house. It’s a boy’s paradise. It’s so far away from any female voices that I must bellow at them for them to hear me from down stairs. BUT, I did discover a way to infiltrate their lair. If I go into my closet and call them in a reasonable voice, they can, unfortunately for them, hear me.

The boys and cats still come to our bed for morning snuggles. Well, and the dogs. It’s a lot like this in the mornings:

Or like this:

Or this:

February in Missouri is all about showing off all the weather it can do. This means that while it was chilly and showed a sprinkle last week, it turned warm and downright balmy this weekend until today we found ourselves at Bakerville buying Baker Creek Heirloom seeds! Sun’s out. Must be time to garden!

Hang on a sec, it’s going to snow in a few days. I moved here for this weather. It’s only just beginning to get crazy!

When it does get crazy, we are happy to have our little storm shelter. I ventured over to it today. It looks like a cute little Hobbit hole, and inside I found something brilliant and wonderful! Not only is this the storm shelter, it is the place where the pressure tank is housed, and a cute little vintage heater is keeping those pipes from freezing. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where that pressure tank was!

We have also explored a bit more of our little woods east of the house. Vines grow among the trunks and berries are still trying to survive the winter. We have had more than 2 inches of rain since we got here 10-ish days ago, and little streams and tiny fairy ponds make the ground glitter and mushy. We are learning to step carefully lest we disturb secret places.

Well, the burn barrel has finally arrived at our house. Judah and I made the appropriate holes in it, we scavenged bricks from around the property, and today was the day the boys took care of that pile of cardboard for us. Judah diligently taught Atticus how close to stand, not to breathe the smoke, how high the flames should be allowed to go, and how to throw the pieces in without being burned. Sorting trash is Atticus’s job, and he has come to the realization that most of our trash is paper, and so his job is very important. They boys are thrilled that this job involves lighter fluid, but were disappointed that the entire barrel didn’t explode upon ignition. These boys are taking to Missouri life quite well!

Some things I never thought I’d search for: How to use a burn barrel, will a bull break through a barbed wire fence, are primates legal to own in Missouri (because they sell primate food at the feed store!!! What???), how to use a pellet stove, coal heaters in Missouri.

So, yeah, I am buying a burn barrel today. Apparently, trash pick-up is kind of a thing here, but nobody really knows how to get it to your house, and when you chase down the trash man, he doesn’t even know what company he works for. It’s different. People take recyclables to the recycling center, burn most trash, put food into the chicken coop or the compost, and the little bit of non-recyclable/non-burnable stuff you put into a trash can and they come pick up. And, yes, we finally figured out who the trash man works for.

To avoid writing a novel, I will sum it up by saying that people here are spectacular. People show up at your door and give you help. The former owner of this house showed up and gave us the manual for the pellet stove because she realized we may not know how to work it (she was right) and she had forgotten to leave it (who would even remember to leave it?). Then her mother-in-law, who lives 3 doors down, came by with her trash bill so we would finally know what to do with trash. She knows all things trash, as she pays the bill for several houses on the street where her family lives. She knows about burn barrels, where to get them, where to take recycling, what not to burn (If it makes black smoke, don’t burn it), and she even had the answer about the bull. It turns out it’s a friendly bull, and quite chatty, as we have discovered. No need to worry about it trying to get through the fence. It’s her bull, after all. To say that I am overjoyed by her as a neighbor is an understatement.

We have some normal back in our lives! Sunshine’s bedroom is almost complete, and adorable. It just needs new paint.

Obviously, the cats are settling in just fine. They are taking their job as home décor quite seriously.

We finally found the right part to connect the stove, and last night, we had a legit, home-cooked meal. We have survived on Instapot food. I’m not complaining. It beats spending $50-$100/meal eating out, but I am not sure how much more soup we could handle.

See that trash behind Sunshine? Yep. That’s going into the burn barrel that I am buying today.

In all the hustle and chaos of unpacking, Brandon and I managed a Home Depot run alone, and a shady meet-up to buy a bookshelf and some chairs in a parking lot in the rain. I mean, if that’s not a romantic date, I don’t know what is! We did find a good hamburger and custard place, though, which we shared in the parking lot.

It has been so sunny and beautiful here! Every day has been cheery and bright. Yesterday, we took a break from sun for a little rain and snow! It was lovely, blowy snow that barely coated the back field. The doggies hated it. We couldn’t stop staring at it!

I hope to have a burn barrel adventure tomorrow! We have accumulated so much trash that I think a trip to the dump may be in order! Moving is messy!

That’s right, we did it! After 25 years of talking about moving to the mid west and buying a farm, here we are. We had a good run in California, but it’s time for something new.

When one crosses the border from California, there is an immediate difference. What we appreciate is the difference in the free spirit many (although not all) people have outside of California. The spaces are wide and free of clutter (in general), traffic is light (in general), people leave you alone (in general), and people mind their own business. It’s not for everyone, for sure. It’s not better or worse. It’s better for us, though.

This is what we wake up to.

Well, it’s not the view to the California Channel Islands we are used to, but it’s not too shabby. That’s our barn and workshop. The barn needs a few upgrades to be critter-proof, but it’s mostly re-done, and it’s adorable. It even has a hay loft!

The house sits on ten acres with a sweet little woods surrounding the pasture. It’s all set up for a cow or horses. For now, I just stare at it and imagine. Judah has big plans for the pond. I wonder how many ducks he’ll fit into it!

There are so many spaces to explore on this property. The house itself is a hid-and-seekers dream! It’s an old farm house, it burnt down, and then it was rebuilt, and THEN it was added to. When you think of a farm house, this house fits the bill. The floor is a bit wonky, and the bathroom looks out onto the mud room, but its rooms echo with generations of happy children and happy times. It immediately felt like home!

And no house of ours would be complete without something nutty like a boat in a tree.

For now, the inside looks like it’s being moved into, because it’s being moved into! Ha! Every day there are fewer boxes to go through, and every day I wonder where that thing is that I am SURE I put into this box! The kitchen is mostly intact, as are the bedrooms, by now, so we can live well while we unpack the rest.

Driving around our little towns has been all an adventurer could ask for! Seymour is the town we consider to be the closest, but our tiny town of Fordland hasn’t disappointed, either. It’s a town of 800. I was informed by the Fountain Care waitress that they just recently updated their population sign from 400 to 800, a fact she was quite proud of. I told her that now there are 806 people living here, and she acknowledged this as a factual statement. She is very serious about her job, and is good at it. Not a lot of time to discuss the obvious. And there’s a church in Fordland that proclaims itself as holy, which seems positive. Perhaps that is where the Seymour Jesus lives? These small-town signs are my favorite thing! And we have livestock guardians at the turn-off to our street. They look happily at cars that pass. Good dogs!

We are very tired, want to get the house unpacked faster than is reasonable, and have found all the good places to eat around us…because the stove is still not hooked up!

I am so in love with this place!

When I was 20-ish years old, I took my 10-year-old brother on a road trip from San Diego to Buffalo, and we stopped at the Grand Canyon. I remember being very aware that if I somehow let him slip off the edge, not only would I be incredibly sad, my family would also disown me. After all, my brothers were each very protected, the darlings of the family. I took a picture of him sitting on a wall near a cliff, but it wasn’t until the film was developed that I realized how dire the situation looked. That was a great trip!

I have taken my kids to the Grand Canyon before, maybe more than once. We have traveled so much that I don’t always remember which kids have been where.

Each time we go, it seems bigger than the last time.

Today, we hiked down for ten minutes or so, and it seemed that the edge was not as extreme as it has seemed in the past. Of course, we had not stopped at that particular spot before.

At maybe the only precarious place on the trail, my wild youngest children decided to test their mortality and get into a scuffle. Why do children want to die all the time?

Next time we come here, we hope to hike from rim to rim and take a little break to do some fine dining and rafting while we are at the bottom. Today was deceivingly cool, and it crossed my mind that July might be a great month for such an adventure. Signage at the trailheads shout reality, warning death to those who hike the canyon in the summer months. Maybe October would be a better idea. Ha!

Real quick, we are bringing home half of Arizona on our car. That slide through the flash flood mud sure did pimp our ride in a desert theme!

Driving toward California, the trees and cactus turn into dry chaparral, the smell is less of wet earth and more of hot sage and buckwheat, and ranch land grasses are sparse. The fat cattle feeding on prairie grasses, spoiled buy frequent streams and watering holes have been replaced by skinny cows hoping to find a bite to eat, hopefully wandering past a stock tank before dying of thirst.

There are many people who are quite happy in California. Many people we know think we are a bit nuts for wanting to leave the state. Some even appear offended that we would want to go. We are not the kinds of people who fit in well with fences, though. One can drive across the nation and not encounter border inspections that one encounters in California. Other states greet you with a beautiful sign, a welcome center, a sign indicating the best things to see in the state, joyful people. At the California border, one is greeted by armed guards asking for your apples and carrots that you brought for snacks. You cannot even bring lunch into the state, or if they do decide you don’t look too intimidating, they might motion you through with a scowl. We even fence off our rivers here. There are fences and barbed wire everywhere.

Welcome to California. Here’s an armed guard to welcome you with a menacing stare. Yikes!

I know, I know, we are crazy for disliking this. What I love is that we live in a nation where people who like such a lifestyle can live where that lifestyle is promoted. Those who do not can go elsewhere! How amazing and freeing! Maybe that is the main reason I am a patriot. I love all the choices we have! I choose to leave California ASAP. It’s all personal preference. As my father says, “Sobre gustos, no hay disputos.”

Well, so his Spanish grammar isn’t perfect, he’s right, though.

There was a gentle wind blowing today, as we are in the middle of what seems to be a monsoon, and we stopped at the dunes to put our footprints in the sand.

My sweet boys do not care that we are teetering between a thunder storm and blazing heat. They love sand. Judah went far across the desert to a high dune, raised his hands in victory, and then proceeded to roll down the entire thing. In the end, all we could see was a rolling log of sand.

“Mom, look, my Lego camper is making a trip into the desert, but it gets stuck. Then a giant hand comes and tries to help, but it just makes things worse. What would we do if it were us? Should we be afraid, or should we be glad that we are about to die?”

Ummmm…

How could such a cute baby doll have so many things going on in her mind? She’s a mini philosopher.

The other day, as we were reading the Bible at night, she asked, “Not that I am this person, but what if a person doesn’t have the Bible. What if they have never heard about God? What happens then?”

Good question, baby doll. A great discussion ensued.

About 15 minutes after we got into the car, he said, “My pockets are full of sand. Look! I brought the desert with us!” Well, good thing there are car washes. And boy, oh boy, does this car NEED a car wash.

We took the rout through Imperial Valley, south of the Salton Sea, on our way back. I love the variety in products raised here! There is even a date shake shop in town!

The desert is so beautiful. Dunes to chaparral to badlands to springs of water, and then suddenly you are at the mountains.

We were very eager to get home. We have kittens and dogs and chickens and ducks and pocket pets, and Judah has his garden, which he set up on a watering timer before we left.

Uncle Nathan has taken very good care of everything while we were away. What we found tonight was that not only do no animals or plants die on his watch (This is a HUGE accomplishment), but he found the snake, missing for 2 months, and one of the cats, missing for 2 weeks before we left! Unks must be magical with animals!

And so we are home. We will spend the year doing what needs to be done in preparation for moving to South Dakota. This is likely to be our last year here. We are very happy with what our trip turned out like. This wasn’t supposed to be a play time for us, although many joyful days were spent. This was supposed to be a trip on which we mingled with people we might later call friends and neighbors, and to discover whether it would be a place we were likely to love. Success!

Today we go to another place I have never been to: Moab, Utah, and Arches National Park.

The drive through Colorado was generally green, and there were many ranches with fat cattle munching happily. It seems that more rain falls into those valleys than in eastern and central Wyoming. The valley walls were sometimes red, sometimes dirty brown, sometimes a pale green earth.

The change from cool, grassy land to warm, desert planes seemed almost immediate upon entering Utah. Of course, Utah has almost as much variation as California, and a desert here does not translate into desert everywhere.

What Utah does have is color. Perhaps Colorado and Utah should think about changing tag lines.

Arches National Park is unlike anything we have ever seen. We got our free entry, after all, we are members, and were immediately treated by soft piles of hardened stone, bright red spires sprouting from bright greenery, large, arched caves, and sheer walls of red stone. Bryce Canyon was so sweet and gentle. Arches is showy and dramatic.

They say this area was once an ocean, and these formations came about through erosion as waters subsided. That is one explanation, at least. They remind me of drip castles that children make on the shoreline. But there is a little arch forming at the base of an enormous wall, and how did THAT one come about? This is a place one could stare at and wonder about for weeks and months on end. We must return to this place.

There were many arches to explore with trails going right up to them. The kids could climb to their heart’s content, and they found that scrambling up to an arch proved more than satisfactory, as there were often tiny caves, high shelves, and interesting formations to be found high above ground level and out of sight of those who remained on the ground.

Today I realized that my children have not changed their clothes for several days. Since we have stayed in a hotel each night, and have not taken the trunk off the hitch platform, we cannot open the back hatch of the car. Shoot. Sometimes you question your ability to parent well…

Sunshine found a rock shaped like a heart. It gave her such joy, and she carried that rock around for an hour or so until it was time to leave the park. Not wanting to end up in even the most adorable of stone prisons, though, she left the rock in the park for someone else to find joy in.

Time and land flew by as we made our way to Tuba City, Arizona. I am thrilled by small things in life, and that we are staying in a town named in Tuba makes me smile. There is once again a thunder storm predicted, and so we are at a hotel. The hotel has roll-away beds available. You’d think we were going to sleep in Disneyland, there was so much excitement over the bed, the unfolding of it, finding blankets for it, and the discussion over who would get to use it. In the end, it was decided that the boys would get the roll-away bed, as the regular queen bed is maybe more comfortable and should be given to the girls. In reality, the boys never did want to sleep in the queen bed. They would rather smash together on a really fun twin bed than sleep on a boring queen bed. So everyone is snoring away now, and all are dreaming of their kittens and chickens and pups, and everything else they will find at home tomorrow!

Today we came to something I have never seen before. When you have made over 20 trips across the country by car, that is a rarity.

We left the pretty little hotel on the perfectly picturesque Belle Fourche River,

Remember, the hotel is for sale. Someone buy it!!!

Devil’s Tower is a grade work of Divine art. This part of Wyoming is just on the other side of the Black Hills, and so there are mountains and cliffs rising on either side of wide, grassy valleys, cut by the Belle Fourche River. Some farmers grow row crops here, pumping water straight out of the river for irrigation. Other valleys were dotted with black cattle. There is less grass here, and the grass is shorter than in South Dakota, and so the ranches are larger. There is a lot of land to spare here.

At the start of our trip, we purchased a National Parks pass, and we have now used it enough to have free entry into National Parks and Monuments. Not that we are a little snobby about this. After all, while most of those sorry suckers hand over cash, we simply flash our card. “Oh, we get in for free. We are members.” “Here’s your map, sir. Have a good day.” “Oh, we will. After all, we are members, and we get in for free.” At this point, it’s so free that they should be paying us to use their park. I’ll have to mention this to the National Park Service.

We have been disappointed that there is no pass-holder’s privileged lane for entry. I am pretty sure they are working to fix the this oversight.

Our only regret is that we drove through Joshua Tree and paid the fee like plebs, as we hadn’t thought to buy a pass yet. Next time, Joshua Tree kiosk employee. Next time.

From the base of the tower, we could clearly see rock climbers as bright spots of color along the rock pillars. It must have been a fun and moderately enjoyable climb, as the climbers quickly went up, and then repelled down, and passed us on the path looking fairly fresh.

We read that this tower has been a sacred place to the indigenous people since the beginning of human history. Colored cloths were tied to the branches of trees in the bright green groves. These cloths represented prayers and visits to this place. One can see how this tower might be revered. After all, what is it here for but to watch over the land?

Our journey after the Devil’s Tower consisted of a few stops little cowboy towns and pull-offs to light off fireworks. We came through Rawlings, home to the Wyoming State penitentiary. There must be more than one building, used for this purpose, as the stone prison we gazed at looked less than intimidating, and this penitentiary does house Wyoming’s death chamber. Of course, no executions have happened in Wyoming in a good 30 years. Perhaps this is because the prison is so cute that the inmates reform and leave much better people. If only that were true!

At some point during the drive, Judah exclaimed, “Oh, no! $10,000 fine or 5 years on prison! I have a rock in my pocket from the National Park!” “Well, at least the prison is adorable and looks like a castle. We’ll swing back and drop you off quick and come back for you in five years.”

We made it to Meeker, Colorado, in time to set up camp. We found a beautiful spot on the White River where some of the river was diverted into a swimming hole. The kids were thrilled.

If I were a cat, that place would have given me a bushy tail and an archy back. Almost immediately, some young teen boys stared at Atticus as he pranced and cartwheeled around, and one said, “I’ll bet you 5 dollars I can make him stop.” They all laughed and made some jokes about hom, and then walked off. Huh? I was still considering what to do, as I suddenly knew the stress of West Coast culture was here, when I looked over at Sunshine, walking happily back from exploring the swimming hole. There was a group of men sitting near where she had walked, all of them staring at her with the look of mean watching a beautiful woman pass. There was a party on a deck, and drunk people wandering around the street near our camp site, people walking through our camp area within arm’s length of our tent, and many many mosquitos.

We have been in a very different universe for the past few weeks. If we had forgotten why we want to move, well, we are reminded now. This town considers itself to be the gateway to the west by that rout. I’d say it is.

We had some fun with the camera while we made dinner Brandon found us a hotel.

Judah hadn’t gotten his photo shoot yet on this trip, and neither had Atticus. I love these wild boys!

In the end, the kids begged me to let them make a pyramid. Kiki said, “We all have to work together to make a pyramid,” and they set to work. As much as they bicker over little things, they know how to work together to get a big goal accomplished. They are good kids. They’ll do well as Midwesterners. I cannot wait to get them settled there.

We should name our road trip “There and Back Again.”

Today we start our journey home. We started on the east side, went west, came back east, and now we are going back west. It has been a good investigation trip, we know a lot more now than we did a month ago, some surprising facts came to light, and we think we have a very good idea of how to proceed with a move next summer.

Of course, I have an urge to go NOW, but Brandon needs time to ease into the idea, there are some hikes we still need to do in California, Sunshine has been promised that since she leveled up in ballet and tap that she could continue at her dance school for another year, and I am teaching Great Books in person this year, so we need to be here for a year to wrap things up. It’s going to be an eventful year, to say the least!

We took the long rout up through Brookings (So long, pretty town! Maybe we will move here!), grabbed some Micro Donuts, and headed west. Through De Smet, through corn fields, past cattle munching happily, on until lunchtime. We pulled over in a tiny place outside of Huron called Wessington. We pulled into a park and pulled out our lunch. The park had a pool, vintage playground, tables, great, old trees, and showed signs of having been the center of social life in this tiny place for 150 years of so.

It didn’t take long for town kids to show up. A girl named Danielle, obviously the ring leader, brought our kids into the fold and quickly filled us in on all the important details of town. This kid was her brother. That kid swims faster than her brother. The pool opens at 2:00. There was a town social last week and the best part was the dunk tank. Danielle was 12 years old. She didn’t know if it was LEGAL to set off fireworks, but Judah could set them off anyway.

Danielle spoke with authority. Nobody questioned Danielle. She bore the marks of a life that might not have been filled with sunshine and roses, but there she was, drinking every last drop from the cup of optimism.

What a delightful child!

This drive might become our new “Palomar Mountain to Disneyland” drive, and it could not be prettier. There are gentle hills, rivers, lakes, cattle, horses, deer, farmland, and fluffy clouds as far as the eye can see. Cities have that clean, snowed-on look to them. There is enough rain here to keep the air cool and fresh.

And just like that, we are in Wyoming! Tonight we are staying in a little place called Hulett, just outside of Devil’s Tower. Our rooms look out on a sprawling lawn and a river beyond. There is a tiny farm across the river with sheep and chickens, wild turkeys, and the occasional deer jumping the fence. Deer have no enclosures.

Everyone is a bit testy this evening. I think the tug between staying in this land and the desire to see home and our animals again is weighing on us all.

Oh, and this hotel is for sale for only $750,000. Somebody buy it, quick! I want to stay here often!