God, the Mountains, and Everything

(I apologize for the layout of these blogs - I can't make the html work correctly when I load photos to a blog. Sheesh!)

Well, this has been a fabulous day. An interesting day ... and thankfully it started for me this morning rather than at midnight. I was a sick girl last night! I think that I am finally beginning to acclimate to the altitude, but last night I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. I have also decided that I am a lousy sick person. I whine and cry a lot. Poor Max had to put up with a lot from me yesterday. Last night, I made him crawl into the queen size bed (don't worry, Cody - I'm not telling anything you shouldn't hear) and let me snuggle up to him so that I could feel better. He just fell asleep with me up close to him - I felt so lousy.

Max is having a terrible time with his allergies as well. Goodness! We were in Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday (or RMNP as they call it around here) and the wind came up. I looked off in the distance and there was this yellow stuff swarming around in the wind. It took a few moments for me to realize what it was - pine pollen! Max remembered it from living in North Carolina. This morning when we woke up, there had been a light rain last night. The cars were covered in the stuff and it was in puddles on the ground. He has been hacking and sneezing. Claritin isn't even touching this stuff. But we're leaving soon and he'll live until then ... I hope.

Well, anyway ... let's get to today - there's a lot to tell!

We got up and moving ... a little late, but finally. We'd seen a fun breakfast place - "The Egg and I." But, this is what we saw as we drove into Estes, so we had to pull over and shoot some pictures before breakfast:

After breakfast we headed down the highway to Loveland. We were driving in the Big Thompson River Canyon. Wow! That was something. The highway follows the river, so the entire time on one side of the road or the other, we were looking at beautiful fast moving water. And mountains. As we were driving through the canyon, I was overwhelmed by the immense walls of rock around us. Stunning. Traffic was clipping along pretty quickly, so I didn't get any good pictures of it.

When we got to Loveland, gas prices were great, so we stopped to fill up. As we were waiting for the gas to flow into the tank, a young man approached us. "Hamilton County"? Where in Hamilton County? I realized he was looking at the plates on the van - which was Dad's van. Hamilton County, Iowa. I told him that it was Dad's van and he was from Webster City. So was this young man! He has been living out here for six years, but was thrilled to see someone from home. He figured his grandfather, who still lived there would know my father and when I told him that dad had just died in a freak accident a month or so ago, he was certain his grandfather would know of it.

But, the coolest thing about that conversation? After he told me what town he was from, the next piece of information that he shared was what church his grandfather went to. These are the things that link us together as humans!

We decided to turn around and head back. Before we left, we saw a lake and stopped for a quick walk for Leica and some photos for Max.

We got back into town, drove around a little and found the place where we would meet Soul Seekers for their late afternoon concert. The Prospect Park Living Center. They showed up and we went in to sing for a group of people that called it home. It was sweet! After the first song we did for them, one of the gentlemen just sighed with satisfaction. Pretty cool. The kids did a great job. Then, it was off to downtown Estes for supper. We ate a restaurant called "Locals". The staff was great and when they found out that we were a singing group, asked us to sing a couple of the songs for them. We did! The kids will have that memory for a long time.

After that we headed out for our evening concert at The Harvest House for Women. This was an amazing evening of worship, praise and song. The women responded overwhelmingly to the kids and the kids stepped it up for them. We were all in tears before we finished singing. Jennie was watching the kids lifting their hands in praise as we sang, and I was watching the women with their hands up and their faces lited in prayer. Weeping ensued. Even the kids were crying by that point.

The Harvest House Ranch is an amazing facility. It's been around for 34 years. They teach young women how to parent - God's way. They bring in addicts and abused women ... they care for young women and all of their children. They help young girls who are pregnant and will offer long-term care - at least until their child is 2 years old. The director told us this evening that strung-out heroin addicts will come into the facility and will never have to deal with coming down from heroin. God allows them to sleep and when they wake up, the heroin is gone from their body. She's watched it happen over and over again. What a ministry she has!

I'm sorry I don't have pictures. Max stayed in the van with Leica, so no camera.

If you are waiting for pics on the Faith-Westwood site, they're coming. Poor Cody has all of the photos from all of the sponsors loaded on to his computer, but he has had lousy access to the internet. I asked him what was up tonight, and after the look of panic on his face, he told me that internet access was fairly intermittent and very limited. We'll see what he can get done tonight.

We're home early this evening. It's nice. We need to get things wrapped up to pack the van tomorrow. We'll leave Colorado after the concert in the park tomorrow night. I'm not sure how far we'll drive - maybe all the way home. You may not hear from me until Thursday when I'm back in my own comfy home!