The Edge [of all] Journeys

So, I’m still working on a bunch of media updates for the blog… videos… The Map (which is giving me some headaches)… all kinds of great stuff. And I had originally intended to put it all out at once, but I figure I better pace myself since everything takes so long to edit and upload. So, here’s a window into what our July was like:

Click through to go through the gallery in order… or just watch random moments from our July right here. There’s nearly 200 photos in that gallery. And, as if that wasn’t enough, I had to give our family time in Neskowin, OR a separate gallery of it’s own since there were so many photos from that week with my brother, sister + her family, and our parents celebrating their 40th anniversary:

You might have also noticed the Twitter feed that I added a couple months ago near the top of the side-bar to the right. It automatically updates whenever we save a new post here, whenever I upload new photos from Lightroom to SmugMug, and whenever who knows what else my geekiness will think to wire up. Once in a while I even update it manually. If you like Twitter, you can follow my feed directly here: http://twitter.com/edgelore

Enjoy!

At this moment, Joy is asleep on my lap, Reayah is quietly reading books, Bennah is out riding his bike, Jaiden and Zach are asleep and Andrew is working on his photos. About an hour ago, Andrew and I we were enjoying the warm sunny day, sitting outside under the awning, drinking coffee and watching everyone play in Shawn and Shelley’s back yard. Reayah was shelling peas, our younger boys were playing in the water and Bennah was reading. I took a sip of my delicious hawaiian hazelnut coffee and looked out at everyone happily entertained and thanked YHWH for Shabbats. To top it all off, a loud choo choo train went by only a few yards away on the tracks that run right behind their house.

Little boys love their trains and fire trucks! Since we’ve been traveling, we’ve seen many trains. Some have even blown their whistle for us as they passed us and probably just happened to glace out and see a blue Suburban with all the windows rolled down, filled with kids grinning widely, hair blowing wild in the wind and waving frantically at them. On one rest stop in Saskatchewan, we stopped for some burgers at A&W.  A beautiful bright train just happened to pull up and stop right in front of the kids. I jokingly said “Maybe they stopped for a bathroom break or a lunch break!” Just then, out stepped 3 conductors. They walked along the tracks and headed straight for us. They graciously waved back at the ecstatic children and walked on to A&W for some lunch! We are constantly trying to teach the kids that everything good thing is a gift from YHWH. The kids love the trains so much, that they have started to thank Him every time they see a train. And why not? He knows the desires of our hearts and wants to give us good things to make us smile. Even if it’s something as common as seeing a train up close and having them blow their whistle just for you.

He has answered our prayers and is constantly blessing us with good gifts. In Oregon, on our way to the coast, I had prayed that Father would help us to eat healthy on the road and help us find good food to eat. Within what seemed like minutes, we saw signs for an indoor farmer’s market with fresh daily picked produce. It was in the middle of nowhere and had a HUGE gravel parking area that was perfect for RVs. I was blown away at how quickly He answered my prayer. From fresh cherries, yellow watermelons, berries, raw honey and green beans, we all enjoyed the wonderful bounty of the local farmers. The little blessings that we all receive everyday are actually a big deal when you consider who gives them and why they are given.

Shelley and Danica are out picking beets for the beet borscht she’s planing to make. I should go out and see if she needs any help.

This post was supposed to be a media blitz: photos, videos, links, etc. galore… Time is the incredible shrinking woman, it seems, and experiences are the clothes that always remain the same size. Sorry for the obtuseity. I’m feeling saucy on this rainy friday morning in the middle of a restless kids chaos storm swirling around the narrow chambers of our camper trailer. Let me set the scene further for you:

The hospitable Shawn (we’re comfortably parked and hooked up behind his home) is sitting next to me on the couch here in the trailer. Bennah says in frustration “I don’t care if it’s raining I want to go on the swings anyway… fine after I do some math [slams math book on the table]…” Jaiden exclaims in his high pitched excited voice from the steps (our door is propped open to shed the heat from the granola-cooking oven and let the cool rain air in) “it’s raining look it’s raining all so much.” Reayah tries to get her jacket on saying “I can’t wear it,” and Renee says “here, just over one arm,” and helps drape it over her sling.

She fractured her elbow a couple days ago.

And so begins a journey backwards through the most recent adventures. Should I start at the beginning or the end? Ok, we’ll go forwards from the last post.

Confession time: I actually did not end up going to bed after my last post like I said I was even though I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Well, they shot back open when I was closing the blinds because the Wal-Mart parking lot was literally swimming and swirling in the shadow of vast moth-clouds hovering around the lot’s lights. It was epic-plague-like. I’ve never seen anything like it. They were being chased, evidently, by an immense mountain lightening storm because after snapping a few stills and getting the video camera ready to roll there was scarcely a moth left and then the thunder started. I spent the next hour or two capturing some of the best lightening shots I’ve grabbed so far… and getting drenched doing it. Yes, I will post some of them eventually. It was spectacular. I only wished for a better backdrop, but I made do.

The rest of the trip went quite smoothly as we worked our way back up to Canada. We managed a good long stop each day for the kids to let out some energy including a Dinosaur Museum in Montana where they got to learn how to dig for fossils and practice on a big replica buried in a huge dirt pit in front of the museum.

And then the 2nd border crossing. My theory went like this: we’ll try crossing at a small customs portal in the middle of nowhere to avoid the hassle of over-cautious guards who have the added stress of constant traffic and a high-visibility location. Well, the crossing went quite well, and the theory seemed sound… until I realized a mile up the road into Saskatchewan (SK) heading towards Swift Current that those roads have no tax payers living along them and therefore calling them “paved” is a stretch of the imagination. More like – a patchwork quilt of materials that all bear some resemblance to pavement in their own unique way. I’ve pulled the trailer faster on dirt roads. What I thought would take a couple hours took twice the time, but we eventually made it to the Wal-Mart at Swift Current. So, the moral of the story (so far) is: you can’t beat the border even if you can choose whether to spend the wasted time in customs or on the precarious roads in the middle of nowhere. I still hope to find the ideal place to cross though… but like all things it will take some more trial and error.

Once we got close to Swift Current and of course along #1 across SK driving was a joy. I never thought I’d love driving across SK so much. But after the juggling act between gauges, engine temp, pyro, gears, speed, brakes, down-shifting, etc. in the mountains from Oregon through Montana, it was a mental reprieve to actually use cruise control for a while and savor the relative flatness.

We pulled into Dauphin Bible Camp at 9:10pm on Jul 31st after killing some time pulled up along the canola fields so I could take pictures of the vivid yellow landscapes. At least three other trailers pulled in right behind us and the great Rempel/Andres family reunion was underway. Not enough details from the weekend can be captured here. I’m still swimming in names and faces and my brain is still trying to put all the connections together even though this was my second reunion among Renee’s cousins and aunts and uncles. After all – her mother is the oldest of 16 (living) children and I think the last count at the reunion was over 100 immediate relatives (near 140 when you include the Andres side). I still need to hit facebook and the family web site again and have several aha! moments of “so that’s who that was!” here soon while it’s still somewhat fresh.

We did nearly everything Dauphin Bible Camp has to offer: pool swims, archery (Bennah is a natural), horseback riding (Reayah’s favorite by far), a crud-like game in this special long table made for it (the kids were most often hanging out there), and I even got in some BMX trail runs with Andrew’s Adventure Cam (soon to be unveiled in the still-coming media blitz). The time was full and the kids got tuckered. Jaiden even missed dinner one night because he was unconscious at 6:30pm.

The best of that time was spent reconnecting with family – especially some of our cousins who share so much in common with us for which it was a joy to discover and rediscover. Out of these moments of reconnecting we ended up adding a couple stops to our itinerary – Winnipegosis on the way to Minitonas – and Calgary on our way to Colorado (which will happen after Winnipeg – our next stop via Winnipegosis one more time).

Which brings us to Reayah’s fractured elbow. Our cousins in Winnipegosis have the kind of property that I dream about raising our children on some day if YHWH ever provides and leads us to actually settle down again and build the log home we have in mind: lots of land in the country, pasture, bush, trails, huge yard, dogs, play structure that you can jump off of onto the trampoline, pool, shop, etc. etc. etc. and QUADS (or as we say in the States: 4-wheelers). I took the kids for rides on their Polaris 500 through the slightly overgrown pasture trails and had such a blast that I’m itching to go back for more (maybe next time without any little passengers so that I can really get into some rough ATV action). Reayah made fast friends with one of our cousins’ daughters; they were inseparable, and could often be found zipping around on the little 150 quad in a manner that suited the adventurous personality they share.

Looking back, Renee and I should have set more explicit ground rules for our kids and the fun machines. At the time (and still now) I completely trust her friend’s piloting, even if the natural parental “be careful” mantra was always present. But I didn’t really feel any alarm for safety. She was in good hands as a passenger with her friend, and I was excited for them to get some experience on the 4-wheelers (Bennah was driving the 150 solo quite well before we left). The problem snuck in when Reayah thought it would be ok to try driving herself with her friend. I had let her drive the 500 sitting on my lap, and never made it clear that she could only drive with dad or mom helping her.

As best we can piece together so far, Reayah was sitting in the back reaching from behind her friend to steer, while her friend ran the throttle and the brake. This was probably perfectly logical to them. And I think Reayah turned too sharply a couple times and her friend even warned her about it. But before long, there was a ditch, maybe another sharp turn, and the whole thing came to a flipping halt. When the dust settled, thankfully the only carnage was Reayah’s left arm in some acute pain…. but no lacerations or protruding bones or blood or any of that. Still, Reayah is one tough girl, and from how she was holding her arm and answering our questions we knew we had to get it checked out.

At the hospital we saw one of our 15 aunts, and the receptionist that had to figure out how to put us Americans into their system grew up playing with my mother-in-law and her siblings. The doctor was competent albeit perfunctory. Initially the x-rays came back and nothing appeared broken. But after the radiologist’s report the next day, there was indeed a hairline fracture in the elbow. 4-weeks in a sling and lots of rest and no crazy adventures for Reayah (for now). The pain has not been too bad since the first day, and she never complains about it as long as she keeps it still.

I think we all learned a good lesson on this one with minimal damage (credit: YHWH’s mercy and grace). I don’t think Reayah will ever forget to ask us about similar situations in the future when she wants to do something new… nor the potential dangers that motorized toys can present. And I know Renee and I will strive for a better balance between trusting YHWH with out children’s safety and setting / communicating reasonable, preemptive ground-rules for new environments and experiences.

Overall we are feeling extremely blessed. It could have been a lot worse. But we’re so thankful that in this case YHWH is instructing through life while minimizing the consequences. And, this stuff happens, you know. I told Reayah the story of how I broke my elbow too when I was roughly her age by falling out of a tree that up until then had been perfect for hanging upside down from. Despite the tumble, I’m rejoicing that she had the fun she did on that quad with her friend. The injury is merely a small part of an overall amazing memory. And like the wonderful memory, the lessons will not be quick to fade either.

I can’t wait to go back and visit our cousins there again. I just feel a bit sad that Reayah will have to sit out on the quad rides for a while. I wish the Florida clan could meet the Manitoba clan up here… some day.

Next on the agenda for today: a visit to a dairy farm around 4pm to catch some machine-milking action. I love the kind of field trips we get to do with the kids now.

And then… SABBATH… it’s a blessing to be here with our friends in Minitonas (and this is the furthest north I’ve been so far). Oh… and by far, this is the best internet connection we’ve had on our travels 😉 Thanks Shawn!

Ok trying this from Renee’s iPod for the first time so it might be kind of dicey. We’re somewhere in the middle of the northern strip of Idaho and I should be asleep right now. Not sure exactly where… I wasn’t paying attention to the signs when we pulled off I-90… Just thankful for a wal-mart 3 hours earlier than planned. The truck was too.

We spent yesterday driving in 100F weather and today wasn’t much better in the high 90s. Seen lots of terrain since we left the West Coast but today we hit the real climbs. Down to 20mph in 1st gear for one mile stretch, and even with the long break running around the mall in Spokane, WA and the incessant use of the 4 water spray bottle fans from last night’s wal-mart we were all ready to stop a bit early (like the 7pm it was).

Oh did I mention we don’t have AC in the truck? The previous owner warned me before we bought it that it had a gradual leak in the AC system somewhere that he couldn’t find and that it would need to be recharged. Guess what I keep forgetting to do?

Well, it’s easy to forget when it was still in the low 50s at night and barely ever above 70F on the coast for two weeks. We had an amazing time… More to come on that with photos galore.

Meanwhile we’re working our way up to Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada with a stop for dinosaurs in Montana… and somewhere along the road laundry has to get done.

I’m falling asleep now… With the sound of I-90 out my north window and the sound of a truckers rig running out my south window. At least it’s cooler here in the mountains.

Today at bed time we asked the kids what they were thankful for from the day. Bennah thanked YHWH for an early stop. Reayah thanked YHWH for finding healthy food for supper at the mall. Zach thanked YHWH for the beatiful views we saw from the bridge. And Jaiden thanked YHWH for daddy… Wow… Humbling and inspiring… Spending this time with them is the rightest thing I’ve done in life since I admitted I was in love with Renee and decided to marry her.

Oh yeah and we had our 9th anniversary on the coast too.

Joy Shalom can’t put it into words yet, but we know that she’s thanking YHWH for her new top tooth that’s finally out after weeks of cutting… And we are too…

Ok. Literally cannot keep eyelids open any longer… Sleep now.

Episode 3 of Journeys – a serial, rough-cut documentary composed of Motion Snapshots from our life on the road. July 2009: In this episode we play on the beach at Neskowin, Oregon.

Thanks for all the comments on the last post. I realized a few hours after posting that I probably did the adventure a cursory injustice. In my haste to get it posted while I had a connection I left out the emphasis that all your comments made up for: it was a truly blessed trip! And even with the tire explosion and all, it was awesome. It defined why we’re doing this. It sounds crazy but I love flat tires! Not necessarily the specific inconvenience of having to change a flat in a potentially dangerous situation – but the general archetype of the Flat Tire! The unexpected! The Challenge! The reliance – the adventure of discovering how YHWH is going to get us out of that one. 🙂

And He did – all the provision was in place, and my praise to Him for the journey was grossly lacking from the last post. Sure I had to sweat a little and work a little, and I was tired when we arrived, and I hope I don’t have any other blow-outs as long as we travel, but I DID love it anyway. And YES – we are protected. Protection doesn’t mean we won’t have to deal with anything hard. But it means that if we put all of ourselves into LIFE and trust the outcome to YHWH then He will prove faithful every time.

So, yes, we definitely had fun that day. And we love and miss all of you reading too! Sorry we don’t have more time to say so personally, individually, but hopefully Father will give us time together down the road… literally… 🙂

Here are some excerpts from the overall trip from Winnipeg to the West Coast, including several of the mentionable moments I referred to in the last post:

This is a giant turtle made entirely out of old wheel hubs. It’s in Dunsieth, ND and was fun to see – I used to drive past it almost every weekend going from Minot, ND to Winnipeg to visit Renee when we were engaged back in 2000.

This was the view from our camp site at the KOA just a mile a way from the East Entrance to Glacier National Park.

Here we are in Glacier national Park. It was so amazingly breathtaking.

The only way to really try to capture it somewhat was to put some panoramic photos together. I did about 10 of them overall, and they turned out quite well. Some of them had as many as 20 individual images in them. Here’s one below composed from about 8 images. The original versions are well over a giga-pixel each. That is snow in the bottom of the frame. We found out later from other campers that just a week before we got there, the road through Glacier was still closed because of the snow. It had only started melting in earnest shortly before we visited. What a blessing that it was open when we were there!

These mountain goats came right up to me and asked if I’d be willing to do a photo shoot with them. They got really close… I probably took 200 shots of them all together. What a treat!

And here’s that crazy hail storm that ran into us on our first day of travel after we left the KOA and Glacier.

Check out the grape-size hail stones! Biggest I’ve ever seen. These pelted us for a good 10 minutes. It was intense, and a fantastically awesome thing to experience.

And of course – the tire incident. I wasn’t kidding – it literally exploded.

There! That’s better… It was a long hard journey from Winnipeg to the West Coast. By the time we got here, late, tired, and road-weary part of me was ready to be done driving for a long while, and I wasn’t looking forward to thinking about the next leg(s) of the journey. But then… we finally went to bed after setting up the trailer… and I woke up to this:

This is our site right on the river. I stepped out the next morning to the sound of baby birds chirping in a birdhouse mounted on that tree right outside our door. The sounds of the river. The smell of the ocean and the evergreen hills. And all the travel-weariness slipped away in an instant. We’ve been having adventures all up and down the coast, and our time at this site is drawing to a close. In a couple more days we’ll join my parents and brother, and sister and her family just up the coast at a beach house for the week.

And I have a ton of coast pictures to share… and a crazy adventure that I went on this morning… but that’s all I’ll say about that – you know, have to keep some suspense to keep the readers coming back.

We’re settled in here south of Lincoln City, OR – nestled in a valley that doesn’t have cell coverage (hence no internet), but offers instead a constant supply of beauty: evergreen-covered hills shrouded in foggy serenity, a vibrant-green river behind our home on wheels, mist from time to time for good measure, old soul trees blanketed in moss… almost enough to stave off the connection withdrawals. I’m posting this from the library in town. We’ve just finished our laundry and the kids are restless to leave, so I will have to keep it short.

Our trip from Minot, ND to Lincoln City, OR was the most adventurous yet.

• Spent a few days soaking in the splendor of Glacier National Park… you should see the photos I got… I will have to post some if I remember to bring my photo disk drive with me sometime when I surface to get a connection.
• North of Augusta, MT I pulled over to try to get some shots of an amazing lightening storm not too far to the west. Barely minutes after stopping, the massive storm blew our way and right through our location, pelting us with grape-sized hail… biggest I think I’ve ever been in. We were broadsided by the assault and I felt like looking for the cannons to return fire. Thankfully, the “historic site” pull-over we had taken had a huge hanging sign etched with the story of the place that shielded a section of our trailer. But the exposed portion of our rolled up awning got a bit shredded… still, nothing that a roll of white duct tape couldn’t cure later on.
• Then, at an intersection an hour north of Helena, MT and 45 minutes east of Lincoln, MT we had to make a decision about which way to go with very little info… West was risky – possible crazy mountains and back hi-ways. South went to bigger interstates and cities, but was a far longer route. We decided to go West and had a couple major climbs, stopping at one point to let the line behind us pass while we cooled down, but ultimately we were glad we did it. It was a gorgeous drive and put us way ahead of schedule, getting into Missoula, MT late that evening.
• On the last day of travel, home stretch, finish-line practically in sight, things got really interesting. Driving down the very scenic I-84 along the Columbia River just 10 miles east of Arlington, OR we ran over some kind of metal chunk that I totally didn’t see and our rear, passenger tire on the truck exploded. I’m not exaggerating. I know about the metal chunk because one of those hi-way safety vehicle came up behind us a few minutes later and the driver told me he had just picked it up off the road a few hundred feet back. So, with the trailer practically resting against the guardrail, and just enough room to fit beside the narrower truck, I changed the shredded rubber with our spare. Took a while… thankfully, the safety worker stayed behind us with his blinkers going and then led us into town down the road to a tire shop. We got two new rear tires (for now – though I would have bought a whole set if they had them… I love these new tires, about the best you can get, aggressive grip, 10-ply, best all-round road / gravel / rain tires you can find and very affordable)… and there was a post office in town so we took care of our Correction to Change of Address since that was going to my sister’s who has now also moved… and replaced a fuse I needed at the ACE Hardware across the street from the post office… and several hours later back on the road.
• Had to stop one more time as we started swaying all over the road from the wind (I-84 hills are riddled with wind turbines which should give you an idea) to slap on our sway-control-bar (normally I leave it off because it hasn’t been too bad without it up until now and I prefer the extra maneuverability).
• All told, that put us arriving at 10pm local time at our campground when it should have been like 4 or 5pm. But we made it. And are loving it.

I’ll have to get some of those photos from the adventure posted here… there are some reall great ones. Check back over the next few days – I’ll update this post with them… or maybe just do a new post with a bunch. We’ll see.

How many of you can say that you had the chance later on in life to meet the doctor who delivered you when you were born? Maybe there are more of you than I’d guess, but I certainly can’t. Well, today in a cool turn of events it worked out for Bennah (who just turned 8 a week ago) to meet the doctor that delivered him.

We got a good start departing Winnipeg this morning and got into Minot, ND with plenty of time to swing by the hospital where Bennah was born. We were just going to show the kids the building, but on a whim, I thought – what if Dr. A. F. is still working there? So, I went inside, picked up the phone labeled “Information” and asked the nice lady at the other end. Sure enough! And she forwarded me to OB to check on his availability. So, after 8 years and 4 more children, we got a chance to say hi to the kind gentlemen who helped us with our firstborn. Crazy. And of course, he remembered us too… well, our situation was rather unique afterall – Renee on bed rest for 5 months of the pregnancy, and our request for an 8th-day circumcision, and several other unique things about our story, but I’ll leave it at that.

Then, we went past our old apartment (the second floor of an old house and probably the most favorite place we ever lived… tied with the last house in Alexandria, VA maybe… of course, current “home” notwithstanding, which doesn’t count because it’s way too awesome to even be compared)… anyway, it’s still there and it looks exactly like it did the day we left. Same colors – everything. After 8 years.

Of course, the Wal-Mart in town has moved and been upgraded to a Super Center; picked up some necessary road supplies… but the Sammy’s is still here and pretty much all our original favorite places are intact. Both thrift stores. The coffee shop / used book store. The photolab Renee worked at for a while. Etc. Talk about memory lane. It was so much fun to share this all with our kids, even though they probably just wanted to get out and run around and squirt each other with the new water guns from Wal-Mart…

And as for Bennah – I’m sure he just wanted to try out his new bike seat. He just learned how to ride a bike. On literally his second try. And some friends blessed us with an awesome bike for him (they had extras) but it needed a new seat. Up until today he’s been riding it around the campground with a shoe over the post to act as a seat. After he took a few spins around the Roughrider Campground where we’re parked now in Minot, he said he actually likes the shoe better. But he never actually sat on it I don’t think. His bony bum isn’t very comfortable on the new seat that he can actually sit on… but he’ll get used to it.

Long day of driving tomorrow and I should have been in bed a while ago. But this had to get captured. It was another great day.