Pilgrimage 2011

For the second year we have journeyed from our home in Texas to our homeland of Washington where Claytonopolis began.  It was an interesting trip and also much better than I had expected with three young children and a puppy. 

We kicked off the trip with a speeding ticket while still in Texas.  It was silly ticket.  We did not realize the speed limit had changed because we were looking for the exit to our interchange. Oi vey.

We drove eleven hours the first day, which was the longest leg of our trip.  We ended the day in New Mexico.  We had reserved a room at a hotel there, but the “new” clerk gave it away.  He recommended that we go to the hotel across the way.  After Andrew chatted with the clerk there he talked her down on the price and this hotel offered a FULL breakfast.

The next day we only had a 5h30 drive to Cheyenne to visit with my parents.  As we crossed the border into Colorado from New Mexico we saw a big grizzly bear walking toward the road.  I was the first to see it.  It didn’t really register to me what I was seeing at first.  Then as soon as I realized I had to tell everyone all I could say was, “Bear, bear, bear.”  Alex saw the bear too and seemed unimpressed.  So I stopped and explained, “That this was very special thing we just saw.  It is very rare to see a grizzly bear.  Mommy and Daddy are adults and we have never seen anything like this in our lives.”

“Yeah, okay. It was great to see a bear.”

…We had a nice home cooked meal and a visit with my parents in Cheyenne. Then we moved on to Bozeman.  We had a swim at the hotel.  Then it was another short six hour drive to Spokane.  We were all very excited to arrive in Spokane.  It seems as though we are home again.  We went to our Spokane church and reconnected with church folks. 

On our way we read from Alexander Schmemman’s For the Life of the World.  It has brought to my attention things I did not know about the Liturgy.  It helped me to feel the living breath within the Liturgy once again. It was very good for our souls to read this.  But, it was too heavy to read at length on the road.  So we read Mother Teresa’s Come Be My Light as well.  We have not finished either.  But, this aspect of our trip made it more like our pilgrimage.  Our trip ended on the eve of the Sabbath and we were able to attend the Liturgy we read so much about.  It was very moving. 

Hopefully we will have some fun summer adventures to share.