From Donald, OR

In the middle of the night last night, sometime between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning, we woke up to the sound of a couple fighting loudly outside our room.  I think they had at least one teenaged son because I heard him tell his dad that he’d found something.  I almost wondered if he was trying to pacify his dad to get him to stop yelling.  It was rather upsetting. Continue reading

From Butte, MT

It’s funny what a big difference a few miles can make.  When we were on the train going through Montana up near the border of Canada, everyone onboard started getting bored with the monotony of it after Glacier National Park.  We’re just a little further south, and it was a much more interesting landscape going across today.  The weather was perfect; almost balmy even! Continue reading

All God’s critters got a place in the choir…

First I’d like to say a word about my pastor, Nancy Bontempo.  She will be leaving in a week for a clinic in Chicago that does a combination of whole body and traditional treatment.  I believe she said she’d be there for five days while they have a team of therapists from different specialties examine her and ask her questions about her diet and exercise and mental attitude and such.  She will be staying with a friend who has offered to take her back and forth to her appointments, so she doesn’t have that kind of expense to worry about.  However, her insurance will only pay for any traditional therapy she gets.  She is attempting to raise $50,000 for the rest of her treatment and has started a GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/nancy-bontempo-fighting-breast-cancer?fbclid=IwAR13FnmbqhcqhgqZvqZc98yIDWGHzhHaHIs6gTkNG1REQw2Kri8rjXCojPI.  I don’t usually ask if my readers would like to help with things like this, but for her sake, I’ll make an exception.  If you could even contribute a dollar or two, it would be a help.  Thank you! Continue reading

Worse than we thought

I haven’t written since Mark got home last Thursday, so let’s just say first of all that Mark and Tucson got home safely.  Tucson hasn’t been feeling well the last couple of days, but her nose is still cold and wet so we’re assuming it was something she ate.   Continue reading

Parting is such sweet sorrow

Mark left at 9:30 this morning headed toward Indiana.  I tried to delay him as long as possible so that I could have a little more time with him, but I should have let him go sooner because he didn’t reach his destination until 9:00 our time, 10:00 Eastern time.  Thankfully, he took Tucson with him. Continue reading