How 'bout Them Phillies!

 Oh yeah!

Yes, I'm Alive!

Well, I see I haven't posted in about 5 weeks. I was 0 for September. Had quite the busy month, including trips to Montreal, Saint Louis, and a bike ride in DC. So, I'll try to catch up and just post a potpourri of pictures and stuff here today! ;-)

On vacation we went through Cincinnati and stopped by the William Howard Taft National Historic Site. Here's me and Billy, the only man to serve as both President of the United States and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

We visited both the Creation Museum and the Ark. The ark . . . it was BIG!

The cow stole my ice cream.  :-(

On the home front, when we got home from vacation, we had a bumper crop of tomatoes! Here's just some of them!

In September, my family and I went on the DC Bike Ride, a 20 mile ride through DC with the streets closed to traffic. It was a nice ride. Next year we plan on going up to Philadelphia and doing the Philly Ride back through our old stomping grounds. :-)

Because the past five weeks have been quite busy, I've slipped on my bike riding. Hopefully I can get back in the routine soon. I still have a lot on my plate, with a couple trips and presentations coming up, but hopefully I'll manage my time okay and be able to fit everything in. We'll see.

Bears!

So on our hikes in the Smoky Mountains we got to see some bears! Twenty years ago while there we didn't see any, but this time we must have seen bears some 5-6 times, including around our hotel! We saw some adults, juveniles, and a few cubs, too. Some pictures:

Here's one looking right at the camera.

(If you click on the picture and zoom in, you'll see it better.)

A cub climbing a tree. We looked but didn't see mama around anywhere.

Here's the one who prowled around our hotel one evening. Pretty big!

Not all the trash cans were bear proof!

Finally, here's a video of two cubs walking across a log. (Click on the full screen option for the best view.) We actually saw mama bear first and were watching her when the cubs came along! Even though you can't see mama in the video, she's in the foreground, under the plants. When watched for a while, but once mama decided enough was enough and started walking towards us, we decided enough was enough and continued on our hike!

But all in all, not only good hiking, but what good fortune to see so many bears, too!

Hiking

One of the things we did on vacation was hike. Always good to get outdoors in the fresh air and see the wonders of creation and nature. We spent a fews days in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and then at our newest National Park, New River Gorge. Some pics . . .

We hiked to some waterfalls . . .

Even got to go behind one.

We hiked into crevasses.

At our nation's newest National Park in West Virginia.

The view from the top . . .

and the view from the bottom!

Yes, we hiked all the way to the bottom! That was the easy part. It was going back up that was tough! Here's how it look on the "Map My Walk" app:

Tomorrow: Bears!

Back in the Saddle . . . Kind of

I'm back from vacation and now the task of catching up with everything from the past two weeks as well as jumping into the normal schedule! I'll post on our vacation over the next week or so (he said hopefully!), but in the meantime, one picture to get you going . . .

What shall I preach this Sunday? :-)

A Little R&R

I'm leaving for some R&R today - much needed! I know I left you hanging with my last post . . . I promise I'll get that up when I get back! I just didn't have time for the blog trying to get everything done before leaving. I've got other stuff to post, too. So see you in a bit!

Higher Things, Day 5 - The End, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The last day, as most of you know, is a half-day, a travel day. We say a lot of goodbyes and then start the journey home. Our plan was to load the van after lunch and before the closing service, then get out pretty quickly. 

Nope.

When I got to our van, it was dead. Completely. Didn't even try to start. :-(  I saw someone in the parking lot and tried to jump it, but couldn't really get a good connection on her battery, so it didn't work. Not even close. So we left our stuff in our dorm rooms and went to the Closing Service and would deal with the van after that. The Closing Service is one of the highlights, IMHO. I snuck out after communion to call AAA. Sadly, they basically said that someone would be there up to 1.5 hours from then. We would just have to wait and see how long it took. Sigh.

So after watching most folks leave, another friend offered to try again to jump - this time with a better battery connection. Thankfully, that worked, but the battery wouldn't hold a charge, wouldn't restart by itself. So it was off to the auto parts store for a new one. The first place wouldn't install it for us, but the second would, and did. All-in-all, not too bad, but it did hold us up leaving, which meant we get to our hotel later in the night. We were hoping to leave by 3 CT, 4 ET, but ending up leaving after 5 ET. (This was the "Bad" of the title.)

But before talking about that, some pictures . . .

Pastor Stan Temme, Evansville, IN, and his son Simon. Stan is the one who finally got our van started and followed us to the auto parts store to make sure we got taken care of. Thanks Stan! (Part of the "Good," along with the last parts of the conference.)

Pastor and Headmaster Steve Kieser of Plano, TX.

Almost 1,000 youth in attendance.

The final standings of the "tetramorph challenge" - the different teams the youth were divided into. Our team, Leo, was victorious!

The theme of next year's conferences, with an apologetics focus.

So, the trip home . . . went smoothly, at first. Stopped for a quick dinner in Fort Wayne, then wound our way through rural Ohio to our hotel outside of Pittsburgh. The fun always starts after dark when we begin to get silly remembering all that happened during the week and laugh a lot. We also started a new "Higher Things after Dark" tradition this year . . . but you'll have to wait for that until the next post!

But what about the "Ugly" in the title? Well, that happened around midnight when we were in eastern Ohio, trying to get onto a highway . . .  we got to the on ramp Google led us to, which was closed for construction! So after pulling over and figuring out how to get to the next on ramp, we started down the road when we were stopped by a freight train! TWICE! By the same train! It went across our street, stopped, a man pivoted a switch in the track, and then it backed up across our street onto the new track! Fortunately, it wasn't an ultra long train - only about 40 cars, but still another hold up, causing us not to get to the hotel, checked in, and to our rooms until after 2 AM!

So now, after a couple hours of sleep, we'll be off again soon for the last leg. Got to get home and get ready for church tomorrow! But check back - I'll try to get a post up later today about our new tradition. Trust me, you won't want to miss that!