Cindy finally blogs

Cindy here. Finally! I've been writing a lovely blog in my head every day. Really. Just haven't had the internet access like we thought we would, especially the last week in Canada. But now we're in Helena, Montana and decided to stop at a library for a couple of hours on our way to Yellowstone just so that we could update our blog for our dear family and friends.

Wow, what to say. We're dumbfounded by the beauty of what we're seeing. I'm humbled that we should have the luxury of taking this amazing trip when there are so many poor in the world. As a Christian, I'm struck by the immense creativity and love of God in making a world so grand in scale and so breathtaking in detail. If I am thrilled to see the sheered mt. cliffs, glacial canyons, and volcanic lakes, how much more joy He must have had in watching the glaciers carve those cliffs and canyons and and the volcanoes create those lakes over the millions of years that it took. Talk about an artist enjoying his art!

Every part of our trip has been perfect thus far. We've had perfect weather: sunny, blue skies and warm temps, even in places known for rain. We had a little rain the other morning but not too bad. It cleared in time for us to break camp. We've been able to get a camp site every night except one; then we stayed in a motel. That's pretty amazing considering it's the peak tourist season in these major national parks. Driving has been easy with Lisa to help trade off. And our driving has been broken up by enough stops that it doesn't seem like we've done much driving at all. Drive 5-6 hours and spend a day at a destination. Lisa's been a huge help at setting up and breaking camp; I've really relied on her. Matthew has helped as much as a 10-year-old can, which is to say not as much as an 18-year-old would like. Everyone has gotten along very well.

The only problems we've had have been: insufficient internet access to update our blog and insufficient time to do these national parks justice. We feel like we're just sailing through them and wish we had more time so that we could actually do some hiking in them. But we have a schedule to keep . . . 99 days is just not enough time . . . sigh. . . .

But, all in all, I'm very thankful for how smoothly things have gone and that we're getting to do this. We are blessed.