Smart Snares

There was a growing trend going around the United States to leave the stadium lights on tonight for 20 minutes. It started at 20:20 military time (8:20 PM) and it was to honor students in the Class of 2020, many of whom will have lost the chance to play their last game or participate in their last activity. In Ohio, the announcement was made just today that K-12 schools in the state will not reopen before the end of the school year.

Although I am not teaching any seniors myself this year, you can’t be a high school teacher without having emotions about what that means. Surely the decision is one that leaves many of the kids trying to figure out their immediate future. What will come of all the traditions and experiences that they were planning to continue? Will they even have a graduation? That thought made me think about that special day itself.

Having attended probably twenty graduations in my life, I have always been struck by the different volumes of applause for each student when their names are called. There are three distinct types: The quiet kid (meager applause), the popular kid (loud hooting and cheering coming from the fellow graduates themselves), and the kid with fifty family members who show up (loud applause in the stands and probably two of those novelty airhorns).

Now that last type of kid? That’s the one my heart hurts for the most on a day like today. There are no winners here and I feel awful for all the graduates, but that one in particular just breaks me. After all, there is usually a reason there are fifty family members. They might be the first in their family to graduate high school. They might not have been sure it was possible even one year ago, when they were right on the fence about whether to stay in school or drop out. They might have a baby of their own already, or one on the way. The challenges they have faced are massive, and they found a way to overcome them. You’re darned right it’s time to come out and cheer! ::horn sounds::

Here’s the other thing that makes me so sad about that last group, though: often times, that is the last graduation they will ever have. I heard once that for many employees, the last time anyone ever stood and applauded them was their high school graduation. These kids have worked hard for the chance to be recognized in their special way, and that chance might be evaporating. Many are headed to the workforce, and this type of opportunity won’t happen again from a college graduation.

So tonight, although it’s early, I celebrate the Class of 2020 for everything they have accomplished. I celebrate them all, but especially the ones who might not be going to college. I celebrate the graduates who faced the biggest struggles and were on the verge of falling apart. I celebrate the ones who were looking forward to this moment as the biggest day of their lives.

May you treat this unfortunate ending to your high school career as just another stumbling block on the road to success. You have overcome so many so far that maybe by comparison this will just feel like another speed bump. If we have a graduation, I hope that fifty family members will safely yell and scream from a proper distance, and I hope that the airhorns are more well-stocked at the store than the toilet paper.

If we don’t have a graduation, then we should all steal a line from Brad Paisley. “I’d end by saying have no fear; these are nowhere near the best years of your life.” It might not feel that way right now, but it’s in your hands. Believe that things will be better soon, and that you are the ones who will cause it to be that way. You’ve got this. Make it happen, Class of 2020.

I read a very interesting article posted online by my father-in-law discussing, among other things, the power of advertising. It brought up the idea that when things get more back to normal after this pandemic begins to slow down, there will be a rush of companies trying to regain your trust (and your dollar). That being said, I feel like I have really been able to focus on some different things in the last month and it has been refreshing. What will I allow back in my life? What am I alright with being gone? What have I discovered lately that I want to keep? It’s a tough decision-making process. As I write tonight, I want to simply brainstorm a few things in my life (and the life of my family) that I think about when I debate what might change forever, and what might not.

BRING BACK: Museums. I can’t wait until things like the children’s museum and some of these science centers are open again. There, I said it. I know that might just be a point of contention for some people. “You want to bring your kids back to that germ-filled cesspool?” Yes. Yes I do. I have really enjoyed my kids learning in different ways lately, and being inside the house so much makes me want to pursue pretty much any opportunity to explore I can find. I look forward to the chance to share these things with my kids to the extent that I can.

KEEP: Public television. I have watched so much more PBS lately, and I really do like it. Just this week alone I have learned about water, diabetes, and bourbon! Okay, so the last one was because we get Kentucky PBS, so don’t judge. Actually, judge. It was super interesting and I could probably use a little right now. In general, I have really taken a liking to a lot of what I have seen, and in a regular world inundated with sports I probably wouldn’t have slowed down enough to watch even half of what I have.

GET RID OF: National news. I tend to watch a lot of news, and I have really enjoyed the local news. Cincinnati has pockets of red and blue politically, and as such I have always felt like most local news broadcasts have done a great job of presenting a fair, neutral way of presenting information. However, I have really had trouble finding anything on national news that could be considered neutral. I tend to find a lot of my national news on Twitter, and that isn’t exactly smart either.

BRING BACK: Travel. Lots of travel. I don’t care if it fits in the budget or not. I was just telling my friend yesterday I want to rent an RV and go across the country visiting national parks this summer. I am well aware that we can’t, but it just sounds so amazing! In a world with so much worry about the future, why not spend the present seeing as much as you can? Hmm. Are there any YouTube how-to videos on making a Honda Odyssey FEEL like an RV?

KEEP: Actually visiting with my wife at night. It has been great just to take a few evenings here and there and just talk. Sometimes we have the television on, and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes she’s pacing around the house getting her steps. Either way, it’s been great to catch up. This would normally be my busiest time of the year, and I’m not convinced this time would have been spent actually feeling closer if I were caught in a whirlwind.

GET RID OF: Having a thousand things on my schedule. I don’t want to say anything bold on a blog like “I’m not teaching anymore!” I won’t claim that today marks the end of my coaching career. I make no promises about whether my kids will play soccer or baseball or any other sport as they get older. Here’s what I want to commit to instead: The next time a kid decides to play a sport or I decide to take on a responsibility, there’s going to be a real conversation.

I’m not willing to give back every single last positive that this mostly negative time has given me just because something new shows up on the radar. Watching my daughter hit baseballs across the cul-de-sac and my son ride bike with both legs on one side of the bar has been awesome. It’s not time to give it back yet. Maybe it won’t ever be.

The next few months will be full of conscious decisions. What will we bring back as a society? What will go away? Just as each state is going to have to make decisions, so will we in our own household. I don’t know what decisions I will make, but I do know I won’t take it for granted.

It is really hard to imagine that something that happened only six weeks ago feels so distant. I was reflecting on it today and all the things that came together ultimately would have been impossible even two weeks later, let alone today. The timing ended up being just right, and looking back at it I am incredibly grateful. It was a quiet and solemn weekend, but so special-it was when we laid my dad to rest.

The back story is a little bit unusual. My dad passed away a couple years ago and it was quite a surprise. We were all sort of trying to piece together what a funeral would look like and how it would work out. It did, but the final laying down of my dad’s ashes had to wait. Was my family going to choose the national cemetery? Were they going to stay close to home? Was home even going to be home anymore? It was a whirlwind.

Ultimately, my mom wanted to live closer to my sister for a little extra support. She chose to move to the other side of town, and the process took about a year. This decision was not taken lightly and it still left the resting place in limbo. It took a while to find the right place, the perfect place for my dad’s ashes to be interred. It actually turned out that the right place didn’t even exist until just a few months ago. When my mom and sister visited, they decided it was the right choice.

This is where that first weekend in March came in. We decided to share a very small ceremony as a family on Friday morning, so I flew out late Thursday night. It was the last flight of the night, so the airport felt eerily quiet. Who knew that it was only going to get quieter for the six weeks thereafter? The flight itself wasn’t full but we weren’t sardines, either. At that point a few cases of coronavirus had been reported nationwide, and there were some people using wipes and even a mask or two. Still, when I arrived in Phoenix the airport was packed, even a little before midnight.

Friday was a special day. The ceremony and lunch we had afterward couldn’t have been better. Four of my aunts and uncles were able to attend, which would almost certainly have not been the case today. My mom’s pastor said a few kind words, and we all shared memories together. The weekend was dedicated to each other. I would have loved to hang out with everyone for a few days, but I wasn’t really supposed to have the time off in the first place! I had a little over 48 hours, and I was going to share it with my family and reflect on my dad.

I was telling a fellow teacher friend over the phone yesterday that if my dad had still been alive, he would have been a great person to talk to during this whole pandemic. I think he would have offered a great perspective as someone who had been through both peace and war, and both joy and loss. We probably would have talked about the weather and the news, and probably a little about poker too. Okay, a lot about poker.

In the end, the way time works is just more than my brain can handle. I can’t believe it has been close to three whole years since he passed, and yet I can’t believe it has only been six weeks since I got on that plane to see my mom and sister and lay my dad to rest. Time flew by at a breakneck pace, and then suddenly everything just stopped. Now that we are moving in slow motion, I regret not taking more pictures. For that matter, I regret not slowing things down back years ago, when time flew by so quickly that I was too busy for some of those talks.

Then again, regret doesn’t do anyone any good. I think I will stop and smell the roses a little bit while I still have my time and my good health (neither of which are a guarantee). While I’m at it, I will take my sweet time and go back to a few great days in March.

There is a children’s book floating around called The Birthday Queen. In the book by Audrey Wood (whose name sounded familiar, so I discovered she also wrote The Napping House), a young girl has a birthday and the queen is in charge of making it just right. It sparkles and shines and everything about the birthday ends up being perfect. In the end, it ends up being revealed that the “Birthday Queen” is actually, you guessed it-Mom.

In light of Easter (He is risen, indeed!) I can’t help but give a shoutout to the Holiday Queen of our house. You could tell for about two days straight that my house was going to be made to feel like Easter even though we weren’t celebrating it in the state we normally do. I remember a few days before Easter getting a text from my wife while she was at Walmart. “I can get 60 white eggs or none.” She bought the 60.

The Holiday Queen went to work coming up with ways to use them. We had an egg casserole breakfast one morning. The kids dyed more than two dozen of them while I more or less tried to keep the table from getting dyed itself. For as much cooking as took place between Saturday and Sunday, it might be a wonder she only used that many.

When the kids woke up on Easter morning, they had a basket and gift special for them, and the dyed eggs had been mischievously hidden by a bunny. They had enough of that stupid Easter grass to cover 700 square feet. By the way, I have to say this or else I won’t get another chance: If I never see another piece of that stupid fake grass again, I will be a happy man. I told the Holiday Queen Sunday afternoon that it is on the top-ten list of things I irrationally hate. It’s awful. You think you have cleaned it up, but no! There’s another piece! Another! Two more over there! It’s diabolical.

Our Easter meal was amazing. We had ham. We had rolls. The broccoli had so much cheese that it barely tasted like broccoli. The green beans with bacon were amazing as usual. The mashed potatoes were unbelievably creamy. Full disclosure: I did none of it. The Holiday Queen planned it, bought the food, and cooked. She was convinced the meal would be a big part of the normalcy the kids needed on an otherwise very different holiday, and it was.

I keep referring to my wife as the Holiday Queen because it’s not just an Easter thing. She has always been the one who can wrap Christmas presents better, the one who knows just what to get the kids and where to hide it, and the one who makes everything go ’round. This Easter was not the exception-it was pretty much the rule.

So if she reads this (or even if she doesn’t), the Holiday Queen deserves all the credit she can get for making this weekend special for everyone-and then some. Back when we were both teaching in Arizona, she carried a ton of the weight around the house. Ever since I started working here in Ohio and she started staying at home, she has basically carried it all. For someone who has spent his time teaching, coaching, and driving, it has been a great relief to know the kids have such a special mom.

Oh, and next Sunday is my daughter’s birthday. I will help get the house around and ready this time, but I still stink at the sparkles and shines. I guess there really is no rest for the Holiday Queen.

About eleven months ago we took the family camping for two nights at Hocking Hills State Park. It was an incredible experience for us because our kids were starting to get old enough to really pull their weight and remember the experience. Well, let me take that back. I remember me pulling a lot of the weight. We were at the “you have to tote your stuff half a mile by hand because we don’t allow cars in this area” campsites and the kids didn’t pull much. In all seriousness though, we were really hoping to have another great family outing like that soon.

Since our weekend adventure was postponed, we ended up taking a small adventure yesterday “after school” to Stonelick State Park, which was about forty minutes away from home. We probably hiked four or five miles with two kids and a dog, and the weather couldn’t have been much better.

There were some differences between the normal state park experience and this one. The restrooms were closed, for example. By closed, I mean there was a very small staked sign in front of the restrooms and the doors were unlocked. I think state park employees realize that people out getting exercise still need to use the facilities, so by putting out a closed sign you are essentially covering your tail.

When we passed by people as they were fishing and hiking, we tried to keep a good distance. It was quiet out there on the trails, and I can’t think of more than a handful of moments where we were within fifty feet of anyone, let alone six. In reality, I’m not sure why there weren’t more people out there. The campgrounds were closed, but that didn’t stop a handful of people from exploring the area on foot, bike, or paw.

When we were done walking, we went to the beach. Of course, by beach I mean a sandy beach area at the park that extended about a thousand feet long. It was so exciting for the kids that my son ran from the car to the beach faster than I have seen him run in ages. He had his shoes and socks off in a blink and stepped in that cold water like it was nothing. My daughter followed, and then my wife with the dog. I couldn’t help but get in myself. It was a little insane trying to take a wet dog home, but she dried off really well other than her little soaked belly.

The best part of the entire day was just watching the pressure evaporate from the kids and my wife. You could see how much they needed to be on an adventure, and it was great. We tightrope walked across downed branches. We got muddy. We planned our next camping adventure (sort of). It was special.

I didn’t blog yesterday at all, because there was severe weather that hit our city not long after we got home. The greater Cincinnati area had six tornado warnings and significant wind damage. We were safe and sound, but the very same drive we made yesterday afternoon more than likely wouldn’t have happened today thanks to downed trees in the very same area we hiked just a few hours earlier. It sounds like everyone in the city avoided injury, which is fantastic.

My son stayed up late last night sitting in the basement reading and listening to weather on television. My daughter slept through the entire thing but then woke up at four in the morning. My wife had to deal with two tired and grumpy kids all day. So what did we do today? Pretty much nothing. We were all pretty much just fine with it, too.

As for the weather tonight? The radar just told me it was snowing. Thanks, Ohio.

In sports, there are clear examples of players who have an off day. They are normally the best in the world at what they do, but on this particular day they just don’t have it.

Now what’s fascinating to me is that some athletes are so much better than the rest of the world that they can win even on an off day. What happens in real life when you just don’t have it one day, and you weren’t the best at it to begin with?

You get today.

I woke up today but didn’t have a lot of energy. I didn’t have a particular reason to struggle, but it just wasn’t there. I was able to do many of the things I normally do, like walk with the family. I even broke out my first student Zoom call with my co-teachers (we ended up with more teachers than students). At the end, though, it was just not my day. I found myself laying on the couch just trying to not go crazy.

It was one of those days where you tell the kids to do something and they don’t do it, but then you realize you are too tired to actually enforce the punishment.

It was one of those days where the dog poops exactly in the wrong place and at that moment you realize you forgot a bag to clean it up with.

It was one of those days where one of our young ones goes crazy and knocks the phone out of your wife’s hands, causing it to land in the strangest possible way and crack the screen despite it having a case.

I have tried to keep up six resolutions and goals over the last few weeks, and with the exception of running every day (I took four days off) I have maintained them all. Today, though, I give my resolutions two thumbs down. Today is just a big nope. Well I guess it’s actually three yes votes for blogging, flossing, and reading the New Testament. The other three? Nope nope nope. Just nope.

Everyone is dealing with this crisis in different ways. I am using the extra time I have found from working at home to try and change the way I treat my family and myself. I don’t do it to minimize people’s struggles during this time, which are clearly a major concern. I do it because if I am willing, able, and healthy I need to keep pressing on or else I will get off course in a hurry. I know myself and without pressure I crumble.

So to all the people who have given this last month or so a “nope,” you are doing great. Tomorrow is another day, and hopefully it will be better for you than today. I don’t want to pretend I understand everything you are going through because that’s not fair to you. I mostly just wanted to fess up. Today stunk. I did a bad job at all my jobs. If today stunk for you too, do I have the right to judge?

Nope.

Today was a flashback to 2011. Back then, my wife and I decided it was time to get out of debt. We had no kids (although that was about to change) and there was no time like the present. Well, that and Dave Ramsey told us to get out of debt in The Total Money Makeover. I started a blog called “50K, Go Away!” as a symbol of how much credit card debt we had and what the goal was.

Over the course of the next few years, we sacrificed a lot and got rid of our credit card debt bit by bit until there was no more. It was quite a journey, and one that I look back at fondly. Even though we have credit card debt again and have some new messes that need cleaned up, we learned a lot during those few years and shared some good times and laughs. Maybe that was why I found it so funny when I went out back today.

“Can you get me your trimmer?”

That trimmer my wife was asking for is the beautiful $20 Wahl hair cutter I bought from Walmart back in 2011 when we were trying to save a few bucks. Instead of going somewhere to get a haircut, I would just go out back, put on the #4 plastic piece, and run it through my hair for ten minutes. It was time to do the same with my son. Like father, like son. Those are tears of joy.

Anyway, we plugged it in and there was basically just a lot of yelling and screaming. She decided it wasn’t cutting, and he decided it was pulling his hair. I explained that I use it on my beard sometimes, and it still works just fine. It clearly must be someone else’s fault (and not just a nine-year-old trimmer that hasn’t been used on someone’s scalp in a very long time). My wife’s response was that I should use it on myself instead.

Challenge accepted.

In the end, I can confidently say that all three of us were right. It works. It doesn’t cut hair like it used to. It does tug just a little bit. It felt like Dave Ramsey was telling me to “live like no one else” all over again, even though this time it was the lack of open businesses that forced our hand instead of budgets.

I actually sort of like my new haircut. It felt really good to get my hair cleaned up a little bit, and it wasn’t too short. It was that good old #4 piece-the same one I used to use back in the day. Meanwhile, my son ended up getting his hair scissor cut by my wife, and it actually turned out pretty good too.

To me, this pandemic time actually feels a lot more like 2011 than it does any other time in our life since. We don’t go out to eat much, and we are saving money by not participating in activities like going to the gym. I guess blogging every day is another similarity, but the topics are different in 2020. Like I said though, I really enjoyed 2011. As always, I think it’s good to look for silver linings to the extent that you can.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go look at my old blog posts to see if my writing actually got better!

My wife came up to me before dinner and had the same conversation starter that I’m guessing millions of parents have had in the last couple of days.

“Wait, today was Palm Sunday? That means Easter is in one week.”

“Yep.”

“We have nothing for the kids for Easter.”

“I know.”

We have developed a great tradition over the last few years since leaving for Ohio. Easter means a trip to Nashville. It has been one of my favorite weekends of the year every year since we moved. The kids get to spend time with Grandpa and Mimi, and we get to celebrate together. It really is a special time.

One of the churches in the area rents out the Grand Ole Opry for worship, and we were able to go twice in the last three years (Matthew West led worship both times, which is just so cool-and so Nashville-that I can’t even explain it. There’s no such thing as bad worship in Nashville.) Even last year, when we didn’t go to the Opry, we attended a different service and sat in front of a family that didn’t even yell at us when our kids got antsy.

When the weather is good, we run around the backyard and hunt Easter eggs. When the weather is bad, we run around inside and try not to break things. No matter the weather, we share an amazing Easter meal and great memories.

With the coronavirus mess going around, I feel like our sense of time is completely thrown for a loop. Easter is WHEN?!?! What? Heck, it’s hard sometimes to even remember days of the week, which makes it a challenge to really celebrate church together and keep one day of the week set apart.

I actually think modern church services have spoiled us a little bit when it comes to family worship. If you think about it, we rarely have a worship experience as a family at all. The kids go to the kids rooms, the adults go to the worship center, and everyone receives the message designed for them at their appointed time. There might be Christian music on in the car and a prayer together before dinner, but if you don’t go out of your way to set aside family time for a church experience at home, you likely aren’t finding it anywhere else either.

In this time of worship from your couch, I find that my family watches a lot of live streaming. The Cincinnati Zoo does live zoo visits. My son’s teacher does Zoom calls. My wife recently connected with her family on a video chat, as did I with my best friend. In all of this, however, we have yet to really have a great shared worship experience. It’s our own fault, I suppose, and I don’t blame anyone but ourselves. The biggest issue is that the kids usually take in children’s church, and the adult sermons being put out by the church we regularly attend aren’t appropriate for kids at all.

What do we do?

I guess the short answer is intentionality. If you look hard enough, you can probably find anything. Heck, my wife just found out why the world almost ended in October of 1962. What you need might not be offered by your current church, but surely there is plenty worth finding. If we are willing to go to great lengths to entertain and teach our kids, we should probably be willing to make just as much of an effort (or more) to kindle our children’s faith.

Yes, this is easier said than done.

Yes, I miss Easter in Tennessee already.

Yesterday I wrote about exploring the great outdoors and going on a hike. However, the dog had other plans. She didn’t eat and looked like she was having some trouble. She threw up a few times too. It seemed like she was getting back to normal last night but she still left all her food. When we woke up this morning and the food was still there, it seemed obvious she needed more time to recover (and did not need to go on a long hike). Heck, I needed more time too, since I slept on the couch with the dog to make sure she was alright. When I woke up in the morning I went right back to bed! The good news is that our dog seemed back to her normal self by this afternoon though and is eating!

Knowing we had a whole day and our plans had been scrapped, my wife went to the local nursery to pick up her online order of mulch, flowers, shrubs, and I guess a lilac tree? Something like that. The process was crazy and we had to drive from one part of the nursery to the other several times to make it all work out. It was clear the process was a challenge for them and they were still working out the kinks.

It was depressing to see because this is the time of the year where the entire city seems to descend upon Natorp’s and go shopping. Spring in Cincinnati is vibrant and bright, and Natorp’s is actually a really big part of that. They serve tens of thousands of families. They sponsor all sorts of local events. If you are shopping there and you want a bottle of water because you are hot, you just go grab one. It’s free. In the fall, they open their sunflower fields and let people take pictures in them. And yet here it is, the first week of April, and the building sits mostly empty waiting for people to pick up online orders if they aren’t headed to Home Depot instead (since Home Depot is considered “essential”).

It just so happened that one of outdoor projects required a few things from Home Depot, so I went there a couple hours after Natorp’s. The parking lot was full and they were counting shoppers to limit how many could be in the store at one time. The checkout line was so busy that someone had to be there making sure people were practicing their “social distancing,” which is a phrase that I can’t wait to never hear again.

My economic fear in this whole pandemic situation is also one that I don’t know how to respond to. The big are getting bigger, because everyone needs groceries (Kroger), general goods (Walmart) and random stuff mailed to them five times a day (Amazon). In the process, the little guys are getting absolutely crushed and are often not even open.

The situation makes me feel awful for the first-time small business owner who just happened to pick March 2020 as the time they would finally open the doors to their business. I hurt for the local business who made an imprint in the community but wants to protect the health of its employees. I say this, however, recognizing completely that I have been to Kroger and Walmart in the last week or so and Amazon keeps sending my wife things I don’t even know are coming.

How does the little guy survive? I really don’t know. I need to do the best I can do to support my family, and sometimes that means making the cheaper choice or the choice that is open and not closed. I can’t pretend I have the answers to deal with the problem, given that I am a part of the problem.

I think I’ll start with this: Cincinnati, Natorp’s is open. They are amazing. They have always bent over backwards to help my wife and I with what we need.

Maybe we all need to do a shoutout to a small business that is still open and trying their best. We can’t save them all, but we can at least try to work together and let them know how much we appreciate them.

Tomorrow the plan is to go on a hike a little way from home. I have to be honest-I haven’t wanted to go explore this much in a long time. I mean don’t get me wrong-our neighborhood has been great-but it’s time to escape. It seems like we have never had this much time (or this much cheap gas). We don’t plan to stop anywhere-no hotels, no need for fast food, and none of that dreaded social interaction we keep being told about!

I would have never imagined I would miss driving as much as I do. When you drive a hundred miles a day for work, it tends to get old. Yet now, less than three weeks after stopping my daily commute in its tracks, I look back wishing for it to return. Heck, at this point I find myself enjoying a trip to pick up some food or a drive to the grocery store.

For my wife, the legacy goes even deeper. She has been to every state in the United States you can drive to. (Yes, she has family in Alaska too.) She spent a ton of her childhood in a truck. Her dad drove them, then owned a trucking company, and now sells them. Trucking is a part of the blood in her veins, just as America is beginning to learn that trucks are part of the blood of the nation. It didn’t take very long to find out that travel wasn’t going to be an option in our relationship-it was a prerequisite.

When money gets tight and travel becomes one of the first things to go by the wayside, things begin to get tough. We have been there before, and this time in our lives is no different thanks to our current pandemic. When you are used to coming and going city to city and state to state, it catches you off guard to suddenly be told to stop. We begin to consider what happens next. Do you travel anyway and ignore the warnings? Probably not. Do you look for safe alternatives that still allow you freedom? That’s what we are planning for tomorrow. Do you drive around town for a couple hours just because you can? We might be there next.

When I heard today that Arizona was going to shut down Grand Canyon National Park, I was disappointed but understanding. Obviously I no longer live in Arizona, but that park is a beautiful symbol of everything my family holds dear. My mother-in-law has hiked rim-to-rim and back again. I have spent the night either in the park or around it multiple times. It is everything the National Park system strives to achieve: appreciation for the beauty of God’s creation and respect for the environment around it. However, if you have been there you know it is a city in and of itself. It has its own full-service grocery store and post office. In a time like this, if enough people try to “escape” together they soon discover it’s not an escape at all.

I guess I will soon find out if our hiking “escape” actually works out or if everyone has the same idea we do. Unfortunately, if we don’t separate ourselves and follow the rules we might find a new decree from our governor saying we can’t go hiking either. Until then, we will press on and enjoy an escape. Hopefully we will find ourselves with yet another new opportunity to cherish our love of each other and the world around us.