Nature, Friends, and Fellowship

It's been over a week since I have last talked to all of you blog fans. Must have been some serious excitement in my life to keep me all from you, huh? .... well.... um.... not exactly. :S Let me enlighten you. :)

For starters, I awoke this morning to clouds, clouds, and more clouds. I think the sun is having a monstrous anxiety attack and has sadly barely shown its face for at least a solid week now. Though the rain is lovely and a blessing, my spirits need the sun! I did have a beautiful afternoon at the beach on Saturday with Briana, my roommate, and a whole plethora of Yankton-staying friends and visiting Mount Marty friends. Amazing how the sun can refuse to shine for over a week and yet provide us with a gorgeous afternoon for a reunion with friends.

Through all the clouds and rain, I've decided to adopt a new temporary motto: If the sun won't shine for you, take the opportunity to run in the rain. I've done that, literally, a couple of times in the past week. If you've never gone for a long jog in the rain, I'm telling you, your missing out. There's something calming and refreshing about pounding out countless steps while watching, and definitely feeling, the steady stream of rain come down.

Oh dear, this is shaping up to sound like a sentimental post. But since I've adopted that theme, I may as well go with if for at least one more paragraph. Because the beach was out yesterday, I decided to go for a long bike ride down to the trails at Midway beach in the afternoon. I have done it before and I believe the round trip is somewhere around 10-15 miles (I could be completely wrong...). Anyway, yesterday with the wind at my back and the cool breeze working in my favor, I decided that when I reached the end of the bike trail I would venture on and see if it picked back up farther down the road. I took a left and followed these cute signs with pictures of bikes on them. Low and behold I end up in a forest on some muddy horse trails. Ummm...I walked my bike up the first muddy hill to scout it out and decided if I continued on that path I would either a) get lost in the forest and never return, b) return splattered in mud from head to foot and thus find myself fending off concerned questions and looks all the way back into Yankton, c) get eaten by a bear, d) swerve around out of control in the mud and either get stuck or fly out of control over my handlebars and die. Sooo, after weighing my options, I turned around and headed down a neighboring gravel road assuming that it would lead me back to the highway and the resuming of the bike trails. I wound around, pedaled incredibly slowly up a couple of muddy hills, found myself surrounded by trees....I kept going, enjoying the quiet and the adventure until I came to a plethora of signs screaming, "NO TRESPASSING. PRIVATE PROPERTY." Painted in bright red, and plastered all around, they were rather intimidating, so I decided I should turn around yet again before I got shot.

Once back to the end of the bike trail for the second time, I ran into a middle-aged man on a BIG bike with 3 bright yellow duffel bags and a cooler strapped to various points on the machine and another of the yellow bags on the man's back. I was a little leery as to why he would be perched there loaded down with so many bags and blocking my path, but curiosity fought my fear and I skidded to a stop. The man, Jimmy was his name, simply wanted to know the answer to the question that I had spent the last fifteen minutes or so seeking myself. Where did the trail resume? Rule of thumb: never ask Kelly Starman for directions! I am direction stupid, and don't even trust my own judgment much of the time. I was able to offer suggestions as to where not to go unless he was seeking a mud shower. Turns out Jimmy had come all the way from New Mexico with his bags. He took a train to Illinois and then proceeded to hop on the beginnings of the Lewis and Clark trail out there. He had been riding since May 24 and had trekked all the way across Illinois and up the Nebraska border and was headed all the way to the west coast and the end of the trail at the Ocean in Washington. I was in complete awe. I had no idea the Lewis and Clark trail even existed outside of Yankton. It was utterly fascinating to hear the man's story and we had a nice little chat before I bid him good luck and farewell and tried one final divergence in the road, this time finding the highway I had been seeking, but then turning around and heading home for time's sake. I was a bit upset to discover that the entire ride home was directly into the wind. By the time I finally reached home, I had let out a couple of angry words, screamed a song or two in an attempt to motivate myself (no one could hear it over the wind anyway), and was completely exhausted, muddy, and REFRESHED. :)

Other than bike rides and beach experiences, what's there to tell. Those are, after all, the essentials of summer. :) Ok, well friends are way up there too!! It's been a great week of socializing. I've received two random phone calls from friends I rarely get to talk to but always find I have missed more than I ever dreamed. I watched three movies in one week, all with different people, and all opportunities for catching up. I couldn't help but smile all afternoon on Sunday in the presence of 30 of my TEC friends (I am working another of these retreats in July and am thus attending meetings). I made a random trip to Sioux Falls, not arriving until 9:00 p.m and needing to leave by 11:00 the following morning just to have some real conversation with Ms. Brittany, my dear friend and go-to girl. We passed the time simply talking and questioning life and we parted only after attending church on Sunday morning in a school gym. Who would have guessed that the Sioux Falls Cathedral was closed for renovations? And now I hear a rumor it may be closed for two years?!? And, last but not least, Briana and I made a real meal last night, and our good friend Jordan came over for the festivities. We shared some fine salad with vegetables and fancy dressing, spaghetti with whole grain noodles (a special gift from Jordan's cupboards of fine foods), garlic bread, and chocolate pudding with bananas for desert. We even sat at the kitchen table to share our food and fellowship. It was in fact, the first time all summer that table has been used for actual dining and not just junk collection.

Oh, and in the meantime, I've been working in the mornings and have twelve hour day shifts again this weekend. But who wants to hear about monotony such as that?

Happy Father's Day (a few days early) to all of you fathers out there. Kids, don't forget your fathers. Breakfast in bed?? hmmm....my poor dad is going to have to wait for the gift of my presence until approximately 8:00 p.m. (after work and two hours to drive home) on Sunday night :(. But, I'll be spending next Monday and Tuesday at home as well because my sister and her husband are going to be home from Michigan!!! :) That means a professional family picture is in the works...