A Land of Sheltered Promise

Books soothe my soul.  This was such a book.  

Jane Kirkpatrick is an author that I read sporadically.  She lives in central Oregon, and her books reflect the history and geography of that area.  A Land of Sheltered Promise, published in 2005, is a novel based on true stories of Big Muddy Ranch in Wasco County, Oregon.

This book contains three separate stories, which the author has subtitled "Faith, Hope, and Charity".  The three stories span one hundred years from 1897 to 1997.

In Part One, Eva Bruner gets her first glimpse of the Big Muddy Ranch when she is four years old. Eva's youthful joy is short-lived. Her father kills a man and gets a life sentence, and her mother relinquishes hers to despair. Soon Eva finds herself being raised by her aunt and uncle. But her love for them and the Big Muddy grows.  She marries at age 15, once again, her joy is snatched away when her husband Dee is accused of murder and seems destined for the same fate as her father. Eva is determined, however, not to follow the steps of her mother and is blessed with an inner strength that carries her through betrayals and the ordeals of his trial. She sets up a homestead near the Big Muddy and continues to believe that her husband is innocent of his crime.

Part Two brings Cora Swenson to the Big Muddy Ranch. The year is now 1984 and the Muddy,along with the nearby town of Antelope, Oregon, has been taken over by the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers, a cult designed by shrewd lawyers to bilk the rich and foolish out of enough money to support the Bhagwan, his 90 Rolls-Royces, and his team.  Ultimately, a scandal caused by cult members who engineered a bio-terrorist attack ends the Bhagwan's reign, but many of the Sannyasins stay on and await his return, a testimony to the thoroughness of his indoctrination. 

Part Three returns to the Big Muddy Ranch in 1997 after it has been abandoned by the last of the Sannyasins and is now part of a land parcel that the Washington family wants to donate to Young Life, a non-denominational youth organization that serves teens. The conversion of this rugged, untamed land into a camp for kids celebrates the redemption of this land.

This book of historical fiction was a great read!  I enjoyed parts 2 and 3 the most.  See the author's website (and blog), Weaving the Stories of Our Lives, for more information about her books.

A Two-Day Trip

We finally went on a short shake-down trip after getting the repairs done to our motorhome.  We went back to Silver Cove RV Resort east of Castle Rock, WA, on the road to Mount St. Helens.  That's a Camp Club USA park, so we got 1/2 off the price for the first night, but had to pay full price, minus our Good Sam discount, for the second night.  We stayed there last Wednesday and Thursday nights and the discount is only good Sunday through Wednesday.  The park was quite empty except for the full-timers section which is somewhat isolated from the rest of the park.

Site #4 was very spacious.

The first day we explored the small town of Castle Rock.  They have a new two-mile paved walking path that follows the river.  We also rode our bikes around the RV park, but the road outside the park soon became too steep for us.

We saw a great blue heron behind our motorhome along the bank of  an inlet to Silver Lake.

The next day we drove up to Mount St. Helens.  The weather was misty and overcast in the morning, so we waited until almost noon to leave the motorhome.  After just a few miles, the sun came out, and we ate a picnic lunch at the Forest Learning Center along Highway 504.

The view from our lunch spot. The mountain was visible without clouds in the way, but almost all of the snow has melted, so the view wasn't as impressive as sometimes.

Mount St. Helens

While at the visitor's center, Dave paid $10 and purchased his lifetime Senior Pass to all the national parks and federal agency parks.  What a bargain! 

We stopped at Coldwater Lake to take a walk and some photos.

Hofstadt Bridge

The motorhome was fine--we didn't have to start a new list of problems.  We had managed to load everything back into the motorhome that we needed for the two nights.  The shakedown trip was successful!

Comments Mystery

Sometimes things happen in cyberspace that I don't understand.  Yesterday I reposted the news about Tim and Kiersten because I didn't get any comments about it the day before.  I thought that was strange, and I even had Dave check and see if the blog post appeared on his computer.  I thought that maybe since I had published the post at 11 pm, nobody saw it. 

This morning I got an email from Mike and Gerri (Happytrails) telling me that they had sent two comments, neither of which I received.  At that point, I went directly to my blog and looked under comments. Sure enough, there were a whole bunch of comments waiting to be moderated.  I was surprised to see that because comments usually come to my email.

I don't know what happened this time.  And of all the times for it to happen, when I had such "big news" to share!   I hope it doesn't happen again, but now I'll periodically check the "comments" section at the top of my blog.

Thank you all for your nice comments, and thank you for your patience when I blogged the same news again the next day!  We are definitely looking forward to becoming grandparents!

Grandparents-To-Be!

Our son, Tim, and daughter-in-law, Kiersten, have officially announced that they are expecting a baby on April 10, 2011!  This will be our first grandchild.  Dave and I are very excited and happy for Tim and Kiersten.

Tim and Kiersten have been married for six years, and we have all gotten accustomed to coming and going as we please.  A new family member will change things tremendously, but it is a change that we are all looking forward to!

Last year we left for our six-week trip on April 13.  Not this year!  We need to stay at home and be available to meet our new grandchild.  We may take an extended trip in January and February of 2011 of instead of April and May.  There aren't too many places to choose from when you travel in the winter, so we are thinking of going to California with possibly a side trip to St. George, Utah. 

Big News!

Welcome to my new blog follower, Pidge, who writes a blog called The Frugal Travelers. 

Tonight I have big news to share.  Our son and daughter-in-law, Tim and Kiersten, are expecting a baby, and it's due April 10, 2011.  Actually, we've known since mid-August, but we were sworn to secrecy until the first trimester was over and until Kiersten's extended family could be told in person.

This will be Dave's and my first grandchild.  It's exciting!  We're happy that Tim and Kiersten only live 45 minutes away from us. 

You can see a link to Kiersten's blog among the links the blogs that I follow.  She has been writing blogs during each week of the pregnancy, but she saved them all to post today. 

Tim and Kiersten celebrated their sixth anniversary this summer and are both accomplished young people.  We are happy that now it's time to make us grandparents-to-be!

The proud parents-to-be

Decorah, Iowa

Decorah, Iowa

A few days ago I saw an article on Yahoo listing the “most beautiful” college campuses.  It got me thinking about my college campus, Luther College, in Decorah, Iowa.  While certainly not the “most beautiful” it is a very pretty campus.

Most people think of Iowa as being flat and boring.  Most of the state is flat, including my hometown, Osage.  But northeastern Iowa is not flat.  While there are no mountains, the hills are very pretty, especially in the fall season. 

Luther College’s fall colors

Brandt Hall, where I lived my freshman and sophomore years

Pictured below is Olson Hall, where I lived my junior and senior years, except for when I was away student-teaching.  This hall was controversial since men and women both lived there, on separate floors.  Now I understand that some colleges let men and women room together!  Not Luther College, however.

 

Two more campus photos:

Decorah is a small city with a population of less than 10,000 but there are a variety of things to do in the area besides visiting Luther College.  One of the places to visit in Decorah is Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum.  Vesterheim is America’s oldest and largest museum devoted to one immigrant group and comprises of a complex of 15 historic buildings, costumes, furniture, decorations, and fine arts reflective of Norwegian immigrant life.  

Nearby, in Burr Oak, is the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum.  Period clothing and furnishings are displayed in the former hotel and childhood home of the Little House books’ author.

Also near Decorah, in Winneshiek County, is Spillville, an old-world Czechoslovakian village.  A collection of hand-carved musical clocks made by the Bily brothers are housed in the 1893 summer home of Czech composer, Antonin Dvorak.  An organ used by Dvorak resides in St. Wenceslaus Church.

See, you don’t have to take my word for it.  In fact, just writing this blog has made me homesick for Iowa in the fall!

Trust His Remedy

“Trust God enough to accept his remedy for sin.”

- Raymond Ortlund, Jr. Supernatural Living for Natural People (Ross-shire, UK; Christian Focus, 2001), 80.

2-20-04 Maui Sunset