Vacation Report

At long last I get to give you all a report on our trip to Oregon for my brother-in-law's wedding. Either the US Postal Service or Snapfish were seriously behind schedule, since this is now over a month since we've returned and we've just now received our pictures online. Oh, well.

My travel on the Empire Builder was interesting to say the least. If you travel Amtrak, do it in a sleeper car or with a friend. Nothing says "uncomfortable" like trying to avoid touching the bachelor farmer sleeping next to you. Unless it's trying to avoid the organic studies student who's been biking from Oregon, apparently without bathing, and just couldn't handle the Dakotas anymore. And leaving Fargo is not particularly beautiful or tranquil at 3:00 am. Other than that, it was a great little trip. I think I actually preferred the train to flying, even though it was much slower - I saw some parts of Montana & Washington that you can't see in a car, and it was BEAUTIFUL.

I arrived in Eugene just in time to go to church on Sunday and then leave Monday for Bend, OR, where Kristin's friends Fred & Melanie live. We spent an overnight with them and had a wonderful time. They have two wonderful young boys - both precious and we enjoyed getting to know them. We stopped for coffee & lunch in Sisters, a little tourist town, where we actually ran into some friends of Kristin's that we'd been planning to meet later in the week. Had a great lunchtime conversation, and then we left for Eugene. On the way back we drove through the Lava fields at the top of the McKenzie Pass on the old McKenzie Highway - too cool. And I think we stopped at Johnson Lake - can't imagine any other reason why I'd need another picture with trees and water. "oooooh, trees...water..."

After we got back from Bend it was mostly, but not all, wedding stuff. Kristin hadn't been home for nearly three years, so we made sure to see some friends and eat some old favorite foods. But with lots of acid indigestion due to Little Miss, the eating portion of the trip wasn't a big success. For Kris, at least - me, I always have room to eat. A little too much, actually, but some things never change, do they?

As one might imagine, our nephew Quinn was a big hit for the entire week. The best part might have been when he dismantled his father's boutineer as Troy was praying during the wedding. Suffice it to say that our focus was rather broad at that particular moment. The most horrible/funny moment of the trip was Kristin's rude introduction into parenthood, care of Quinn's supper that came whoopsing up all over her Thursday night as she was putting Quinn to bed. Can't seem to remember why I didn't get a picture of that... :-)

Perhaps the neatest part of the whole thing was working with my father-in-law, Troy. With him in Oregon and myself in Minnesota, you can see how we don't get to collaborate a whole lot. I even preached in their congregation the day after the wedding - a neat experience to say the least.

The wedding went off without a hitch, after Troy and I did some last minute pastoral counseling with Sean. There was some laughter, a lot of tears, they said "I do," and started a new magical life together. And that, dear friends, was the gist of our trip to Oregon.