In terms of trip highlights, feeding the ragged group of Wallaby's near a resort ranks up there as a unique aspect of my trip. They are small and cute marsupials who have very soft fur--yup. I got to pet a couple.
They do have some social issues, however, as there was some fighting over the food that I was feeding a couple of them. Seems the dominate males like to remind others who is in charge.
They were very friendly and the resort sold bags of special Wallaby food--some dietary formulated stuff I guess, for crazy tourists to feed to the animals.
One of the Wallaby's has a Joey in her pouch--and I was able to get some pictures of them together.
As it was nearing dusk and the area was a bit dark, the flash wanted to go off--but it made their eyes red. Turning the flash off though meant that that I was unable to freeze motion --so here are the two extremes in pictures.
For the purists in the crowd--these are Rock Wallaby's, that is according to the sign at near where I had the opportunity to feed them. I guess, according to Wikipedia, there are some 30 species of Wallaby's. In Wikipedia they are listed as the Short-eared Rock Wallaby.
And yes--some of them are really scruffy. These are animals living in the wild--not in cages. Sadly, I forgot to image the hillside where they are living so you could see their preferred environment. It was a vert steep, rocky, arid area.
Enjoy the pictures though--and it's OK--they are cute!
I listened to a song on the plane the other day which made me stop. I listened to it many times and really had a Jesus moment right there in the middle of a 747 at 38,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean some 15 hours from home.
The song is: You Never Let Go by David Crowder Band. The lyrics were written by Mike Hogan, David Crowder, and Mike Dodson. According to GodTube.com"this song was written when the United States and world were watching the news after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, LA on August 29, 2005. In response to seeing those images and in prayer of thanks to God, David wrote these words because 'Ever faithful, ever true... in joy and pain, in sun and rain, [God's] the same. Oh, [He] never let[s] go.'"
I've added a You Tube clip so you can listen to the lyrics--but they really hit me square between the eyes as I was winging above the earth.
When clouds veil sun And disaster comes Oh, my soul Oh, my soul When waters rise And hope takes flight Oh, my soul Oh, my soul Oh, my soul
Ever faithful Ever true You I know You never let go You never let go You never let go You never let go
And I realized that even though these words were written about a natural disaster they also applied to the disasters in my life. I was comforted and humbled realizing that no matter how hard I may try to let go of Christ and to hide in something else, or blame someone else for whatever is happening, that Jesus never lets me go. His grip on me is tighter than I ever could imagine. He knows my weakness and even before I start to release my grip on Him, He is tightening His hold on me. So that I will not fall.
When I rebel--Jesus never lets go. And despite my rebellion, when I try to separate myself from Him, when I try to hide or drown in the rising waters--He never lets me go. Nothing can make Him let go of me--no matter how hard I try.
The words of Paul written to the Romans comes to mind:
8:35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?8:36 As it is written, “For your sake we encounter death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”8:37 No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us! 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, 8:39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NET Bible)
And so, as the song ends--it remains and so does His love for me.
When clouds brought rain And disaster came Oh, my soul Oh, my soul When waters rose And hope had flown Oh, my soul Oh, my soul Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul Overflows Oh, what love, oh, what love Oh, my soul Fills hope Perfect love that never lets go
Oh, what love, oh, what love Oh, what love, oh, what love In joy and pain In sun and rain You're the same Oh, You never let go
Chris and I, accompanied by friends biked part of the B&A Trail, twice, within a couple days over Labor Day weekend. It is a beautiful trail as it follows and old railroad roadbed--it is also relatively flat allowing for a very enjoyable ride.
The section we have been riding is seven miles long. Since we ride out and back it is a 14 mile round trip. Although the ride is relatively easy--its length adds a real workout to the entire endeavor. So it is not easy. But it is fun and at times relaxing.
I have been amazed at the number of different people we find along the trail. All kinds of people take advantage of this trail--and not just bikers either.
We have also learned that biking is not about how fast or how far you ride--it is all about the experience and especially the experience of being together. We have seen teams of riders riding together, and they stay together in a pack. Or maybe in a school like fish.
Similarly, when we ride together we stay together and enjoy each others company. It is nice to be able to comment on the small animals along the side of the trail--or even the suicidal rabbits who like to dart directly in out path to see if we will crash trying to avoid them. Of course, it is a little worrisome to ride along the trail and have the turkey vultures circling overhead. Kinda makes you wonder who the next road kill will be.
But the biking is good and company is great. It is definitely something to do and to look forward to.
Half a world away—in a far off land with strange but familiar sights. That is where Bob is right now. He is spending Sunday decompressing after flying for almost 20 hours. And yes—the correct answer is Sydney, Australia.
The flights are long and tedious--what after all do you do on a 747 for 14 hours? Sleep and watch movies. Although I did some Suduko, too.
We took today to try and get acclimated to the 14 hour time change. Yeah--think about it. I'm getting ready to go to bed and you're just getting up. And the Sunday football games will still be being played when I get up tomorrow.
But each day is new with its own challenges. It is hard to be separated form our loved ones, but this time we are at least connecting via the magic of webcams! Which has been a cool treat.
That said, and I'm getting ready to go to bed a 9 PM and struggling to stay awake.
I saw the Bird of Paradise and had to take a picture to compliment the other pictures.
Monday evening last week, amidst the business of life, Chris and I took and evening out to sit and enjoy watching night fall from the comfort of our back yard.
We have an awesome yard--complete with pool and deck and now a fire pit. We enjoyed a bottle of wine, listened and watched a Neil Diamond concert from 1976 on the laptop and lit many candles and as well as the fire pit to set the mood and to drive away the bugs.
It was an awesome experience it, to just take a timeout to reconnect about life. We listened to the night sounds and watched bats skim the pool for water.
Did life stop? No. But we connected on levels that we hadn't connected on in some time. We were able to discuss at length some things which we have only been touching the surface of due to our rat race lives--and it was good.
God provided a perfect evening, and we were able to enjoy it.
I highly recommend timeout evenings. We find time for so many things--it was really great to find time for each other.
Sunday's which form the middle day of a three day weekend are a lot of fin. Usually, I wind up lamenting the end/loss of the weekend, but as the middle day of a three day weekend, Sundays are fantastic. Why? I guess it's mental because I know my time off from work isn't over yet. This Labor Day weekend, Sunday was no exception.
The day began in church where we were accompanied by our daughter and our two grandsons--E and Jax. They both love singing the praise songs with the band. Ethan brought a bucket into church with his--a standard beach bucket. We couldn't figure out why, but I offered that he wanted to fill it with God's grace and that seemed to work.
The real fun of the day though came while we were sitting around the pool during the late afternoon--after nap. OK--as an aside, how do you get a three-year old who doesn't want to take a nap to sleep and nap? Answer--you don't. They will outlast and outwit you (sounds like a commercial for Survivor doesn't it?)
Ethan was playing with the hose--taking it to the far side of the pool and pulling it back to him. The good part of this was we had already been swimming and were warming up after jumping in the frigid 75 degree water. As E became more comfortable with the hose he decided to get people wet with it--whereupon I kinked the hose to stop the flow of water. To the best we can remember, he never figured out I had done this.
And now the fun begins. Literally. As E looked into the end of the hose, I unkinked and quickly re-kinked it so water would shoot out--just a shot, not a steady stream. And the laughter began. Full deep belly laughter. We repeated this many times and in many situations--always with laughs. Of course some of the innocent bystanders (Chris) did get wet, mostly it was E who would look into the end of the hose and try to figure out how the water knew when he was looking to shoot out only at him. Never when he pointed the hose at anyone else. A picture would be graeat at this point, but we were all having so much fun playing and laughing with E that no cameras appeared to record the event for posterity.
E repeated looking into the hose in anticipation of that shot of water coming out many, many times. It was truly a highlight to be remembered.
Wow--the pace of life has really taken off during the past couple weeks. It went from being relatively manageable to constant motion. I'm not sure what changed--but something certainly did.
I have a lot to update on--including some new wines (which I will review separately) and some of the hard work we've been doing with the family.
The weather, however, takes center stage. With temperatures in the low 60's and high 50's at night guess about the water temperature in the pool (especially since propane is about $3.00 per gallon)--yup, it is COLD. I haven't been in the pool in two weeks--and that is a real pain to me since it is only August (at least for a couple of days). Where'd summer go? I love my pool and laying on a floatie in the afternoon with a cold drink in my hand.
I finally got the repairs to the wall in the bedroom completed and mounted the new (yes new) TV that Chris bought. Oh yeah, and I ran the wires in the wall to protect the beauty of my repair job. Only trouble is, I didn't get the behind the wall wire requirement until the wall was nearly completed. So that made the job a bit tougher. But it looks good.
Coupled with that, we have finally upgraded to HD Directv. That was an experience. Who would have know all the complexities associated with HD service--I guess after two new holes in the concrete basement walls of the house--and three visits by Directv contractors, I do. Now if I only get enough time to actually watch some sports in HD. Oh yeah--and I have more holes to fill in the walls! Yippeee! I think I'm going to get a part time job as a "mudder."
But I love Directv--you know why? Because it is not Comcast! Nuf said.
So we had a wine party at the house a couple weeks back. It was great fun to have some new and old friends over to enjoy a few bottles of wine around the pool on a great August evening. One wine we tasted was so unique that I will review it soon. I can't recommend it for many people--but it will go great with a dark, smoky barbecue.
Well--I'm sure this stream of consciousness probably lost its focus--but then so has life. Somewhere we need to slow things down a bit and find something elusive called the "perfect present" rather than the frenetic future.
Relax, have a seat, and take a sip of that drink you are holding. Read a book just for kicks and reflect on all of the blessings that God has provided. And that DOES include family, grandkids, and friends--just in the right proportions.
What a beautiful day it was yesterday, August 17th. I made my first ever trek to the Baltimore (Maryland) Zoo accompanied by the grandsons (a/k/a the dynamic duo of E and Jax), their mother and Chris.
I got to push Jax in the stroller--which really is an RV in disguise. Jax and I had some quality time wandering around looking for the next shade tree--that is until I bored him so much he went to sleep.
I enjoyed the zoo. The shade of the trees made the walk very pleasant. Of course the drive through Baltimore's not so nice side was also interesting, but the zoo is nicely landscaped and the exhibits are well maintained. E and I had fun finding the animals in the enclosures. Seems the zebra had a desire for anonymity and went and hid once we identified him.
The polar bear was very active swimming around her enclosure. She was fun to watch. Finding the arctic fox was fun--he looked liky our cat Louis--a white ball of fluff sleeping in his enclosure.
The African Bird Watering Hole is a unique exhibit and was very enjoyable--although I think E really enjoyed running arounod the outside ofthe enclosure with me chasing him--he even stopped to wait for me when he got "too" far ahead of me, just to be sure I was still part of the action.
Recommendation: The zoo is a must visit spot while in Baltimore. The walking is easy and although the sun was hot, there are shade trees everywhere. The crowd was light even though it was a Sunday. I'm sorry it took me 13 years to get to the zoo--because as the song says--"it's all happening at the zoo."
Ugh! I finally crawled back onto the racquetball court yesterday morning after two weeks of sitting around pretty much doing nothing as I recovered from my medical problem. It was not pretty.
It is amazing how much a body forgets in two weeks about how to make certain shots and how to move--it was a struggle to remind myself how to hold a racquet and how to make certain shots. I mean the really good shots: the roll-outs and the corner kill shots. You have to see them before you take the shot and coming off a recovery the mind is a bit slow and the body a bit uncoordinated so it all doesn't flow together.
Thankfully, the guy I was playing hadn't played in two weeks either and I was competative--even winning both games we played. (We usually play three or four games--that's how bad it was) Although I suffered a strained muscle for my efforts--serves me right for getting sick in the first place.
But, the games were not against him--but rather against the lethargy of my own body. And I am happy to report that lethargy lost! By the end of the second game--strained muscle and all, things were coming back together. But all during that first game I kept wondering exactly why I force myself onto the court at 5:30 AM.
Saturday morning I was able to watch pros play racquetball on TV. (couch potato alert) I deluded myself into believing that I could make some of their shots--which I can, just not with the consistency they do. Pro Open racquetball is a lot different from the much tamer variety I play. The rules are a bit different too.
But I don't have dreams of ever becoming a pro racquetballer. I play just to keep one step ahead of becoming a permanent couch potato. And I can veggie out with the best of them--just ask my wife.
So, tomorrow morning, ugh, I will force myself out onto the court again to keep moving and hopefully regain some of the conditioning I lost over the course of the past couple weeks. And believe me--I really do love it!
The Yellowfin Steak & Fish House in Edgewater, Maryland was the chosen location for our anniversary dinner. We selected this restaurant for our very special dinner based upon the recommendation of our daughter and her husband--they had recently celebrated their anniversary there.
Making reservations was a breeze--just do it from the website--nothing could be easier. The location on the water in Edgewood at a marina provides a fabulous view of the river and is a great backdrop for dinner. Ask for a table by the windows (to better enjoy the view).
Although reservations were easy, parking is at a premium. Be prepared to park on the street leading under the bridge. It is a short walk, but parking in the main lot, which is shared with the marina, is tight.
The facility is pleasant and nicely abuts the water. The service during our meal was superior. We had a reservation, arrived early and were seated immediately on a Saturday night and were lucky enough to get a window seat looking out on the river.
The wine list is sufficient and has a good selection of wines at moderate prices. We chose a Pinot Grigio, Ecco Domani, to have with our meal since we wanted something light and European to compliment our fish dishes. We were not disappointed.
I chose the Japanese Sea Bass which was excellent. The presentation was especially nice and the entree had a nice light flavor. The hot potatoes and broccoli were done to perfection. Chris chose the Bang Bang Mahi Mahi--the entree again was tasty and nicely presented with good flavor; however the rice was very dry. Her asparagus was excellent, however.
We were treated to a dessert, we told them it was our anniversary and they provided the dessert totally unexpectedly. We also enjoyed coffee after dinner. It was a very nice dinner and very enjoyable.
Recommendation: Definitely a place to visit again. Thoroughly enjoyable meal in a comfortable setting with a dynamic view at reasonable prices.
They do have some social issues, however, as there was some fighting over the food that I was feeding a couple of them. Seems the dominate males like to remind others who is in charge.
For the purists in the crowd--these are Rock Wallaby's, that is according to the sign at near where I had the opportunity to feed them. I guess, according to Wikipedia, there are some 30 species of Wallaby's. In Wikipedia they are listed as the Short-eared Rock Wallaby.
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