Home again.

8/11/06, 6:17 am.
62º F, Mostly Sunny, SE wind 9 mph.

Good morning,

We are home again. With the odometer on the van shows an additional 1,621.3 miles on it as we accomplished our two major goals - stopping to see Don and Sue in LaMour, North Dakota and the Holy Spirit Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Along the way, we intended to see some of the history and sights along the trail. We had a pretty good trip, learned a lot, and ate too much.

Don and Sue seem to be thriving in their work. The two churches of course are their major task and joy, but they are also becoming more involved in community life also. They have a really nice parsonage, better than most I have been in, and enjoy it muchly. Don was not there when we arrived, as he was in Arkansas sending one of his sons off to Iraq for deployment. It was a good excuse to go to Fargo to pick him up from the airport. Also a good excuse to stop at a Mexican restaurant for a meal. Don continues to keep busy with his wine and beer production and Sue with her quilting activities. They are a couple of very busy folks and like it that way.

The Holy Spirt Conference was awesome! We arrived early afternoon on Wednesday, 2nd, and checked into the motel. We arrived earlier than I thought we would, which was a good thing. We had little trouble finding the motel, but it didn’t turn out to be as good as our past experience with the chain. It is not on our list of motels to return to. After unpacking and getting some settled in, we headed for the Conference and the opening worship service. Some problems getting there, but nothing to the problems returning to the motel. WE discovered the name of one necessary had three different identifying numbers on it, for the portion we needed to travel. We left the motel traveling on 73rd street and turned off of County Highway H2, with it being called Ramsey County 8 in-between! We didn’t realize the change and on the return, kept looking for 73rd Street! After a very long, scenic (but not able to enjoy it in the dark of night) back, we did find our bed to sleep in eventually.

The conference caused information and spiritual overload in these two old folks. There were awesome worship celebrations, wonderful communion services, and some really great speakers. Only one speaker was less than we expected - more of self and less of subject at hand. There was so much information to absorb that it just is impossible to get it all between our ears. We did buy a bunch of tapes so we can listen to them over and over again to glean it all. Don’t think that will really happen though. We also acquired a few more books for our over supplied shelving. Some of the books we wanted were sold out before we could get them. We will have to find them online sometime and possibly order them.

The worship services were filled with wonderful music. The host church’s choir did an outstanding set of numbers and the "house" musical group added a great deal to the experience. The children really had a ball as there were allowed and encouraged to dance and wave flags around the sanctuary. They did with great abandon. We all sang ourselves horse and enjoyed the experience very much. I noticed that there were more white hairs in the pews, or at least those our age with hair yet. They, like us, were sitting down more than the rest of the folks though. All had their toes tapping and keeping up with the music and one way or another. The "sermons" were long, 1½-2 hours, and something any good Lutheran is not used to. Some were carried over from one day to the next.

There also were breakout sessions in the afternoon. There were way too many for us to attend and they were not repeated. We did attend some of them, but there were more we would have liked to. The answer is getting the tapes. We also found it necessary to go back to the motel during the afternoon for a fiver, missing additional breakout sessions. The nights were long and we knew we would not make it through the entire night. We also managed to sleep later than normal, thanx to the late nights.

One evening we ate with those who came from Grace (seven of us) at a Mongolian Barbeque. It was something new for us and we enjoyed it very much. Megan, Howard and Marsha’s daughter, made the choice = she done good! We also found another restaurant on our own - the Taste of Scandinavia (http://www.tasteofscandinavia.com/) - which was excellent too. We ate there on more than one occasion. In many ways it is very much like the restaurants we ate at in Europe, but with a fast food like order counter. The first time we ate there, we made the mistake of sitting next to the pastry showcase. Not a good idea if one wants to concentrate on the food in front of them!

We intended to stop at several historic sites in North Dakota, only to find that North Dakota is only old on the weekends. After stopping at three and finding them closed, we headed east again. We were able to walk around one, but we were the only people there! Kind of a disappointment, since they were some distance apart and the prices of gas is high these days. Even one site in Wisconsin was closed!

The fuel prices continue to be outrageous and got to be outrageous-er along the way. When we left the price was $3.099/gallon, when we arrived in Minneapolis the price was $2.899/gallon, but went up to $3.199/gallon over night before dropping back to $2.999/gallon. We saw a high of $3.219/gallon in northwestern Wisconsin! It is only $3.129/gallon here. Crazy! I think our traveling is over for the year.

Hopefully I will add to this and our trip, even with pictures maybe, on subsequent editions to this.

Time to get the day a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris <><