Hello all,
It’s nice to come back home after a vacation. Not because I didn’t enjoy my time away, but after 7 nights of being 2,000+ miles away, you start to long for your own shower and bed. During my volunteer work at camp, I got to know the awesome staff there and they took me around Seattle. Went to a couple coffee shops, checked the out Pike Place market, and walked around downtown. Key takeaway from this experience is that Seattle is definitely different from west Texas! One aspect that I enjoyed was their attitude about the world we live in. From all the fresh organic produce, the 4 different trash bins to separate your trash into, the amount of people who ride bikes, and the strong affiliation with the mountain/outdoor culture, its hard not to acknowledge their desire to protect and be good stewards of the world around us. Seattle would definitely be considered a more “progressive” culture in many ways, but I think this is something that everyone, especially us Texans, could do a little better.
After finishing up my time at camp, I rented a car and drove up to Whistler in Canada. I usually dread the thought of being in a car for 5 hours, but driving through mountains with the coast on your left made this drive not only tolerable, but beautiful. Got pretty interesting when I realized in Canada that I didn’t purchase an international data plan before leaving, so had to figure out how to get where I was going without a phone. A couple stops and asking people through the windows at stop lights got me to my destination. Whistler is known for hosting the Olympics winter games back in 2010 so people from all around the world come to ski, but it turns into a big mountain bike park during the summer. I ride mountain bikes a lot around Texas and can ride some pretty technical trails, but this was a whole different experience. When you ride down a mountain, you go FAST. Basically just flying downhill using both brakes at all times, hitting jumps and avoiding trees. I probably rode 50+ miles of trails, but only pedalled about 1% of it. It really was awesome. Bear sightings are very common up there and was kind of hoping to see one (when I was riding up the lift of course) but didn’t run into any (that I know of).
Coming back down to my flight out of Seattle, I had to cross back over the border. I got there about 7:30 in the morning and was expecting a line of cars but drove right up to the patrol booth. Told him I rented a car and drove up to bike and he wanted to know where all my bike stuff was. Told him I rented it all and he just was having a really hard time with my story that I had been volunteering in Seattle and drove up for two nights to Canada and all I had was one bag and I was doing this all alone. It is a little out of the ordinary when I think about it now! So I got the pleasure of a nice search and interrogation at the secondary stop before they let me back in the USA. Fun stuff!
So this is my last weekend before coming back to work. Crazy how fast a month flies by but looking back on it Ive really really enjoyed the time off and it really had been energizing both spiritually and physically. Outside of the trips, I built a bed for us. Working in finance, you don’t have the ability to design/build physical things (bond ladders don’t count) so this was a lot of fun for me. I didn’t follow a plan, just looked at some pictures and went from there. We are made in the image of God who is a creator, thus instilled with the desire to create, so we find fulfillment and take pleasure in creating. I think that is why we are also drawn to art, music, and culture in general, because of these attributes given to us by God. It truly was fulfilling to plan out an image, buy a ton of wood, measure, measure, cut, stain, and see that image come to life.
Thanks for reading and I will see everyone next week!
Trevor