Eagles and a Rock

July 27, 2009, am - It was a quiet April morning in 1995. Maxine Anderson had just finished taking some pictures of the remodeling project inside her home along the Great River Road through Fountain City, Wisconsin. Suddenly she heard a noise similar to a freight train coming from the steep bluff behind her house. Before she could move, the house shook and the walls shuddered and groaned.

A 55 ton boulder had broken lose from the bluff above and rolled into the bedroom right behind her. Many of the other walls cracked, but only one window in the rest of the house broke. Unfortunately, all of the doors shifted so that frantic Mrs. Anderson couldn’t get out until a man who worked across the road at the Corp of Engineers broke his way in. Similar to the more famous family from the Amityville Horror, the Andersons moved out immediately, fearing another boulder would roll into their house from the steep hill. Not a bad idea, since a woman was killed in the house just next door when the same thing happened in 1901.

Maybe not a must see stop on everyone’s list, but my husband and I thought it was interesting. And admission was only a buck, on your honor. Our next stop that morning was a wee bit more expensive.

Wabasha is known for its Eagles. Along this stretch of the Mississippi River, bald eagles live year-round, but during the winter hundreds frequent this area, catching fish where the river doesn’t freeze over. The National Eagle Center features Angel, Columbia, Harriet, Donald and Was’aka, eagles who can’t fly so can never be released into the wild. Watch them for a while and you know where the phrase “eagle eye” comes from.

A Short and Quiet Vacation

July 26, 2009 - For several years now, I have thought that the coolest thing would be to type my travel journal directly into a laptop as I traveled. I love my paper journals, but I think that they are becoming obsolete. Well, maybe not. It is still great to page back through them to read what everyone’s thoughts were in their own handwriting and witness the chocolate stains or French fry grease. But I still feel that, today, on this trip, I have moved on.

I am typing into my new used laptop, maybe not as it is happening, but at least the same day, having returned to the vacation home of one of Himey’s friends, after a day of bumming around. And now I will type in our trip so far, and thus save it for all posterity, or at least until this laptop crashes.

Himey and I are in Alma, Wisconsin, to spend a couple days at the vacation home of one of his friends. The house is small but perfect for a vacation. It sits on the bluff above the Mississippi River and has a fantastic view of the river and the dam and lock.

After we arrived and unpacked, we drove up to Buena Vista Park and Overlook. What beautiful views of the river and Minnesota. Then rode around Alma a bit. Being built on a small stretch of land between the Mississippi and a bluff there isn’t much room to spread out. Pioneers to the area weren’t evidently daunted by that, they just built up the side of the ridiculously steep hill.

For dinner, we tried Julie’s Fin and Feather Inn. The name doesn’t sound so appetizing, does it? Makes me think “pet store”. I imagine chickens being plucked and fish being gutted on the patio behind the restaurant. And these animals all have names like Cluckers and Speedy and Sid. That’s why we went with pizza.

After dinner, we drove to the lock and dam (lock and dam number 4 to be exact – there are 29 of them on the Mississippi between the Twin Cities and St. Louis and 11 of them are in Minnesota). We watched several small boats go through the lock, but no barges. I can’t believe that they move that much water – it has to be tens of thousands of gallons - for just any little boat that comes along.

Back at the house, the only excitement of the day occurred. Around nine, Himey went out on the deck to check the evening weather. I was about to follow him out when he came charging back in. “Bats.” Which was way more than he should have said because then I was all paranoid that bats would sneak in and get stuck in my hair.

Ha, ha, with the purchase of that old new used laptop, I wrote the remaining travel journal entries as they happened. Which means the next few weeks, until I am all up to speed in 2011, my blog entries are pretty much already written. And before you know it, I will be off to better and bigger things in this blog. Please stay tuned for lots of change.

The Dance of the White Flag

As you probably know, this past week I attended the Green Lake Christian Writers Conference. In search of an appropriate inspiration for today, I read through my notes from the wonderful group of speakers. You probably don’t want to hear tricks for getting past writer’s block or how to edit your entire book. Instead, you want to read something you can apply to your own life.

The workshop I attended, with Cynthia Ruchti, was “The Anatomy of a Novel.” Sounds heavy, doesn’t it? Gives you flashbacks to High School English class and wishing you had a pillow. This workshop was far from a boring lecture. In addition to spending the morning laughing and sharing, I wrote meager notes, all of which were gems. (My notes weren’t so hot, it was the content that was great.)

Here’s one. “The Dance of the White Flag.” That sounds very poetic, very deep. If we wave the white flag, we surrender to the enemy and we’re doomed. But note that the quote says “dance”. Dance sounds more like you have a partner.

The take on it for us as Christians is that showing the white flag is not a bad thing. Yes, it is surrender, but to whom are we surrendering? Do we have a partner?

Our dance partner is God and we need to surrender to Him. Wave the white flag for Him. Surrender your troubles, your trials, your battles. Turn it all over to God. Dance with that White Flag, knowing that it isn’t your fight alone, it is His.

Help us against the enemy; human help is worthless. With God on our side we will win; He will defeat our enemies. Psalm 60:11-12 Good News Translation

Priceless

It was Kathy Steffen's first time at the Green Lake Christian Writers Conference and here she is showing her board full of sticky-notes to keep her on task while writing.

So, here I am home and all fired up! I picked up a lot of tips and inspiration. Unfortunately, the more stuff like that I pick up, the more activities I also pick up that keep me from writing. It is all good-intentioned, but really? Maybe I should just write more and more often.

But no, instead I had to stop at Wal-mart so I could make a board like Kathy's.

Hmm? display board - $2.97, post it notes - $5.24, becoming a published author - priceless? or more like hopeless?

I write down a lot quotes whenever I am at a conference like this. Here's the one I need to put on the top of my display board - "Never give up, never surrender."

Thank you so much for your support.

Where am I off to next?

They will never be hungry or thirsty. Sun and desert heat will not hurt them, for they will be led by one who loves them. He will lead them to springs of water. I will make a highway across the mountains and prepare a road for my people to travel. Isaiah 49:10-11 Good News Translation

Hmm? Sounds like God was the original travel guide, doesn’t it?

If you have been reading my blog the last few weeks, you have read about my volunteer trip to Ayacucho, Peru, in 2009. Now that I have wrapped that up, I only have a few more trips to tell you about and then I will be all caught up, and since I can’t begin travelling fulltime, I will have to write about other adventures I have had or other crazy thoughts that come into my head. But that is yet to come.

In the meantime, I am going to take a break from blogging this week. I am going to be at the Green Lake Christian Writers Conference and hope to be very busy working on one of my books. I also plan to sit down and formulate a website. Don’t have a clue what to put on it, but hopefully I will find inspiration and direction at the Conference.

Look for me back online on August 28. See if I am indeed inspired.

Last Chance to see Peru

Our plane left Ayacucho at five am on Saturday. We arrived in Lima without incident, to face the 12 hour layover. Tina, luckily, had already reserved a room at the Marriott and was kind enough to let Gayle, Meg and I join her. Meg was feeling under the weather, so crawled into bed, while the rest of us secured a tour of the city. Lots to see, lots of history. Lots of old buildings and bridges and statues, but a lot of the areas were as modern as any big city in the world.

The daily changing of the guard at the Plaza de Armas in Lima. It was quite a show; we didn't watch it all - we were on a tour and had to keep moving.

One of several cool old churches we toured. I think this is the one that had centuries-old catacombs in the basement where it is believed over 70,000 burials took place. No photos allowed down there.

Can't remember the significance of this old church, but it is right on the ocean, where the daily fogs and general dampness has completely eroded the roof and it is being replaced.

This is the shopping center at Mira Flores, practically hanging over the ocean. We had dinner here at a place called Mangoes.

Going to Prison

So, imagine this. You are in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language. You are with eight other people, who you feel you can trust, but you only met them five days ago. You are all led into a dank cement block room, a thick metal door clanks shut behind you. A female guard pats you down and stamps your arm. Then another guard takes your passport and puts another stamp on your arm.

You walk through a room with shower heads on wall – where the inmates are no doubt strip-searched and showered before they are incarcerated. Another metal door clangs shut.

Your group walks up a flight of metal stairs and you stiffly walk across a wide balcony. Below you, in an outdoor courtyard, male inmates are watching. A few shout up to you and for once you are happy you don’t know the language.

You enter a dark hallway, trying like everything to slow your breathing.

Then suddenly you are out a door and an almost surrealistic scene greets you. A few dozen women are mingling in an open air court, cement walls, two stories tall, on all four sides. The women are hanging up laundry, sewing and working on crafts. They laugh and most of them don’t even look up at you. The ones who do look up at you are the children, all under age five. They come running up to you and a few of them start playing with Henry, Angelina and Harrietta, the volunteers who have all been here before.

Tina, Meg, Gayle and I just look at each other. This is as far out of our comfort zone as we ever imagined we would be.

It was the last full day of my volunteer trip to Ayacucho, Peru, in 2009, and we have arrived at the prison to take eight of the boys and girls out for the morning.

Up until age five, they allow the children to live in the prison, in their mothers’ cells with them. That is rather sad; what kind of life is that for these little ones. The truly sad part though is that someone decided that when they turn five years old, prison life is no longer right for them, or they are old enough to live without their mothers. So these kids are taken out of the prison, perhaps the only home they’ve ever known, and given to relatives to live with or if there are no relatives who will take them in, they go to the orphanage until their mothers are released.

To break up their routine, we each were assigned one child, we loaded them into the bus with us, and drove back to the Plaza. They chased pigeons and ate popsicles, and at least for a short time acted like they led normal lives.

When we brought them back to the prison and all the kids were accounted for, our passports were returned to us. And one final note. If you are wondering what the women are in prison for, most of them were charged with running drugs, one of the most lucrative occupations in Peru.

With Willmar, the little lamb I was assigned and that I guarded with my life.