Sunday's Psalm--30th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Another Lenticular Cloud



SkyWatching

Headbangers--Lost!

I gave the theme for the headbangers this week and it is LOST!

The idea came to me because a couple of weeks ago on our trip back across the mountains we got lost. Lost, you say. You sillies! How many times have you traveled back and forth across those passes and you got lost!!!

Well, they do say curiosity killed the cat.

As many times as we have traveled across White Pass and Chinook Pass in the last couple of years--especially after the big landslide on the highway to Chinook Pass which necessitated a detour for two years--we have seen the sign for Bethel Ridge Road--leading off of both highways.

So we decided to explore. From the Chinook Pass side the sign said Hwy 12--27 miles. We knew this would be winding.

The first seven miles were paved one lane road with turnouts. I think in that space we passed only one other vehicle coming toward us. The road wound up into the hills between the passes along the ridge, past several hunting camps. We reach a point where the pavement ended. Okay. Dirt road. We reached a fork, then another, then another. We followed what we thought was the right fork. We bounced along "corduroy" roads. We went up, we went down. the view was wonderful. We met more forks. Then we stopped. Which of these should we take.

Hmm. What should we do?

Wonder if the GPS can help. So we tried this: 

The GPS told us where we were. Hey, that's good!!  Let's see if it can tell us where to go. So we plugged in Navigate to White Pass. It calculated.

 

And then it told us in no uncertain terms: "Turn around when possible."

We did.

Were we really lost? Looks like we were on top of the world. And it was easy to find our way back to where we started.

The next trip through we stopped at the Ranger Station and bought a map. We will take Bethel Ridge Road again.

But not too soon, as this was taken a few days later just  a bit higher up the highway. 

Not doing that on a winding one way dirt road.

 

Well, Mac, Richard, Tom, and Chris--I wonder where or what did you get lost this week. You can check on Wednesday afternoon with the links in my sidebar.

Sunday's Psalm--29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Hey kids, do you remember?

The bear chasing the man up a tree? They have both looked pretty sad for a number of years, but last year or this, they were refurbished. I think someone must have had a good hunt, as the old bear was pretty ragged.

Dog Lake

We stopped briefly at Dog Lake when we went over White Pass on Wednesday and this is what I saw when I stepped through the trees. For a view of the trees as they were Wednesday and today, and an idea of why I don't have a Dog Lake picture from today, visit the post What a Difference a Day (or 2) Makes on my other blog.

For other glorious reflection pictures, visit Weekend Reflections.

Headbangers' theme is Symbols

One headbanger thought this would be a difficult theme. Not for me. In three weeks hanging out in the Seattle area for medical reasons, we've taken the opportunity for a few minor adventures. I took this shot from Seattle's new Big Wheel. (Which looks a bit like the London Eye in miniature, but hey, though a poor comparison it's still a good ride, even though the pods rock. )

For fifty years the Space Needle has been an iconic symbol of Seattle. Fifty years ago when it was being built it was probably scoffed at. But then, so was the Eiffel Tower in its construction days and likely any other construction that did not have particularly practical purpose.

The Space Needle roof was painted orange for its 50th  anniversary. I looked up the name of the color--"Galaxy Gold" in keeping with the futuristic theme of the 1962 Seattle Worlds Fair. The fair suggested lots of things we might be doing in the future, and amazingly, many of them which seemed like science fiction at the time are now fact, particularly in the realm of communications and information techonology. Such things as push button phones, you tube, and Skype come to mind.

Some no gos, though: flying to work in personal gyrocopters, domed cities for climate control, Jetson's style flying cars.

I wonder what symbols the other headbangers have chosen. You can check them out from the links in my sidebar.

Blog Action Day--the Power of We

Once again it is Blog Action Day and this year the theme is "The Power of We". Blog Action Day was started to bring awareness each year to one particular problem or factor of society. Thousands of bloggers in over one hundred countries are contemplating what this might mean--the power of WE.

The power of WE provides a lot of meat for though. Pardon the redundancy, but the power of we is a powerful concept, as we working together can accomplish things one person cannot. We is a team--a team not for competition for individual glory but to accomplish some feat, some influence, some improvement in the world or in some small bit of the world.

As I thought of what I might write about for Blog Action Day--the Power of We--a lot of images and events moved through my mind. I remembered an image from a presentation seen when visiting India a number of years ago. Symbolically, a bird caught in a net could not do anything but flounder, but if its mates each took a corner of the net and lifted it, the trapped bird could escape. If people work together they can escape the entrapment of poverty or other social stresses and move to freedom.

Quilt tops ready to go to volunteer long arm quilters to finish.
Two on the bottom shelf were made at a recent quilt retreat we had.

I thought, too, of the American Heros Quilts group--started by one woman who determined that soldiers returning to our local military hospital with serious war injuries should be greeted with a handmade quilt. As the war continued, one woman could not accoplish this, and the power of we--quilters, across the country--joined in. More than 11,000 quilts have been made and given, by this group, and even more by others working in the same kind of effort--Quilts of Valor, and Home of the Brave quilts, Australian quilters creating Australian Hero Quilts for their men and women. We have done much that a single "I" could never have done.

I have participated in conferences and events which could never have happened without the power of we putting together everything from sign-ups to signs, snacks to banquets, one on one messages to huge presentations. Nothing that one could do, but a team!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Baut the power of WE is very personal right now.

But the past year and a half has brought me into the sphere of another kind of team. With my husband's diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma a year and a half ago, we have been part of a team in search of the best and most successful treatment results. I must say, these medical teams work sometimes almost seamlessly to make everything come together.

Researchers at "The Hutch" dedicate their work
and their leisure to a cure.

Panoramic denatl xrays.

We are part of a team, some of whom we never see. Let's start with who is part of this particular "WE".   The patient--my dear husband of 45 years, and myself. His primary care doctor, the doctors and nurses at the hospitals he has been at. His oncologist, his nephrologist, his cardiologist, his opthamologist, the team of nurses, pharmacists, lab technicians, schedulers, volunteers, psychologists, at North Star Lodge cancer care center in Yakima. The team of doctors, nurses, social workers, schedulers, nutritionists, receptionists, technicians, lab workers, blood drawers, at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, the researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and the University of Washington Medical Center. The drivers of the shuttle which takes us between the two.
The team of prayer warriors at home and everywhere who are in support of this endeavor. Our family.

WE will conquer this.

Today is the day of decision. We hope that with our meeting with the power of WE this morning we will know the next steps in moving toward the best of a cure.

Without the WE, it would not be possible. The power of WE.

Sunday's Psalm--28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

 

Since the Headbangers' theme this week is "Yellow"

(The theme courtesy of Tom)

 We went for a "YELLOW" hike.

 There is still a lot of green in the forest, so but we found some yellow behind there...

and over there...

and up there...

 Bits of it among the still green wherever we went.

 Even way up there.

 And along the trail here.

And since it was the first hike out since his stent, I reminded him on the way down this trail that what goes down must come up.

Yellow leaves.

 

See what the other Headbangers choose by clicking their links in my sidebar.