beautiful, beautiful zion

Parables from portland

A few weeks back, me and my crew spent a weeklong holiday in the pacific northwest with my aunt and her family. 'Twas gorgeous and lovely and delightful and all. It was my first time ever on the west coast. It was the doctor's first time ever splashing in the ocean. We hiked a mile up the side of a waterfall. We were given free coffee by locals. One of us had a rock dropped on our foot by some kid messing around the side of a cliff. 

Living on the edge, y'all.

Side note: My aunt makes some fat coin selling antique dolls and such on these here interwebs. Somehow, because of that, these poor ragamuffins ended up in my notebook.

Keep your cameras where we can see them

Them Jane gals and i saddled up and headed to the windy city for a hot minute. For moments upon moments we’d been chit-chatting about a short trip north to the Museum of Science & Industry to experience the Fantastic World of Jim Henson exhibit. Well sir, that’s just about what we did. Our road trip began with some intense conversation regarding personal and family goals for the new year. Baby Jane decided that twenty-eleven would be the year of learning to fly solo on the potty. After about an hour’s worth of discussion, i reluctantly agreed. After all, i’ve put these gals through enough already. In what seemed like no time at all, we had been robbed by a hand full of toll booths, we plowed through two floors of IKEA, and finally found ourselves passed out in a Red Roof Inn.

The next day, i was awaken by a toddler feeding me bunny crackers while the soft glow of PBS Kids fell gently upon us. We lifted our tired bodies from the hotel linens, freshened up, and stepped out into the fresh winter snow as it beckoned us onward toward the heart of Chicago. Once we arrived at the museum, there was time to ride the rails from Chicago to Seattle and back again before our 12:45 appointment with the Muppets. On the way, we saw a cattle drive as well as a family picnic being interrupted by a ferocious bear. Outstanding.

When we were finally granted access to the Fantastic World of Jim Henson, we were informed that there was to be no personal video or photography taken during the tourof the exhibit. Grrrrrrr. Well, anyone who knows me is privy to the fact that i am nothing if not a stickler for rules. Therefore, i had to instead hijack the following imagery from the interwebs to present them as my own…

Regardless, we did see all of these things and so much more including silkscreen prints, sketches, ideas, storyboards, short films, fraggles, etcetera. Rather than not do justice, i’ll simply say that i left the exhibit quite inspired and with an even deeper appreciation for the artistry, craft, and vision of the dreamer, Jim Henson.

Thanks to the lovers, the dreamers, and you.

Dell-ightful

Dell-ectable

My mom and dad went to Destin and all they got me was this lousy sunset

As we gather our things and prepare to head north, let us take a moment to enjoy a captured memory courtesy of our new friend herb.

Aahhh.

Thanks herb.

Sitings

mister zippy?

First Blood: Baby Gap

Pictured above is the unsuspecting fourteen-month-old after she was nursed back to serenity with a few ounces of milk, a cookie and two squeaking rubber sea mammals. Just moments earlier, while exploring the lower altitudes of a Gap retail outlet during a torrential downpour, the young lass had her left-hand index finger sliced wide by the jagged base of a blue jean rack.

Boo!

The olde freak-out daddy instincts took over and at the first sight of blood and her teeny tiny finger was in my mouth as i carried out the door. Cool, collected mommy followed close behind to bring us all back down to planet earth to address the wound practically and properly.

Yeah, mommy!

We live to fight another day. You will not take my family from me The Gap!

Mud crutches

A young robert zimmerman once said, 'you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.' Even earlier, he also said, 'a hard rain's a-gonna fall.' Essentially, zimmy's treatise was this; rain will come and your beloved meteorologist cannot be trusted to tell you exactly when that will be.

I don't believe i'm putting words in the mouth of dylan.

Maybe i'm speculating only slightly, but when i woke up on tuesday morning and decided to take the family on a trip to brown county state park, i hung a whole lot of hope on the accuracy of my local weather forecasters.

This is not the face nor hair of a man thinking rationally nor realistically.

After a drizzly drive south and a scenic picnic from the confines of our car, the whole family took a hike down our favorite stream. Despite the light rain there ain't alotta water flowin over the limestone.

After a brief turkey chasing excursion, we moseyed on into the hustlin, bustlin town of nashville for a couple of homemade waffle cones. We continued on our stroll and happened upon this quaint destination...

Haunted wedding chapel or theater of the dead?Just minutes from continuing our journey homeward, we stumbled upon what might be the single greatest find of our travels this week outside the sausage wagon in bargersville...

Ol' jonesie's really trying to sell it with that tagline.

We decided to take their word for it.

Creepy candy camping trip

Last week, Miranda and I took an excursion from all of that which has distracted us in recent weeks and drove up and along the shores of the mighty Lake Michigan. We spent a couple nights camping and fighting off mosquitoes when we weren't bumming around on the beach. We also spent a day in Chicago and stayed a while in a hotel room watching way too much cable television before investing hours of our lives into discovering a magical land of stylish decor and big savings known simply as IKEA. During those lost of hours of learning what not to wear and flying with the conchords, we were subjected to a creepy new add for M&M's candy which encourages lonely viewers at home to become an M&M. I'm uncertain as to what in particular caused my wife to be so unsettled by this ad. Whether it be The The's song "This Is The Day" or the very thought of surrendering to the idea of discovering her inner M&M, I don't know. All I know is that somewhere in the formula, these ad wizards managed to forge a key to derailing my wife's emotional stability. I had to find a worthy ally to meet this adversary head on. In no time, the mighty alliance of Burt Bacharach and Herb Alpert brought the inner M&M's and their campaign for the worldwide domination of souls to their milk chocolatey knees with joyous absurdity! Hoorah! Hoorah!

Aloha

After months of anticipation about our upcoming, long overdue vacation, Miranda and I finally made it to Hawaii. Oh sure, many never even make it across the Pacific to the beautifully lush islands in a lifetime. But you see, it was the very dreaming of one day traveling to Hawaii which brought our relationship to a new level of commitment what began eight short years ago. Now that the two of us have been to the islands together, we can finally move on with our lives. In planning for our visit, we opted to find a cheap, all-inclusive cruise which would visit several of the islands. After some online research, we chose to embark on The Pride of Aloha with Norwegian Cruise Lines.

We flew in to the island of Maui and enjoyed a couple of days there before floating over to Honolulu on Oahu. During our stay in Honolulu we met a wonderful family from Nebraska who hiked up Diamond Head Crater with us. We also joined them for dinner a couple of times on the boat. From Honolulu we drifted up to the garden island, Kauai where we had the privilege of looking out over the Grand Canyon of the Pacific known as Waimea. We also did some snorkeling in Kauai. I have to tell you, snorkeling in the Pacific was just about one of the most magical things Miranda and I have ever done together. During our honeymoon in Florida six years ago, we visited this makeshift aquatic zoo in what had to be someone's back yard. It was, to say the least, highly entertaining. The simultaneously cool and sad thing about this questionable operation though was that they had a giant sea turtle in this little pool. He was a beautiful creature slowly swimming back and forth. Occasionally, he would poke his head out of the water and look you right in the eye as if to say, "Not a whole lot to do around here is there." But Miranda marveled over him like a little child. Until then, I had no idea how much she enjoyed sea turtles... Fast forward to Kauai, 2006. Aside from the colorful fish of many sizes and shapes, we got to float right over two big sea turtles as they waved their mighty flippers and went on with their everyday turtle lives. As amazing as swimming with those turtles was,and believe me it was pretty amazing, the thing that gave me more joy was watching my wife's face light up behind her snorkel and mask. The plastic plumbing clinging tightly to her face couldn't hide the shrieks of delight as she watched those turtles float slowly beneath her. If I'd ever forgotten, all of the memories of why I first fell in love with this girl came rushing back to me.

After two days on Kauai, our boat took us to the big island where we stopped at Hilo for a day to ride bicycles down a volcano and then Kona where we went 100 feet below sea level in a tiny submarine. Our journey ended where it began back on the island of Maui where they booted us off the boat at 8:45am and shuttled us to the airport where our flight was to leave at 5:50pm. Miranda and I decided to rent a car and drive for a while. We took off along the coast down the Hana highway to see what we could see. We found a beautiful off-road oasis call the Twin Falls where we hiked back to swim in some crispy cool waterfalls. We then stopped to walk along the beach on our way back to the airport at afternoon's end.

Sure, we had to endure the tiresome bitching of some of the cruise snobs aboard the ship. We went cheap and had no cruise experience with what to compare. I say, you get whatyou pay for. And who cares anyway? We were in paradise. No amount of airborne flu, bad buffet food or obnoxious cruise directors could take away from that. The icing on the cake, as our plane departed over the Pacific, was looking out over the expanse of endless blue sea that slowly veiled itself beneath the thick of clouds that cradled the sky like an arctic landscape. I swear we could have set that big old jet right down and all walked out to dance around for a bit. I just said, yeah God, that's pretty good.