The Too Long Drive

I left Bay Lake about three in the afternoon, and stopped in Minneapolis for a friend's birthday dinner, so I only made it as far as Clear Lake, Iowa on Tuesday.
On Wednesday I decided to try to get as far as I could. I drove 850 miles to Colorado Springs, much of the drive through pouring rain. My back was feeling it the next morning!

But the long drive set me up with some extra time to do one more thing I'd been hoping to do on this vacation: take my kayak out on the Pueblo, Colorado Whitewater Course.

Bay Lake

After church on Sunday, Billy and I kayaked around Church Island. Billy brought two nice kayaks with him. His kayaks are lake kayaks, which mine is not, so it would have made sense for us to just use his kayaks, but I had dragged mine 1600 miles just to use it. My planned kayak trip in Minneapolis had fallen through, so gosh darn it I was going to paddle my own kayak.

It's really hard to keep up with a (keeled) lake kayak while maneuvering a (keelless) whitewater kayak. Billy got tired of waiting for me about 3/4 of the way around the island. At that point I stopped trying so hard to keep up and started enjoying the scenery. A bald eagle circled just overhead. It was the closest I've ever been to one.

My relatives own two different cabins on the lake, and I have a lot of relatives. So there always seems to be a good group of people at the lake to hang out with. Most of them like jet-skiing, tubing, water-skiing and fishing, which I like, too. But it was great to finally have someone else to kayak with. I'm going to have to plan my future lake trips to be there when Billy is there. And I'm going to have to get a lake kayak.

Each morning we kayaked from the cabin to Ruttger's (a resort across the lake), got pie and coffee there and kayaked back in time for lunch. Great fun and great exercise, and a good long time to talk and get to know each other.

My invitation to stay with Dean and Mary was extended to the whole week, as her other guests cancelled. Unfortunately, I could not spare the extra time. So I left on Tuesday afternoon. I'll post pictures later.

God Decides to Baptise us All

This morning I went to the church service on Church Island. There were about 250 in attendance, including 8 from the Peterson clan.

The service happens in a small amphitheater overlooking the lake. A baby was baptized this morning, and at the very moment that the water was being sprinkled on the baby's head, a sudden downpour occurred, soaking the whole crowd.

Liking Oneself

When we were done in Iowa, we dispersed in every direction. Jake went south. Ariel went east. Nate and Mallo went west. Jerry? Well, who knows. And Rob and I went north.

We got to drive together from Cedar Falls to Saint Paul, a great drive for a long talk. We spoke of many things, but one was the subject of liking oneself.

Do you like yourself?

It's a given that it is good to like yourself, and it is bad to not like yourself. And I've thought about this a bit. What do we mean when we ask the question?

We could mean: Do you admire the person that you are?

We could mean: Do you enjoy the experience of being you?

That second meaning has rarely been a problem for me. Most mornings I wake up delighted with the prospect of getting to be me for another day. The first meaning has been more problematical, and has generally been in tension with the first.

The more I am enjoying being me, the less I admire the person I am, and vice-versa. I (try to) do thing that I know are good, but I don't enjoy it, or I do things that I enjoy, but they aren't doing anybody besides me any good. The trick is to try to get these things to converge instead of conflict.

For me, the work in Iowa (and earlier in New Orleans) is where enjoying myself and admiring myself come together. There's a general consensus all the way around that what we did in Iowa was a Good Thing. It was also very fulfilling. Working together with people I enjoy, ripping walls out of houses, seeing the pile of rubble grow as we make progress, it's just a blast.

Iowa Pix

The pictures are on-line.

I am on my way north to the Lake. More dispatches to come from there!

Air Conditioned -- Kitchenettes

On Friday we began a project that will keep teams busy for quite some time. Our destination was the Shady Rest MOTEL (Air Conditioned! Kitchenettes! No Vacancy). Once upon a time this was a riverside resort motel. It had long since been used as a "residential hotel" -- single rooms with a kitchenette for folks who can't afford anything fancier. There are fifteen units, so fifteen different families were rendered homeless at once.

The shady rest is on the (undesirable) north bank of the river. The south bank of the river is where the business district is. The south bank got sandbags to protect it from the flood. The north bank did not. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that. It's reasonable to say that there is a certain amount of bitterness on the part of the residents of the north bank.

We got to make the human connection this time. Phyllis owns the Shady Rest and it is her livelihood. She needs to try to get back in business as soon as possible, but the task before her is both daunting and expensive. We got to have a good talk with Phyllis and to pray with her. Then we got to work. Much of the drywall had already been removed, but there is drywall behind the cabinets, sinks stoves, etc. that is not so easy to get to, especially for someone working on their own. So we set about removing the stoves, sinks, and counters, and then chipping through the drywall behind it.

We started by spreading out and working on a number of different rooms at once, but when Steve arrived he had us shift to a different strategy. As soon as one room is finished,Phyllis will be able to start renting that room out and generating some income. So we switched to focusing all our efforts on room 1 (well, room 1 and room 3, it would be way to crowded if we were all in one room. Maybe I'll tell you later why we couldn't work on room 2).

Honestly, we were all pretty exhausted by Friday, and the work was so daunting. We tried to get a lot done, but our energy had pretty well ebbed. When we were all spent, we headed off to Cold Stone Creamery for our well-deserved reward.

Quick Update: Relief work finished

I expect to have more to say about things, especially our final day working at the Shady Rest resort motel, in the near future. Meantime, I will just say that the week is now ended. Jake is now in Cedar Rapids with our friends the Wilsons, he will be headed to Chicago with them tomorrow. The rest of us spend one more night here in Cedar Falls, then we disperse to the winds. Rob and I will be together as far as Saint Paul.

Thanks Nicole for reading and commenting!