Photoless reporting is not quite my style

I’m finding it hard to keep up the blogging while we’re on the road, as you’ve no doubt realised! Not that it’s going to stop me trying. I’ll start by giving a quick run down of what happened after the Hoyt reunion up to the point where I’ve got photos again.

We left Forsyth, GA and drove up to Atoka, TN, the town where Ben was born. We stayed a couple of nights there with a lovely couple, the Walkers, who are long-time friends of Ben’s family. In fact, Mrs Walker was there when Ben was born! Mrs Walker and two of her daughters gave us a tour of the town and we got to see the general area of where Ben was born (the house where they lived at the time has since burned down), and we got to see the house where his sister, Lydia, was born. We also got to cool our feet in the Mississippi river and all the while all I could think about was Tom Sawyer.

On from Atoka we went south again to visit some Hoyt relatives in Tyler, TX. We stayed with Ben’s Uncle Mark and Aunt Lauri Anne’s family and got to see a bunch of the folks in Tyler, which was great. Aunt Lauri Anne took us to the Brookshire’s stuffed animal museum (I forget the real name of the place!). The kids loved it, and Ben and I were pleasantly surprised at how interesting we found it. We also got the treat of listening to Chris play the organ for a bit as well after we gate crashed his practice time. I thought the Pink Panther fugue was pretty fun! The rest of our time in Tyler was filled with good conversation, games, banter and other fun things like that. Esther took quite a liking to Taylor, who obligingly read her lots of books. Marica, likewise, took a great liking to Aunt Lauri Anne, and spent quite some time on her lap reading book after book.

From Tyler we drove just a couple of hours to Dallas, TX, where we stayed with Ben’s cousins Nathan and Elizabeth. They have 3 children so the kids had no lack of playmates for the 2 days we were there. Abigail and Marica are almost the same age and those two got along really well. I got the cutest picture of the two of them holding hands — two blondies, one with straight hair and the other with curly hair. But that photo died along with my computer, just like so many other great photos. Like photos of the rodeo they took us to in Mesquite (a real rodeo with real cowboys!), or the photos of the meals and games we had together. I just need to make peace with that, don’t I?

From Dallas we drove up to the Tschetter reunion to the west of Colorado Springs, staying a night in Amarillo along the way. Coming into Colorado Springs was a little uncertain at that time because the Waldo Canyon fire had caused some road closures, but thankfully the road we had to take was re-opened just that morning. Driving along that road, and even in Colorado Springs itself was quite eye opening to how much damage fire can cause.

The Tschetter reunion was held at the Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp (which isn’t just for Mennonites) where we had a great big chalet available to ourselves. I think there were something like 11 bedrooms and there were two big living rooms, a very well equipped kitchen and a good grill outside on the balcony, which in my mind made it pretty much a perfect venue! Add to that great hikes and other interesting things to do really close by, and you have yourself a recipe for a fantastic week.

My computer gave up the ghost about halfway through the reunion, so in the next post, I’ll share some pictures of the things we did during the second half of that week.