Vacation, Part 1
As I mentioned in my last entry, I’m on vacation, so don’t expect me to be blogging regularly every day. (Of course, if you read this blog regularly, you already know that not posting regularly is my regular way of posting….) But as I sat here trying to read my e-mail (and delete a lot of it) online — and recognizing once more that Telus, my internet service provider, has the slowest and most sluggish system for online mail I’ve ever encountered — I figured that I might just as well blog something while I wait.
I left Grande Prairie on Monday, June 30. I drove to Edmonton and browsed in a bookstore for a while before driving the rest of the way to Lethbridge, where, as you will recall, I was a pastor for the last four years or so. In Lethbridge, I visited several friends, though I didn’t get to see everyone I would have liked to have seen. I stayed with Keith and Jenn Griffioen. Thanks for the hospitality!
On Wednesday, I left Lethbridge and drove to Moscow, Idaho. I arrived in the evening. As I pulled up outside Chip and Janet Lind’s home, I discovered that a dinner party was just ending and I had missed it, alas. Rijel‘s parents were leaving. Rijel, however, assured me that a cornish game hen (if I recall what I ate correctly) was still awaiting me, entombed temporarily in tin foil and awaiting the reheating. Chip rented Cold Comfort Farm and Rijel and the newly-blogging Moriah Phillips (who was also part of the dinner party) stayed to watch it.
On Thursday, I had lunch at Canon Press, courtesy of Lucy Zoe, where I enjoyed great food (thanks, Lucy!) and heard a funny and senseless fable read by Doug Jones. Later, I raided the shelves of Brused Books and came away with a very good haul.
Yesterday was, of course, the Fourth of July. Chip and I took two young boys to the waterpark, where I snorted a fair bit of chlorinated water at the bottom of the water slide and where we both got rather burnt by what Flora Poste from Cold Comfort Farm, a wannabe writer, would call “the golden orb” (though I have to note that the areas which I did slather with sunscreen were adequately screened, so that, for instance, my forehead, nose, and cheeks are white, but my temples are red).
Later, after I had a shower, Chip and Janet and I went down to Bucer’s Coffeehouse Pub, where I quaffed some Guinness, bought three books, and spent some time chatting with Moriah, before heading back to the Lind’s for a barbeque feast.
This morning, Chip and Janet left for Spokane for the day. My plans for today are still somewhat inchoate, but I intend to make them more choate as the day goes by. I’ll be here in Moscow until Monday, and then I’m heading for Abbotsford, British Columbia, to visit my grandmother. That means I’ll be here for Sunday when Canon Press will be distributing free copies of Peter Leithart’s latest books, A Son to Me and Against Christianity (a provocative title if there ever was one, and a very interesting book by the look of it!).