So, I’m not exactly on top of blogging regularly yet.  I’m still attempting to settle things after a trip to the midwest that left me thinking about a lot of old friends.  In Wisconsin, I thought about my second roommate from the first half of sophomore year, Kristy, who was from Withee, WI, and how at Bible study when she would introduce herself and say where she was from, everyone would shout, “the Lord be Withee!”  As we passed through the Twin Cities, I thought about the friends there who couldn’t meet us for dinner, like Alex and Elia from my cohort, or Erin, Michael and Jax who were part of my family during my undergraduate years.  While in South Dakota, I focused on my sister, her husband, and their kids, which was amazing.  I love those three girls so much, and don’t get to see them often enough.

On the way home, we drove interstate 90 pretty much from just west of Mitchell, SD (home of the corn palace) all the way to New York.  While we drove through Minnesota again, I thought about Darci, who I just reconnected with on Facebook, a friend from camp who lived in Jackson MN at the time.  I also thought about Erin & Mike again because we passed the exit for Rochester where they live.

In Chicago I thought about my friend Nicole’s sister Paige, who is the second oldest of the four girls in that family but the fourth one of them that I met (I went to college with Nicole’s baby sister and got married at her oldest sister’s church).  Paige lives somewhere in the Chicago area, though I’m not sure where.  As we drove through Indiana coasting along under Michigan I thought about my cohort member Lydia, who is now working for a convent (but is married and is still Lutheran, I think).  Ohio brought to mind thoughts about my husband’s relatives who seem to live in every single suburb of Cleveland.

Throughout the trip I was reminded of my college choir tour, which took us through Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and up into Canada to Toronto, which is not far from where we live now.  And it brought to mind Andy who acted like a tour guide and Mark who was crazy and Ryan who had to wear a plastic inner-tube duck the first day of tour (the Dumb Duck award) because he thought we weren’t leaving until the next day.  And when we stopped in Madison Wisconsin for the night, I remembered that the latest Jeopardy! college tournament was filmed there.

Such a jumbled mind I have – all of this was my musings during the almost 3,000-mile road trip in our new car (we picked it up the day before we left).  And here is how bad I am at this blogging business, which should include pictures of our trip.  We forgot our camera at home and didn’t take a single picture on our cell phones the whole trip, despite the fact that there were plenty of beautiful and memorable things to see.  I am going to try to start documenting more of my life in pictures, because one day I will forget what Wisconsin Dells looks like, or how amazing a sunset can look in the rear-view mirror of your car, or how wide the Missouri river is through South Dakota.  While a picture can’t always do it justice, they almost always help me remember how I felt.