In The Great Still White North

This morning I started off around 7:30 a.m. for a nice 5 hour drive up to the Cities in MN and two meetings that I had - one in St Paul and one in Minneapolis. It was a beautiful day for Minnesota! It was 57 and the sun was out and the beams glinted off the big piles of dirty snow that were still heaped in the corners of parking lots.

I got in about 1 and finished up about 4 and headed up towards Grand Rapids. I'm actually taking two days off to help a friend move from the great white north. I passed Lac LaBelle which is this huge lake between the cities and Grand Rapids. It goes on for miles and miles and was still completely covered with a thick top of ice. All around the sides of the lake were huge snow banks. It was so odd as it was so warm out and the sun was so bright.

As it was Wednesday evening, by the time I got up to Grand Rapids, Melissa had already left for Awana and for Bible study so I had some time to kill, which was quite fine with me. I stopped at the nearby McDonalds and changed into my running gear and then parked at Mel's house and started running. I started running around 7 or so and Melissa and the kids didn't get back until 8:15. I have no clue how far I actually ran, but I ran the whole. It was the most perfect running weather ever! Loved it! I ran all over downtown GR, a couple of times over as the downtown isn't that big. I ran around the school that was once Judy Garland's school. Ran over the bridge the spans the Mississippi. Ran down to the Fleet Farm. I ran I ran... Grand Rapids is not the most stylish area. People are hunters and fishers and work at the paper mill and wear jeans all the time and drive older cars - but they're nice people. As I was out running, there was a guy who passed me with this long greasy hair and a camo jacket on, but the sad part was that he was pushing himself down the middle of the street in a wheelchair and he had no legs. He was nodding and waving at me and I gasped back and nodded and waved, but I felt so horrible. Here I am running and this guy doesn't even have legs. I thanked God for about 5 minutes for the blessing of being able to run with two good legs.

And now - two vacation days full of - packing.... Is that really vacation???