Ron and Sally Jo Blog

Huntsville is a tourism centre north of Toronto near Algonquin Park.  It is surrounded by lakes, forests, and mountains with many hiking trails.  During our first afternoon we drove out a winding, hilly road and climbed a hill to the Dyer Memorial.  Clifton Dyer built this tall monument as a memorial to his wife.  We then drove to Lookout Mountain where we had a beautiful view of Fairy Lake.

 On our full day in Huntsville we went to Arrowhead Provincial Park.  We hiked through forests, around lakes, along a river, and saw many beautiful spring flowers.  The trillium were especially beautiful.  The mosquitoes and black bugs were also in abundance!

We recently spent time with Lucy while Jessica was costume designer for “The Importance of Being Earnest” at Northern Stage in White River Junction, Vermont.  Sally Jo traveled by train and spent one week with Lucy and Jessica before Ron drove out to spend the second week.  What a fun two weeks!

When Sally Jo first arrived at the condo where Jessica and Lucy were staying there was a fair amount of snow on the ground.  Since Sally Jo did not have a car, she and Lucy read, did “art”, “played,” and explored the small area around the condo.

The weekend that Ron arrived, Jessica had a day off and we all explored Quechee Gorge.  The scenery was beautiful but the trail was very icy.  It made for very slow and careful hiking.

Other days Lucy, Ron, and Sally Jo visited Billings Farm near Woodstock, King Arthur Flour near Norwich, the railway station in White River Junction, Montshire Museum of Science near Norwich, and VINS; Vermont Institute of Natural Science near Quechee.  We saw many large raptors at VINS but realize that we have no photos because it was COLD and we didn’t spend much time outside!

The big snowstorm came through the night (Friday) before we were to leave.  We received only about 12-15 inches of snow where we were in Vermont.  The road crews were very efficient and we were able to leave by mid-morning Saturday.  We had beautiful scenery as we drove through Vermont and upstate New York.  We were disappointed to return to Goshen and find no snow!

We celebrated Sally Jo’s birthday several days in a row!  First we traveled to Chicago by train, spent two nights there attending two events, returned to Goshen and attended two events on Goshen College campus.

On our first evening in Chicago we ate at a delicious Armenian restaurant, Sayat-Nova, and attended Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.  (no photos – forgot the camera!)

We spent the next day at the Museum of Contemporary Art.  There were some very interesting exhibits.  One exhibit “Color Bind” highlighed MCA’s collection in black and white.  Another exhibit “Goshka Macuga: Exhibit, A” showed two fascinating tapastries among other projects, both highlighting Macuga’s interweaving of art and politics.  A third exhibit was not completely installed but we saw a bit of it, “Destroy the Picture: Paint the Void, 1949-1962.”  This highlighted the effect history of that era had on art.  What was fascinating was that the fact that these events all took place during our pre-college days!  We remember many of them!  We were also fascinated with the spiral stairway of the museum.  Oh, and yes, we had a delicious luncheon at the museum.

That evening we attended a concert with Michelle by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, a group from South Africa at the Old Town School of Folk Music.  We always enjoy their music.

We returned home the next day and attended a concert by The English Concert at Goshen College.  The following evening was the college Winter Chorale Concert: “”An Evening of Opera.”  A fun concert with scenes from operas by Verdi, Offenbach, Gilbert and Sullivan and more.

What a fun four days–and what a variety of activities!

Sedona is as beautiful as ever.  We enjoy the red rocks, blue sky, dry plants, and all the hiking that is available.  One day we rode the Verde Canyon Railroad.  This train took us on a four-hour journey through Arizona wilderness.  There is spectacular geology along with Sinagua Indian ruins dating back to 600 B.C.  The tracks follow the Verde River north and west of Clarkdale, Arizona to the ghost town of Perkinsville and back (about 40 miles).  It was originally built to support the copper industry in the area.

During the week we spent at the resort, the Red Rock Fantasy opened.  This celebration has been held for 22 years.  Two dozen displays created by families from the Southwest, bring cartoon favorites, children’s stories, and the biblical story to life in dazzling Christmas displays.  More than a million lights are used.  Proceeds help local charity and community organizations.

One evening we attended a Native American flute concert performed by Wolfs Robe, a world-renowned traditional Native American flute performer and educator.  His flute sounds wove melodies and improvisation through nature and Native American culture.  He is committed to the preservation of the Native American flute as well as his own ancestral connections.  He played a variety of flutes from a bone flute from 600 A.D. and a thunder flute.  He explained the “Grandfather” tuned flutes—not tuned to the Western scale but “tuned perfectly for Nature.”

We took hikes most days.  We chose two hikes that we have done before and tried out three new ones.  All provided beautiful scenery.  (We cannot capture it in photos!)  On our last hike of the week, the sign at the beginning warned that bears have recently been active.  We decided it was time to head to Goshen!

We travelled to Sedona, Arizona via the flat lands of Nebraska, through the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, through the dry lands of Utah, through magnificent Grand Canyon National Park, to our friends near Williams, Arizona.  From Moab, Utah to Williams we had very stormy weather—frequent rain squalls in some areas to dust storms which turned the clouds pink from the red soil in other areas.  We woke in Williams to snow on the ground.

Our friends in Williams took us to “Bearizona” where we drove through open areas to visit animals and also attended a “”free flight” rapture demonstration.  We saw hawks and a huge Great Horned Owl fly inches above our heads.

We left for our most recent travels (about 2700 miles) to Winnipeg, Manitoba just as the leaves in our yard were beginning to turn.  On the way and in Winnipeg we visited many friends.  One friend was on retreat at Collegeville Institute at St John’s community in Minnesota.  What a beautiful setting for research, painting/writing, and retreat.  (We were able to see a page of the St John’s Bible.)  We also stopped in northern Minnesota and visited with friends we had not seen since our Haiti days in the late 1970’s.

Sally Jo had never been in North Dakota before and wasn’t sure she had missed much as we drove for miles through flat country.

In Winnipeg we spent an entire day in the MCC office, meeting many people we had only corresponded with while living in Uganda.  We also spent two fun evenings with a woman from Uganda (MCC helped sponsor her travel) who is now studying at the University of Manitoba.  And another evening was spent with former MCC Tanzania reps now living in Winnipeg.  We stayed with our very good friend whom we met in Indonesia and who is now also studying at the University of Manitoba.  We walked along a very cold and windy beach of Lake Winnipeg.

We drove home via the north side of Lake Superior.  The views were fantastic!  Saw 3 moose—1 dead on the hunter’s truck, 1 stuffed in front of a shop, and 1 live by the side of the road.

Even after the beautiful views up north, we enjoyed the autumn colors in our own front yard!

In September Lucy stopped in to see us briefly and we were able to spend time with her and show her our home! It was also an opportunity for our entire family to be together.

In August we travelled to East Hartford, CN to meet up with Lucy again!  We enjoyed taking many walks and playing in her new home. We returned home via Canada visiting relatives in Kitchener and St Thomas along the way.  Also on the way we stopped in Lewisburg, NY and Niagra-on-the-Lake.  Our final stop was in Sarnia, Ontario.

A week later in September we travelled to Archbold, OH for our Fall Biking Weekend.  We took two days to bike to Archbold, spent Saturday biking around Archbold with our friends, and then biked the entire way home (90 miles) in one day.  We ended September with two trips to Chicago—once to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Choir in “Carmina Burana” (in the rain!) and once to see Chicago Shakespeare company in “Sunday in the Park with George.”  Both were terrific performances.

We realize that our last entry was five months ago!  Our environment has changed dramatically since then and we have continued to travel many miles.  This entry (and the next several) will just briefly update what we have done or where we have been since then.

Much of June and July were spent with friends, family, and working in our yard.  We helped celebrate Sally Jo’s sister’s 50^th anniversary and friends’ 55^th anniversary, visited with Peni (from Uganda) and her finance, and hosted friends from Indonesia.   We traveled to Akron, PA to meet the next MCC representatives to Uganda and then traveled on to Norristown, PA to be with granddaughter Lucy.  We made one trip to Chicago to attend a concert at Ravinia.  And we spent many hours on July 3-4 watching the railway pedestrian tunnel being built on the GC campus—including the midnight cutting of the tracks.

The last of July and beginning of August we travelled to Austin, TX to attend a wedding.  This was probably not the best time of year to be in Austin, but in reality, it was not much hotter there than Goshen!  We spent some time near the river in Austin before arriving at the church and wedding.

The past several weeks have been a series of saying good-by to our many friends here.  This blog will mainly be photos of people.  To most of you they may not mean much but to us they mean a lot.  These are the people who have made our past 15 months a special time.

We held an AGM (Annual General Meeting) to which our partners and friends are invited.  It is a general business meeting but also a time to learn from each other.  Two people talked about their programs—a new peace project in the west of Uganda and a SALT experience.  We also held a “panel discussion” on “Uganda’s Known Killer—Corruption.”

We held our last team meeting and were able to say goodbye to our present service worker and SALTer.  We welcomed our the new Country Representative.  We had an all-day Advisors’ Meeting and ended the day with a supper which included MCC national staff and their families.

We took one last trip to visit one of our Global Family school projects.  MCC supports 30 girls at the school and also supports projects that help everyone at the school—energy efficient stove, solar lighting, lightening rods, etc.  The Sisters there have become very dear to us.

And of course, our last farewells to our National Staff in the office and those that help us around the house.  It has been hard to say farewell but we know that the MCC program will continue.