2 Peter 1:13 Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you.
Wednesday 08/04/10 As we journey on the sun begins to shine but we are not fooled this time, we know that we could get caught in a down pour at any time so we take some precaution, although it is very HOT. We are on our way to “Little River State Park’ in Vermont for the next two nights, but before we leave New Hampshire we have one last hike to do “Arethusa’ it is a 2.2 mile hike UP to the largest water fall in N.H, and now even larger after last night’s monsoon. We start just before 11am and take an easier than usual trail upwards. The forest floor is still very wet from the down pour last night but this very hot sun this morning will change that in no time. A popular hike and we greet quite a few people on their way down – no bites. When we reach the top we see the cascades of water rushing over these high falls (see photo) and we stand so small beneath them looking up in awe. Our climb back down met with many people and we stopped to talk to some like a wonderful family from Bedford in England - Paul, Christine, Sarah and James ( he prefers Jamie), we chatted for a while and told them that we are Christians and have been reminding people of the LORD and Paul smiled bashfully but said nothing. Later in the conversation I gave Jamie our website info ( he would like to get into some kind of media marketing and would like to be in the U.S.) so I handed him a tract with our website info on it and told him that we get people jobs back in California, well, JESUS does, and HE owns it. “Great” said Paul, “we are also Christians”, oh , I get so excited when an English family tells me that it makes me jump for joy, Paul said that they have a great little church that they attend in Bedford. We fellowship a while and then say our farewells, and we hope to hear from them again. We arrive at the bottom (wobbling again) and drive for the rest of the day. We cross a bridge and say farewell to N.H. and hello to Vermont, green rolling hills, sleepy little towns reminding us both of Virginia and the southern states. The sun is hot as we drive along the country roads and we spot a town called “Willoughby’ and here at Willoughby is a tiny beach on a lake and lots of people taking advantage of the afternoon sun which they don’t see too much of in these parts. We stop for a while and I mention to Terry how this scene looks just like ‘Lake Chelan’ in the state of Washington, Terry agrees and takes a couple of photo’s. The similarity to Lake Chelan is the way the lake is framed by big mountainous rolling green hills, and how the lake narrows as it funnels through the mountain pass. We drive on and see wide open spaces of farm land with ponds, and cows and horses grazing. We catch a glimpse of a stream running fast alongside us and we enter Orleans another town with one factory ( the home of Ethan Allen Furniture). A house here, and a house there, so much land each house sits on, and a cemetery sits up high on a hill - hills covered with a yellow blanket, these flowers are my favorite color. We reach Stowe a beautiful, rather upscale, little village that has an upper and a lower village, it is very popular in the winter, all the skiers come to ski and snowboard here, and we see a sign which says “Home of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream” and of course a dairy farm right by it – which makes sense I suppose – no milk, no ice cream. A thermometer reads 87 degrees, it is humid and hot and we are again in paradise. We find our camp ground “Little River State park’ and we put the fortress up again. By the way we did stop early this morning (when we found some sunshine) and layed our fortress out on an empty parking lot and it is dry. It is late and we say farewell to another incredible day and praying for sunshine for tomorrow.
Thursday 08/05/10 We get up late and after breakfast we go on a hike. The weather looks unpredictable so, just to be sure, we take our rain suits - not a good idea as we have to lug them all the way up this very steeeeep mountain, and no sign of rain. Although only a 1.2 hike, again it is straight up, it takes us a while. At the top of the mountain is a pond (see photo) and people and their dogs are gathered here, their dogs playing in the water. We meet a lovely local girl, with her dog, at the top of the mountain and she tells us what it is like here in the winter. It is snow laden, everything is white, she said, but it is not like Colorado and the Western states as the sun is not always out, so many cloudy days are to be had here, I these cold winter months. It is a ski town and winter is their season most live for it. She has grown up here and has become accustomed to living as a ‘snow bird’, in fact, she said that her and her husband flew to L.A. recently just to ski Mammoth and loved it more than ever, Mammoth is a wonderful place and we go often. She tells us that here on this mountain there is a walk along the top ( it goes to the ski slopes) we follow her advise and it is a level walk (yeah) on a rocky, grassy mountain top which looks out to a beautiful view way, way beneath - a lake and little towns surrounding it. Although this trail has lots of people we have no bites and go on our way down the mountain getting to the bottom by mid afternoon. We head for down town and find a cup of coffee and a laundramat, Terry sits in the car reading his newspaper with no shirt on because I have taken it from him and put it in the wash. I meet Vera (from Brooklyn) who lives here now. She works here and explains the high tech usage of putting dollars in slots to receive a card - the card , then, has the amount of money that has been put on it. “This is really high tech” I said to Vera, “Oh, this is nothing, there is a laundry in Vermont with a bar in it they serve wine and beer”, and she and I both mimicked the tipsy people mixing up their wash with someone else’s. Vera carried on with her work as did I on my computer, checking messages etc. The owner of the company came in with his lovely black Labrador and started to chat to me, I told him what a good employee Vera was and how she had stepped forward to ask me if I needed help when I looked so perplexed at the high tech machinery. Her boss and dog said their farewells and later Vera came up to me and thanked me, she said that today was exactly a year since she has worked here and after my comment to her boss, he had said to her ”Well, Vera I suppose it is time for a raise” she said to me “ You couldn’t have said that at a better time” this gave me my opportunity to witness and I told Vera that the LORD places me on assignments and HE is the one who Exalts the humble and makes the Haughty stumble and with that I gave Vera all of my info and hope to hear from her. It is very sunny and very hot and I give Terry a clean shirt and we take off. The rest of the evening is spent hanging around Stowe getting all our chores done and playing ‘Uno’. Terry is making a list to see who wins the most games and when we get home the winner gets $50.00 right now I am losing very sorely.We are in the Book of Joel at night at present.
Friday 08/06/10 Happy Birthday to our dear friend Louis at Daystar. We take down the fortress in the warm sun and head to “Branbury Lakes State Park’ still in VT and only about a 100 or so miles along the country roads. Absolutely gorgeous green, green mountains, and by the way they are called the Vermont Green Mountains, my historian tells me that the soldiers from Vermont in the Revolutionary war were called “The Green Mountain Boys”. A blue sunny sky welcomes us as we drive along admiring this beauty and we stop at Hancock overlook at “White-river’ and notice a long green path carved in the middle of a field ahead - we begin to walk along the path and to the right of us is a wide open green field with thistles that grow in clumps throughout the land. On our left are tall yellow wispy wild flowers and alongside them grow dusty pink ‘round tops’ (see photo) there are bushes all around and some are the bushes that grow the red berries that resemble glazed cherries, while brilliant white laced, and tall, wild flowers all sway in the breeze. There is a stream behind all of this beauty and as we peek the water is slowly moving in the warm morning sun, glistening and twinkling, and as we look beyond the stream we notice the majesty of the vast green hills laden with green trees and all is still - but then, maybe, an angel of the LORD blows heavenly breath and all of nature begins to sway in perfect motion – is this what heaven will look like? White flowers line the road side and fields filled with corn as tall as us bask in the afternoon sun. We are in the ‘Moosalamoo’ area so we stop for a hike at the “Spirit” trail which Terry had seen on the internet and learned that there would be Spiritual quotes posted on the hike. I know that Vermont along with N.H. and Maine are some of the most liberal states in the nation and was shocked to hear that they would have something like this. Seeing is believing and as we start the trail it talks about “The Inter Faith Trail’ and there are many trails that one can take we can choose our religion today we start with Buddhist then Hindu, Muslim, Pagan, Jewish oh! now let me see what did I leave out? Oh right you mean Christian? Well that path is left at the end and is so small and narrow and truly with NO exaggeration it has bushes with thorns all around – a thorny path (pun intended). But who created this Spiritual trail, and do they know that JESUS says I AM the Way the Truth and the Life and NOBODY come to the FATHER but by HIM. Eventually we find our campground it is right by a gorgeous lake and as we pass the sun is shining on it and the lake is calm and the sun forms tiny stars on the water they bob up and down calmly on the lake as we drive on by. Houses are built all around the lake and the roads are lined with trees and it is a peaceful, paradise kind of town. After we put up the fortress we head downtown and do the chores like get two tires for the chariot as they are wearing thin, well it has been 20,000 miles. The day comes to an end oh too quickly and we try to grasp a hold of it but what can we do? We must let it go the way it suppose to go and thank the LORD for All HE has given us.
Saturday 08/07/10 The wind stops howling around 6am and we sleep on a while. It is a beautiful sunny morning with not a sign of wind or rain , and as we drive to the town of Brandon, past the green fields of wild flowers we notice that the day has a very special light to it, almost like a heavenly light today. Terry agrees with me it seems like a winter day in California, the sky is so very blue and again the white puffy clouds are shaped perfectly and aligned in the sky perfectly, there is a brisk breeze and one can sense that winter is on its way – maybe some would call it an ‘Indian Summer’ day? We drive through the town of Brandon and see garage sales are being held in many gardens, we stop to get our coffee and I meet 5 sisters in the bathroom, they are so noisy and each one of them are talking all at the same time and I laugh to myself as it reminds me of when I go home and my sisters and me all talk at once, yet, us girls have any uncanny way of being able to hear and answer while still talking. Well, one of the gal’s said to me “oh, excuse us”, and I said “Oh, you don’t know how you all sound like me and ,my sisters are you Italian”? “Yes, we are and we all love to talk at the same time” said Carolyn. In their family are 5 girls and 4 boys and we are 5 and 2, and we have some names the same also. Carolyn starts to tell me that her sister Teresa’s daughter is moving to L.A. so I chat with Teresa and she tells me that her husband passed away recently of cancer (she is young) and as I told her about JESUS she said that she knew HIM and that she saw my lovely cross around my neck. I was just starting to ask JESUS to give her HIS words and Carolyn came and took her away and said that they must run to the garage sales, they are a New Jersey family but live here, I gave Teresa my info and hope to hear from her. Please keep her in prayer. As we drive on we see a picture perfect cloud sitting on a green mountain and I turn my head to the right just in time to see a field filled with blue wild flowers. A church steeple off in the distance is the perfect landmark that takes us through a quaint little village where there is a wedding taking place at this church with a steeple. I think that when the sun shines here in this part of Vermont it is worth 10 summer days elsewhere, it is an extraordinary day, here, today – GODS own light. We drive to Mount Horrid (weird name) and John comes up to us and asks us a question about the trail, he has his 4 yr old son (gorgeous blonde ‘toe-head) Luke with him, we all take off on the trail together. At the beginning the path is very narrow with incredible wild flowers of all colors up past my waist reaching out and touching me, I see yellow wisp, white lace, bull-rushes, and fern of all shapes and sizes and we walk on pst this beauty into the forest upwards and onwards. The trail is steep at first but leveled out so we could walk a while before the next steep incline. I like these Vermont trails they are like the Canadian ones – beautiful. The climb took all four of us to a look out of the world down below, with its winding road and majestic mountains and lakes. John and Luke sit and eat lunch and we chat a while. John and his wife (from Penna) ive in Toronto, he tells us that it is now the biggest city for diversity in the sense that there are more people living in Toronto who were NOT born there than anywhere else. John and his wife attend an Anglican/Evangelical church and by the sounds of it it is run well, the pastor invites the drug addicts and whoever wants to come on in – what would JESUS do? We all know that answer path that JESUS has for them all. We all continued on along the ‘Long Trail’ which took us to another look out (see photo at end of narrative) and this was just as breathtaking with even a little more beauty to digest. We meet as HE says “Come just as you are”. We have wonderful fellowship with John and we ask for prayer for his young family Like, Anna-leise and his wife and he that they would continue on the Jean and Jake who live in upstate New York. They live in Shoshan and I said “Oh, that is a place in the Bible”, “Yes, so I am told” Jean says, we walk al while and as we chat with Jean I mention how JESUS healed my foot and how I had written it in my Bible weeks prior and here I am claiming HIS promise. I asked her what her beliefs were and she said “Oh ,our god is nature”, and I replied “Yes, my GOD created your nature, this is ALL HIS paint palette”. Jake is a retired engineer and they live (as he calls it in a black hole) they have no t.v. etc they only read, my thought was “yes, but what are you reading? I wonder what book he will be reading at the last trump? I wonder what that book will do for him? Wonderful people but so uninformed about the the only true purpose of why we are on this earth – “Seek the LORD while HE may be found”- Isaiah 55:6a. We started back and noticed the berries that are royal blue ( not blueberries) these are not edible but very beautiful as they hang in all their royal splendor on the vine and I am reminded of JESUS saying “ I AM the Vine you are the branches, without ME you can do nothing” We finish our wonderful hike and drive along the country roads and on our right we see a huge field of sunflowers and they are beaming with faces lifted up to the sun oh what beauty. We arrive down town and hang around – no bites. But we do notice that poor Dave at McD’s (this morning) is very slow and cannot seem to get one order right and so when we see him outside we encourage him. We eat dinner at the lake by our campground, they are getting ready for a bike race tomorrow so the park is busy. Although it is getting late in the evening, it is never too late to see what the LORD has for us, so we go off on a hike just behind our campground to ‘Silver Lake”. A wonderful hike that takes us gradually up the mountain, we meet our neighbors and their kids and dogs they are coming down and we go off into the dusk evening air walking through the forest up, up, and away to beautiful Silver Lake (see photo at end of narrative) that sits at the top of this mountain. We reach the lake after 7pm - it is wide and open and a little way off we can hear two or three children swimming getting their last dip in before the , soon to be cold air, forces them out of the water. The evening sun is dimming and the flowers are closing their petals over their faces for the night all is calm and warm. Terry takes a few photo’s (see photo) and we start our walk back through the forest to Grandma’s house (only kidding). It seems that the LORD has given us a bird back and each time we venture into a forest we hear at least one time the same sound from a bird, it is part of the electronic sound that we heard back in Florida only it is not so pronounced, this bird is sent by the LORD - it is there to tell us that HIS Hand guides us. We hear the bird again as we enter the forest and again later. We continue down wards - it is dusk and suddenly we hear a lot of noise coming from two or three birds, it sounds like something could be disturbing their nest and as we look we see a wise old owl sitting on the limb of a tree, the smaller birds seem threatened by this wise old owl, maybe he/she is after their young ? We stop and look at the owl and hoot at him, and he flies away, the little birds seem to calm down and relax getting back to their nests – wilderness man and woman came to the rescue. It is the end of an incredibly Blessed day and again we thank our LORD for everything that HE supplies us with we are Rich in HIM.
Sunday 08/08/10 We leave our wooded campground as the bicycle race begins and on our way, for miles, we see cyclists competing in the race. We stop at McD’s and notice the young guy that we encouraged yesterday is being called to the back, we think they are letting him go, he doesn’t quite get it and so we ask for prayer for Dave. We drive on passing yellow fields, small busy towns and finally leaving the lovely state of Vermont and saying Hello to New York State once more, we are on our way to Lake Placid, in the Adirondacks. And on our way we stop at Fort Ticonderoga and the Kings garden for a history lesson. We learn that this fort was built in 1755 by the French Army. It was at this fort in 1758 that the battle of Carrillon took place , when 4900 French soldiers defeated the combined British, Provincial and Native army of 17,000. The Scottish 42nd regiment or better known as the ‘Black Watch’ suffered the greatest casualties during this battle. At the beginning of the American Revolution Fort Ticonderoga was manned by the British 26th Regiment. Colonel Benedict Arnold, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys captured the Fort on May 10th 1775 achieving the first American victory of the Revolution. The following winter, Colonel Henry Knox hauled Ticonderoga’s cannon to Boston to arm the fledgling American army. The British occupying the fort quickly fled. Our interesting history lesson is over so we take a walk into the Kings Garden and the flowers are heavenly and as I walk around by the dahlia’s I see a man working diligently with the flowers, possibly he is pruning them? I said to him, “Oh what a wonderful job you have, you are tending GOD’S garden” and he replies “Oh, Yes, I am sure that the Garden of Eden is much like this”, Sam is a Christian brother (see photo), truly like a brother, we began to praise the LORD and talk about HIM and we were talking and thinking exactly alike - the spirit identifying with the spirit, and he said to me, “You are truly my sister in Christ”. I introduced Sam to Terry and said to Terry “Here is heavens gardener” and Terry said “ And you are his assistant” ? Oh! what a wonderful idea to look after the animals and the flowers in heaven. We had a wonderful time of fellowship and Sam tells us that all his grand kids are saved, what a legacy! Sam is a Pastor and the LORD recently had him Pastor the little Baptist Church that he and his family attend. The Pastor and his wife were suddenly killed in an accident and so Sam kept the Church in order until they appointed a new Pastor. We had an incredible time of fellowship and it was so joyful - I know I felt a little closer to heaven knowing others are waiting for HIM with bated breath - like me. We found our camp ground ‘Wilmington Notch’ and pitched our fortress then took off to down town Lake Placid, and it is much like Gatlinburg in TN, a ski town bustling with people from New York and New Jersey. The first Winter Olympics was held in 1932 and again in 1980 and they still have the Training Center here where you can go and watch the competitors practice, it is right in the center of Lake Placids downtown area. The weather here is awful, I can’t imagine how they handle living here, yet everyone seems to love where they live, it rains every hour, I’m not kidding, I’m wondering when they have summer? Eventually we head back to the campground , talk to a few neighbors and call it a night – thank YOU JESUS for this YOUR amazing Grace.
Monday 08/09/10 We awake to the drizzles hoping for some sun later today. After breakfast we chat with our neighbors, Beverly is a Christian, and we ask for prayer for her and the whole family, many lovely children to take care of, and much wisdom needed from the LORD to do all of this. We take a hike at ‘Avalanche Lake’ – an eight mile hike that at first is level and has a path that opens up in the green forest we walk in ease for at least 2 miles, however, within this time it rains and stops, rains and stops, then sunshine for a few minutes, then rain, then sun, then rain, then rain. We arrive at a bridge which takes us across Marcy Lake (see photo) and as we stand on it we look out at two high mountains that are the backdrop to the lake, and we take in the beauty of the sky and trees that are reflected in the lake. I say to a couple standing by “ I am not used to all this wet stuff”, and we start to laugh and chat and find that Paul and Diana are beautiful Christians from Long Islan). They have 4 lovely children Pauly 13, John 11, Charles and Grace 6 - these guys are twins. We fellowship for almost an hour and end up holding hands and praying, we ask for prayer for the whole family but especially Grace and Charles that they will not have to be on medication and that the LORD continues to give Diana and Paul wisdom on how to deal with the few medical concerns. Paul tells us that they were going to take another hike today and he knew that the LORD had planned our meeting both families were just Blessed by the whole Hand of the Master. When Paul brought this up I was reminded that 5 minutes before we met this beautiful family Terry and I were over the other side of the bridge and we heard just one bird and it was our bird, and I said to Terry “The LORD is telling us that HIS Power is at work here”, Only HE orchestrates these divine meetings. Terry and I trek onwards in to “Avalanche Lake and again rain, sun, rain , rain, and finally sun. Our day was spent walking along the wet forest floor and climbing rocks to get to our final destination for the day “Avalanche Lake’. We arrive and look out on the water which has massive rocks either side standing like giant watchman guarding and protecting all that lives within its domain. We pass many on the trail, all young college age with no-one who has time to stop and chat. We drive back to the town of Lake Placid and have a cuppa coffee while checking emails etc. later we eat and head back to the campground and the zip on our fortress is broken, it is cold and rainy, and how will keep the bugs out? And the cold wind air oh LORD we are asking for YOUR intervention in this and we believe YOU will do something. We get in the fortress and take duct tape to try and bind up the wounds. The night was windless and calm and we thanked our LORD for HIS mighty mercy.
Tuesday 08/10/10 It seems like it could be sunny today so we pack up the fortress and go over to our neighbors cause Doug always gives us a cup of his special coffee. We chat with Beverly and Doug a while and then we all hold hands and Terry prays for the family Doug, Beverly, Dougie, Alison, Zachary, Kevin and Juliana. I chat with Beverly on my own a while and she asked me to tell her what the LORD had given me for her. She knows that the LORD has given me so much to tell her which I will do in an email in private. We leave and guess what? We went to Starbucks, haven’t seen one of them in months. We actually were waiting for the camping store to open to ask about our broken zipper. We get a telephone # of a lady who fixes tents and when we called her she pretty much said “Your tent is as good as the zip” and the cost will be outrageous and she couldn’t do it now it would take days. I know that the LORD will come through, so we make a few more calls and send some emails . The manufacturer of our fortress is in Colorado and when we pass through there in September, maybe they can fix it there? or replace it? or something. We head on out of Lake Placid and drive for a few hours towards our destination at “Golden Beach’ camp ground still in upstate New York. But we have a hike to do and it is sunny and warm, yes. Our hike is called “Blue Mountain” a four mile hike that takes us hours as it is very, very steep with long wide boulders to climb and they are slippery due to the consistent rain here. We meet many but no-one is interested in talking about JESUS only the ones that know HIM want to discuss how beautiful HE is. We arrive at the top and we are very high up and look down on the lakes and very green mountains. There are dogs, kids and many people up here, and we chat with them all, some French Canadians are also enjoying the view. We all joke about getting down most of us think we are going down on our bums. It takes us a while as the boulders are so large and slick but we manage it and by the time we get down it has taken us 3 hours a strenuous hike to say the least. We are not too far from where we are staying and as we drive we see lakes and lakes and lakes and it is getting very hot and very sunny – love it! We get to our camp site and it is very beautiful, a lovely green camp ground with a beautiful lake and it is crowded with upstate New Yorkers – noisy, love it. Ken our neighbor comes up and gives us some biscuits that he has just baked, and Bob walks by asking us how long it took us to come from California, he is a cyclist ( our age) and lives here, flew to Seattle and has ridden (on his bike) back. We shared our biscuits with Bob, and he asked Terry how we got along together on this trip - he thought it was for so long and wasn’t sure if his wife and he could do it. Terry gave him JESUS and Bob told us that he’d seen a guy (like Arthur Blessed) who carried a cross on his back from Indiana to Maine. Meanwhile Terry has decided to take a look at the zipper on the fortress and I have the 877 # to call them and I cannot get reception on my phone from the camp ground ( because JESUS has something else in mind). Terry’s inquiring, logical mind gets to work and JESUS uses it and Terry fathoms out certain things that are happening with the zip and cutting a long story short JESUS fixes the zip through Terry’s mind and hands. I am totally amazed, and I know that it is the work of the LORD. It is early evening and we drive down to do our laundry and we sit by the lake chatting with a young New Yorker ‘George’ and eat while we wait for our clothes get clean and dry. Another day is on the horizon going under fast and we are blessed with a warm evening and a safe secure fortress. Thank YOU JESUS.
