…for those who see
July 21, 2009 (Tuesday)
I received an email from my daughter, Dianna, a few days ago. I am sharing it with you, my readers. What a wonderful world God has given us. As you read her words, I hope you feel the emotions she felt. I did.
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Hey, Daddy! We got home at 1 a.m. this morning, having driven straight through from New Mexico. It was a long, but beautiful drive. Our vacation was wonderful. Mark’s aunt was so gracious, cooking for us every night, and making us feel so welcome.
We saw Carlsbad Caverns, going down into it by way of the natural entrance. It was awe-inspiring. From our home base near Ruidoso at Aunt Phyllis’s house, we drove to some lava beds, which were amazing, and even walked on them.
On Tuesday, Mark’s brother’s family came down from Colorado Springs and went with us to the White Sands. The souvenir shop sells plastic discs to sled down the sand dunes, so we spent several hours out there playing.
Then we went to see some ancient petroglyphs. It was a beautiful hike among the outcropping of rocks with thousands of petroglyphs on them. Just amazing!
The next day, we drove to Cloudcroft. The road wound 30 miles through the Apache Reservation, and that was so beautiful…green meadows with wildflowers and forested mountains on either side. We had our picnic lunch, and then hiked to an old railroad trestle. It was only 2.6 miles long, but it was down into a canyon, so there was a lot of climbing, but I made it! It rained on us on the way back, so that spurred us on. You could see the White Sands in the distance from the overlook there at the trailhead. It was beautiful.
But the most wondrous thing we saw on our trip was almost overlooked. That last night after our Cloudcroft trip and eating out and bowling, we got back to the house late and trudged inside. As I was carrying things into the house, I noticed that the sky had cleared and that there were a lot of stars out. I walked over on the driveway to the shadow of the house where it was dark, and looked up, and my jaw dropped. There were more stars than I had ever seen in my life, and the Milky Way stretched in a band across the whole sky. I couldn’t believe my own eyes. I got the whole family to come out and see it. Mark and Sean were just as amazed as I was, and stayed out the longest, talking and soaking it all in, and they saw some shooting stars, too.
It was a wonderful vacation, and we saw such beautiful sights. I’m so glad we went to the mountains.
Love you! ~dianna