A new blog for a new journey, another chapter in the saga we call life, this beautiful, painful trek through the everyday unknown.  Speaking of the unknown, my new chapter is putting miles between what has been and what will be even as I write on the road and create my first blog.  I feel like I'm embarking on putting my soul out there for the world to peer into and wonder at or criticize.  I guess this is an invitation to cry with me, laugh with me and ponder the works of God with me.  I expect His finger to find it's scroll here as I submit to this long surrender and take the time to notice significance in the insignificant and beauty and magnificence in the everyday.  
  So far the journey East has been, well, mostly south and west and memorable.  Our first day found us pulling out around 9am, leaving behind an empty house and carrying with us the love, memories and tears.  To rewind just a bit, at 6:15am I realized that the car was not going to easily fit all of our remaining belongings very comfortably so I searched craigslist on my phone for a car top carrier and emailed/texted a few options and around 8:15 called on a soft carrier for $25 in Portland.  Therefore, 9:30 found us unpacking the car, reorganizing and filling up our car top carrier on a side street neighborhood in Portland. Anxious to get on the road, we jumped in and headed to Bandon, OR.  We stopped in Eugene at a neighborhood park for sandwiches and some play time then headed to the coast.  The wild game safari in Bandon, OR was a blast.  We held a baby skunk, raccoons, ferrets and possums.  We walked among llamas and goats and peacocks while Emma tried to hug them all or carry them and fit right in as a little herding farmer.  We played with a puma and pet a black bear.  Behind cages I found a real live ROUS - except without a tail - who knew?  A catybara is the largest rodent from South America.  Definitely looked like it belonged in the Amazon.  Elk, wallabies, bison, bear, ostrich, alpacas, anteaters, monkeys and camels and others.  Great fun and stinky too!  We ate dinner at the Crazy Norwegian and then headed to Crescent City, CA for a motel stay and baths all around.  
  So, that was day one and day two started with waffles and a trip into the Redwoods.  We stopped in the Redwoods for a walk through the trees, some tree climbing and pictures - exploring the wonder of those great trees and the God who made them.  The drive from Eureka to Redding was magnificent with rivers, mountains, twists and turns and life etched into the very hills.  We listened to Rich Mullins and cried over a brother who loved that music and the beauty of the outdoors as well.  Sometimes I wish I had a lifetime just to explore all the hidden places of beauty and rough it in the wilderness to explore the untouched.  Does God find it sad that some places He created might never be captured by the human eye?  And I marvel again that the eye can capture so much in a glance that a picture could never reveal.  Our eyes can zoom in, have panorama and appreciate movement and congruity in milliseconds.  I'm so grateful!  What if our vision was like multiple snap shots?  Well, maybe that's a digression.  We're headed to Sacramento with Judah finally asleep after a bit of fussing, the girls creating fake nails with stickers and an Odessey in the CD player after lunch at a Burger King playland.  Plan to be in Yosemite for camping out the next couple nights.