I Wonder as I Wander…

I had an unexpected trip come up—to Green Bay, Wisconsin to attend a Leadership Conference. Bob had planned to go to Moorhead for his conference (and I was going to visit chapters in the area while we were there) when I got asked if I could change my plans. I could, but Bob couldn’t. So I went alone—sigh, I don’t like that too much. It’s so much nicer traveling together.

I was suppose to leave at noon on Thursday, but there was a severe thunderstorm going through the Mpls area, so the plane came in the Int’l Falls, but was cancelled going out—my flight. I was rebooked on the 4 pm flight. I thought it would work to go to the cities, have a nice supper with Ross and Richard and get to Green Bay Friday morning.

So I went to Hardees, ate a hamburger and then worked on some things I had to do. I got back to the airport around 2:30; we went through security and waited… and waited…….and waited. Pretty soon the agent came out and said “There has been another delay, we won’t go until 5:15 pm”…then it was 6 pm….7:30 pm. Finally about 8:15 pm the agent came running out looking for the pilot—we had a 15 minute window to take off—get everyone through security right away!

The pilot was really nice, he ordered pizza for the entire group, although by this time, a lot of people had rebooked for the next day, or driven to the cities—so there was only 8-10 of us left. I got to the cities around 10:30 pm—generally when we’re passing through any time after 9:30 pm—it’s pretty quiet. The airport was packed, with lots of planes coming in and taking off yet. Ross and Richard picked me up, so we had a short time to visit and then ate breakfast together and Ross dropped me back off at the airport around 8:30 am.

I made it to my hotel and met Linda, the regional coordinator, so I ended up riding with her all the time. I hardly drove my car at all. I had just enough time to move into my room and change clothes and we headed over to the college. The college is really nice—they have a little coffee shop that has Kindles that they ‘loan’ out to the students, so they can use them while in the shop.

This was the first ever Leadership Conference in Wisconsin, so it was pretty exciting. There were quite a few chapters who attended that have never come to any other meetings. We had a fabulous Italian Table dinner and then had a tour through Lambeau Field (where the Packers play). It was really wonderful to see the place and hear about the history behind it. And the field is huge with seating for 71,000—and they don’t have tiers, so there is a pretty good view from every seat. The grass was interesting—they wove one strand of nylon grass in about every inch of the sod. This makes the roots of the sod grow around the nylon strand and makes it much stronger so it never has to be resodded during the season.
A few years ago they did a $500 million renovation—added an extra 20,000 seats and more suites, an atrium, convention center (where they hold a lot of weddings), pro shop, restaurant and bar. Those places are used year around, but the huge stadium is only used 10 days per year. That fact really stimulated a lot of discussion around the Paradox of Affluence.


The convention ended on Saturday afternoon, and I didn’t leave until Sunday morning, so I just hung out and relaxed since I would get to Int’l Falls at 4 pm and leave for Boston at 7 pm the next morning from Hibbing. I did some quick unpacking, repacking, and hurrying to Hibbing so I could have some fun time with Naomi and her parents.

After Labor Day, we spent a week and a half in northern California. We saw some beautiful country, but it was tiring, because we were there for nine days and were in six different hotels. That meant we were packing and moving practically every day. And we moved a lot--we put over 1500 miles on the car.

We got in to Sacramento fairly late and drove to Stockton, which is about an hour drive from Sacramento—so we were checking into the hotel at 1:30 am (which really was 3:30 am to us). We were treated very well—first had complimentary passes to the Sky Club at the airport—so were able to snack, sit in comfortable chairs, and be on the internet. Then I was upgraded to First Class—Bob wasn’t, but he was in seat 5A and I was in 4A, so he was right behind me. I could have passed him snacks, if I would have stayed awake when they were passing them out.

The next day, I had a meeting in the morning here in Stockton, and then chartered a chapter in Concord (it’s about an hour away). Then we drove to Redding—which is about 4 hours—so it was a long day and we were tired. The next day we went back and forth between Redding and Weed, but did get to stay in the same motel for two nights!

The road between Redding and Weed is beautiful, with mountains on both sides and lots of trees. Then all of a sudden Mount Shasta shows up towering above all of the others. It’s beautiful and so much bigger than everything else.

On the weekend, we decided to visit Crater Lake, since neither Bob nor I had ever been there. I had read and heard people say “it’s so blue”, but I was still amazed at the deep beautiful blue it was. And it’s huge—about six miles across with sheer cliffs all around it. Crater Lake lies inside a caldera, or volcanic basin, created when the 12,000 foot high Mount Mazama collapsed 7,700 years ago following a large eruption.

The lake is supplied with rain and winter snow (they said over 500 inches per year). There are no inlets or outlets to the lake. Crater Lake, at 1,943 feet deep, is the seventh deepest lake in the world and the deepest in the United States. This is why the lake is so blue—all the red and yellows are absorbed and the blues and purples are reflected. It’s also cold and pure—you get down to the water at one place, and can swim, but not for long because hypothermia will set in quickly.

We went from there to Bandon, which is on the coast. I’m just like a kid as we are approaching an ocean—I get all excited and can’t wait until I get my first glimpse of water. Then we drove down Hwy 101 which has spectacular views of the ocean. I lived in several of those towns, so remembered some of the places. We even found an old run-down school that I attended for first grade in Langlois. We stayed for two nights in Crescent City. We were able to walk along the ocean a couple times. I love walking barefoot in the sand with the waves lapping at my feet. We could even hear the seals barking out on the rocks.

We continued down Hwy 101 which is beautiful; first, the Oregon and northern California coast is really rugged with lots of rocks and cliffs and second, that’s redwood country—so there are the huge redwoods all around. We left Hwy 101 to go on Hwy 1, which winds through the coastal mountains and redwoods—it’s beautiful, but slow going. We stayed in Fort Bragg which sits on a cliff. One morning, we had some time, so sat out on the cliff and just watched the waves crashing into the rocks and swirling around. We also ate at a restaurant called the Cliff House—which is build on the cliff and has tiered seats, so everyone had a beautiful view. Although it got foggy every evening—we didn’t see a good sunset, but the mornings were clear.

We left the coast to head back to Sacramento, stopping at a couple places in central California. Boy, is it dry there—most of the fields have long brown grass unless they are being irrigated. I can see why there are so many fires happening out there. We had an uneventful trip home. But flew in to Hibbing, so got to see Naomi and her family, and then Ross and Richard came—so we had a great visit.

This summer flew by and included a fair amount of travel, but short trips which didn’t include much time for seeing any sights. So I’ll try and catch up on my blogging in one post.

In June, we did a quick trip to Minneapolis for Ross and Richard’s graduation—they both earned MBA’s. It was a lot of fun because Kara, Paul and Naomi and Richard’s mom and Tom were there as well and we always have a good time when we are all together.

The first week in July, we spent time with Naomi and back to the cities for chapter visits. As soon as we got home, we packed and left for meetings in Columbus Ohio. We flew into Dayton, which is about an hour and half drive from Columbus. Following the conference, several of us went out to eat at a wonderful German restaurant named Schmidts—so many different kinds of brats and sauerkraut. And their special dessert is cream puffs—HUGE cream puffs, with chocolate drizzled all over them. The next morning, we had to leave early to catch our plane and it was so foggy that we could hardly see anything, but it cleared in time for our flight.

The second week in July, we first did a quick trip to Hibbing/Duluth for a doctor appointment for mom. Then we flew to Boston for an advisor meeting. We got there Friday afternoon, ate supper at a great little seafood restaurant (I had New England clam chowder), went to the conference on Saturday, and went back home Sunday morning.

The last week in July, we went back to Ohio—this time Pique, which is a little north of Dayton. We had a little more time on this trip, so we were able to see a few things. The first was the Longaberger Basket office (which is an eight story building that looks like a basket). Then we went to their plant which wasn’t in production due to their annual convention being held. But we were able to look around and I got to make a basket (with a little help from a weaver)

One evening we went to a concert in the town square in Troy, Ohio—it was a group from Canada who specialized in music by the Eagles. There were thousands of people and most had their own lawn chairs—since we didn’t have chairs, we ended up sitting on a curb—it was a beautiful evening and really great music.

I went directly from Ohio to Jackson, but Bob went home, so we went to the airport together and went two different directions—although both our flights were late. I went through Atlanta and had to really hurry to make my flight—I think I was the last person on the plane.

The first week of August, Jackson was hot and humid—although the locals kept saying, ‘it’s not bad—you should have seen it the last few weeks’. Every day was packed with meetings and I ate breakfast and supper at the hotel most of the time. I did have a couple of fun evenings. One was with the International Officers. They decided to cook for some of the staff members—and it was a lot of ethnic foods. It was great getting to know them and be with some of the staff members.

I asked Saralyn if she wanted to go to Cock of the Walk for supper—she did and then asked Susan and Jeff and West to go along—we had a lot of fun and laughs—along with really great catfish.

Later in August found us heading back to Duluth for more appointments with mom. Ross and Richard came up for supper one night and Naomi, Kara and Paul ate with us and then stayed over one night. We got in a few games of cards and in the morning, I sat outside at the hotel holding Naomi while she was sleeping. It was perfect—a nice warm sunny day with a view of Lake Superior and cuddling my sweet granddaughter. We even got to walk along the lake walk which is one of my favorite places for a walk.

We went back to Duluth in Sept. for another appointment with mom and felt pretty good after this trip—she is responding well to the medication and has to go back in three months for a vision check and six months for the next MRI. The best part is she is feeling so much better and back to her old self.

I heard that many times while we were planning our trip to Iceland and generally responded ‘because I’ve never been there’. I also heard ‘What are you going to see and do in Iceland’. After Ross, Richard, Bob and I decided to go to Iceland, I heard so many people who had lived, visited, or knew people from here. A couple of the speakers at our Int’l convention mentioned Iceland due to its geothermal heat and its economic crisis.

It was a little due to the economic crisis that we chose Iceland—right now they really need tourists to help their economy—so some of their prices are pretty low. The airfare wasn’t too bad and the apartment where we are staying is very reasonable. The food is still pretty pricy because they have to import almost everything (except whale, lamb and puffin).

As we were landing, all we could see out the plane window was what looked like tundra—just black lava with a little bit of moss on it. Someone had compared it to the moon’s surface and that’s the way I would describe it as well—barren and rocky. Our bus ride into the city had more of the same, but you could see a snow covered mountain across the way and every so often there would be a bunch of wild flowers—I saw some lupines. As we got closer to Reykjavik, there were more trees and flowers—although I think it’s early, the lilacs are just starting to show some buds.

We got here Thursday morning around 6:30 am—we had left Mpls at 7:20 pm Wed evening. The flight was 6 hours and they are 5 hours ahead of CDT. They are actually on GMT. So we had all day to wander around and try and get caught up on our sleep. We found an information center and picked up a lot of brochures, a bank and changed our money (and had hot chocolate and mocha), and did a little sight seeing. We got to city hall—which is a neat building right next to The Pond. The guys walked around the pond and I decided to sit on a bench in the sunshine, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I laid on the bench and took a nap.

About 5:30 pm, Gunnar (who has the apartment) gave us a tour of Reykjavik. It was very interesting—he told us a lot of the history of the country and city. He also stopped the car in the middle of the road to point out something. Sometimes he would sit there until the car behind him honked--although no one seemed to get too upset. He’d also be looking at something and drift into the other lane—once Richard grabbed the wheel because he was heading for the curb.

After we got back to our apartment, we decided we needed to eat something—we had seen a restaurant that said it had a fish feast—so we went there. Most of the fish was cold—and there must have been 20 different things—dill salmon, smoked salmon, cod, fish pasta, scallops, oysters and squid, and even whale. The whale was very dark and tasted and had the consistency of raw meat. They also had several hot entrees—potatoes, vegetables and a couple pasta dishes. And, what really drew us to the feast—they had a whole table full of deserts including chocolate cake, yogurt (which is very good here), several cheeses, and fruit. The restaurant also boasted an ‘ice bar’—so we had to check it out. It was a very cold room that had ice blocks all over the walls with benches and tables made of ice. The benches did have a heavy furry thing on them. There was an actual bar in it—although no one else was in there at the time—maybe it was too early or a Thursday night. Everything was very blue. After all that eating, we went back, played one game of cards and went to bed.

One of the huge pastimes in Iceland is going to the swimming pool—even in the winter. Since they have all this geothermal hot water coming out of the ground, they use it to make swimming pools and hot tubs (they call hot pots). So all over town there are swimming pools and the big social networking happens at the pool. Gunnar said he goes to the pool every day at 5 pm—so he meets up with the same people and they discuss all the issues of the day. We spend most of the day on Friday at Laugardalslaug, which is the largest. It has an indoor pool (used for training); outdoors there is a huge pool with lanes for swimming laps, a huge pool that was full of toys like slides and floaty things, a huge rock hot tub, a wading pool, a series of five hot pots, each one getting hotter and one being salt water and a steambath. They are very strict that you have to soap up and shower (without your swimsuit) before you go into the pool and then shower when you get out again. I’ve started walking around naked like all the other women in the locker room.

That evening, we ate at a place where Ross and I had a puffin feast, Richard had a lamb feast, and Bob had sole. Yes, they eat those cute little puffins—it was very interesting a dark meat with the texture and a little bit of the taste of liver (but not as offensive). We even had a puffin salad and Richard had a lamb salad. Iceland was playing Holland in football (soccer) on Saturday, so we were beginning to see a lot of bright orange around (Holland’s color). After we were seated, in came 18 men (with all kinds of orange clothes)—they were very boisterous and pretty loud. It was funny, because when their food came—there was no talking, but really loud clinking of silverware. You could tell when they finished eating, because the noise level went up quickly.

We had massage appointments back at the swimming pool on Saturday. Bob and I left early while the boys slept in (they had gone out clubbing the night before—since the bars don’t close until 5 pm—they stayed there until then). It’s about a 45 minute walk to the pool, so we have been getting our exercise. The massage was very relaxing—I even dozed for a bit afterward. It was the first really warm and sunny day, so everyone was out soaking up the sun—we got a little burned. Bob and I left the pool before the boys and stopped to shop at a few places—we got our Christmas ornament and an Icelandic sweater. Later the boys stopped at the same places and got sweaters. We look really cool! We also look really cool in our fancy bathrobes that came with the apartment.

Gunnar showed us a hot dog stand that was always busy. He said it was the best hot dogs in town, so we had to go there and get one—they were very good. We had them ‘with everything’ which included brown mustard, a mayo relish, onions, and some crispy fried onions. Richard wants to go back sometime.

Sunday was a day to stock up on groceries and do some sightseeing. Ross and Richard had gone clubbing again, so Bob and I got up and made a run to the grocery store—it’s a lot of fun to look at the different products—most of them don’t have the writing in English at all, so we were just trying to figure out what it was. Sometimes we have to go by photos on the boxes because the orange juice says ‘appelsinu’ on it and the apple juice said ‘epla’ on it.

We were going to do the harbor festival yesterday, but it rained all day long—so we decided to visit the Church that sits at the top of a hill with a huge tower. We went to the top of the tower and could see all around us. The church is doing a renovation, so the tower is covered with scaffolding, which is a little disappointing.

From there, we went to the Settlement museum which had the actual archeological dig from a long house that was build 871 +/– 2. They have started saying ‘plus or minus 2’ for a lot of their dates, because they found some discrepancy in some of the dates they had been using for years; Christianity came here in 1000 (+/- 2). The Settlement museum was very interesting and had great technology. They had displays that were motion activated and would run a little show about people hunting the auk (a big dumb bird that couldn’t fly, so is now extinct). There was also a huge model of the long house that had an interactive display where you could see what the different parts of the house were used for. It was like a giant touch screen touch phone—at one point there were six different viewings going at the same time. Even Richard was impressed by the technology.

For supper, we decided to go to this seafood restaurant that Gunnar recommended. It was about 5:10, so we went in, but they didn’t open until 6, so we made a reservation and came back. The restaurant was a house with different rooms and it was like grandma’s attic—plumb full of ‘stuff’—knickknacks, pictures, doilies, lace tablecloths, needlework, flowers, etc, etc. We had the fish special which included dried wolfish (catfish) with butter—out waitress explained how they laid the catfish on racks by the sea to let the salt winds dry it—then they beat it into thin strips, cut it up and put butter on it to eat. It was very chewy and kind of grew as it rehydrated in your mouth. The next course was a fish soup, which was extremely tasty—lots of tomato and basil. The main entrée was fried catfish—with a sauce, some vegetables and baby red potatoes. The special included rhubarb pie with ice cream, but they ‘encouraged’ us to go to the cognac room for our dessert. This room was full of the Victorian type couches and chairs, more doilies, a couple china closets that were full, a treadle sewing machine, and a view master with a lot of the slides that Bob remembered having when he was a kid. Every time we would look at something, we would start laughing because there was something else that was just so funny, like a painting of a fish, or a naked black women holding a bowl.

We had two tours scheduled with Gunnar, our host and tour guide. The first was what they call ‘the golden circle’ tour—and very interest—mostly because Gunnar teaches Icelandic language and culture—so he is telling us about the history and stories of the area. Once we left town, we saw more lava fields, but a lot of them were covered with moss and purple lupines. They plant the lupines because it will make soil so other crops can be planted. Sometimes it was purple for as far as you could see. When the first people came to Iceland, they cut down all the trees for building and fuel—now they are trying to build up the soil and plant some more trees. Gunnar pointed out a typical Icelandic forest—it consisted of scrub brush. He said Norwegians joke ‘What do you do if you get lost in the forest in Iceland? Just stand up and see where you are!’

We saw where two rivers converged—one was from glacier melt and was full of grey silt and the other was from the snow melt in the mountains and was clear blue—where the two rivers met you could see the two different colors. The water in people’s homes is either very hot from geothermal or very cold from snow and glacier melt. All the homes are heated with hot water and most of their electricity is made from steam driven turbines. We saw some pipes that brought the steam from the earth to a power plant and the pipes were zig zagged with sharp turns. Gunnar explained that the steam had too much pressure and that’s the only way it can be regulated.

Our tour included stops at a crater from a volcano—we hiked around it. Then we went to the waterfall Gullfoss which is really two falls and very beautiful. Gunnar told Richard to follow him for a really good photo—they crossed the rope barriers and into a cave that brought them right next to the falls—Richard said he could almost touch the water.

We also went to a geyser area where there are several active geysers. The large one, “Geysir” doesn’t erupt very often, but another one ‘Strokkel’ goes abut every five minutes. Bob and I watched it erupt a couple times and then started following a path up the mountain where there were some fantastic views—lots of green fields and lupines in the valleys. While we were up there, Ross and Richard wanted to get some really good photos of the geyser and ‘feel the mist and steam’, so they walked around to the other side (always staying behind the ropes). It was a while before it erupted and so was a very big eruption. Richard was snapping photos and they were watching the water and steam shoot up and up and soon it was coming down on top of them—they got soaked by warm, but not hot, water that smelled like sulfur. They said they looked at each other with water dripping off their hair into their eyes and started laughing and as they turned to go, the geyser erupted again and they got soaked again. They saw a lot of the other tourists were laughing and a few came by with comments. The area also has a lot of boiling mud areas and strong sulfur smell.

Our last stop was at Thingvellir which was the where the oldest Parliament in the world was founded in 930. It’s also where we could see the plate tectonics that divides the North American and European continents. The Iceland Parliament used to be a two week session where families would stay for the social aspects. The leader would first recite the laws and then representatives would suggest laws or policies and everyone would decide. If there was anything that wasn’t decided by consensus—the two people who disagreed would go onto an island and fight until one killed the other.

We got back to Reykjavik around 5:45 pm and had Gunnar drop us off at The Pearl—which is actually several water tanks on top of a hill to keep the city’s water pressure stable. They have built a dome on top of the tanks and have a very nice restaurant on top of it. It didn’t open until 6:30, so we just looked around and watched the artificial geyser erupt several times and watched kids wading in it to gather the coins. Ross had a whale appetizer and reindeer, Richard and I had lamb, and Bob had steak. They also kept bringing us samples—an appetizer and dessert.

The second tour we had was an even longer day. We started at 9 am and didn’t get back until about 8:30 pm (or 20:30—we had a 24 hour clock—it was always funny when we were going to bed at midnight and it would be 00:00 o’clock.) Our first stop was at a waterfall where we take a steep flight of steps up to the top and look down on it—it was very beautiful. Right next to it was the Skogasafn museum—it’s a place where this one man basically collected things for his entire life (he’s in his 90s, but nobody knows his actual age. He’s a friend of Gunnar’s and really took a shine to Richard. He linked arms with Richard and was patting him on the back or butt. He would say ‘come see this’ and would rush us over to look at several things and then ‘come see this’. He also would demonstrate a stringed instrument and sing, or a tool for hand spinning lamb’s wool or horse hair—set it down and say ‘come’. We went through some turf houses—they were surprisingly comfortable—with wooden floors in the living areas and ended up at a church. He sat down at the pump organ and played and sang several hymns. By this time, people from another tour had joined us and everyone was singing along in all different languages—it was really neat. Last year, over 44,000 people visited the museum and in the last 11 years over 300,000 people have been through it (the same as the population of Iceland).

After there, we walked up to a glacier and climbed on it a bit—since it was going over lava fields, the gravel in it was very black. Gunnar explained that in the 1980s (I think), there was a volcano eruption under the glacier—so the steam and hot lava build up under the glacier and after several days, there was so much pressure that it lifted the glacier a bit and all the water came and flooded the town of Vik, but the people knew something was happening, so had evacuated and nobody was killed, but a lot of homes were destroyed.

On both our tours, we had a traditional Icelandic soup with lamb and vegetables. On Monday, it was very good with lots of big chunks of lamb, Wednesday’s was OK, but not very much lamb at all—more vegetables. Our next stop in Vik was at the black beaches—it was totally amazing because it seemed like it would be dirty like soot, but it was just like sand—you could brush it off and it didn’t leave any black on your hands. The ocean was very cold—no swimming there. Gunner pointed out that we were at the southern most tip of Iceland and if you looked south, there was no land between where we were and the South Pole.

We stopped at another beach which had black (and some other) pebbles. It also had a huge cliff which was made when the volcano erupted—since some lava took longer to cool it made interesting rock formations that were hexagon shaped columns. There was a cave that we could go into and see the bottom side of the columns which was really neat.

On the way back, we stopped at another water fall, where you could go behind it, but you had to climb up some steep rock steps. Bob and I started out and on the way, the wind gusted and blew a lot of the spray onto us—so this time we got soaked. The sun was shinning through the waterfall and it was very beautiful. When we got home, we took Gunnar and Andrias out for supper—we had some wonderful fish dishes—including ‘cod chins’ and fish hash—we talked for a long time—it was really a fun day and evening.

On our last day, we took a bus to the Blue Lagoon—which is a geothermal spa that was created by the runoff from a geothermal power plant. The people who worked there swam in the pool and discovered that it was very good for their skin. The pool is a milky blue color and is totally surrounded by lava. The water has silica in it and there are pots of silica all around that you plaster all over your face. People look so funny swimming around with all this white gunk all over their faces (some even had it totally covering their shoulders). We all had massages that were in the water on these floaty mats with a fleece over up. Every so often the therapist would push our feed or middle into the water, so the fleece would stay warm. It was fun because the therapists had to hang on to us so we didn’t float away while they were massaging. We did all get pretty well sunburned on our faces.

Since we were in Iceland, we had to get some Icelandic sweaters and warm ‘66 North’ jackets. This brand was made for sailors as warm and waterproof clothing. Now it’s become a designer brand. We also found great chocolate and licorice and bought some at the duty free store in the airport as we were leaving.

We had a wonderful trip and the question has come up ‘where are we going to next?’

So we had two trips to North Dakota for family events. The first one was to Minot for Alex’s confirmation. We first went to Hibbing and picked up Kara, Paul, and Naomi—I was able to visit the chapter at Hibbing and even speak at their induction ceremony.

We went to Grand Forks and spent the night there—it was easier on Naomi (and the rest of us) to break up the trip into shorter times—so we could relax and she could eat leisurely. We went to eat at Space Aliens—I had a whole plate full of BBQ. I think I like plain Baby Back ribs the best. Naomi was very good in the restaurant—although she creates quite a stir—people are always stopping by and commenting on her red hair.

Visiting with all the family in Minot was so much fun—we had big crowds going out to eat, we ordered pizza and KFC and ate around the pool. Naomi was passed around and around. It was funny because when Sandy or I held her, we would be unwrapping her and when Mom or LeAnn held her, they would be wrapping her up tight. But she didn’t seem to mind too much. Even the little kids were holding her some.

Alex’s confirmation was really nice. He had a big crowd of family surrounding him. Then we went back to the hotel and enjoyed a buffet dinner.

A couple weeks later, we went to Fargo to see Terry and Pam and Tim and Tammy and their kids. Kara and Naomi went along with us. We went to Tracy’s dance recital and it was really nice. They had some great music that filled the entire auditorium—Naomi seemed to enjoy it a lot.

Our convention was back in Dallas. This is the third time that I’ve been in Dallas for our convention. It was at the Gaylord Convention Center—which is really a great venue. I was still on cloud nine from the birth of Naomi—so every one of my presentations started with a photo of Naomi on my PowerPoint. It must have to do with the age of advisors, because so many of us had new grandbabies. In fact one man got the call that his daughter had a baby while we were there.

Because of Naomi being expected—I didn’t go to Chicago with Bob for his convention and he didn’t go to Dallas for mine. In fact, he had a meeting in the cities, so I even had to drive myself to the airport and back home. I guess I’m really spoiled.

I was hoping to see my college roommate, Kathy while we were there, but it didn’t work out—I was in sessions when she was free. Hopefully, we’ll be able to connect sometime in the not-to-distance future.


Our sessions were amazing—we had great speakers including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Fareed Zakaria. Both of them talked about Iceland—and that was really interesting because we’re getting ready to go to Iceland…and that’s another post!

I had a short, but very exciting trip to Hibbing on April 11th. I had a call from Kara saying her water broke and she was in the hospital. I quickly showered, threw some things in a bag and headed for the Hibbing Hospital. When I got there—I was able to visit with Kara and Paul and then witness the birth of my beautiful grand daughter, Naomi. She is the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen!

Naomi has a whole head full of fiery red hair—we’re not sure where she got that from—although both Paul and Kara have a little tint of red in their hair. She was 7 lbs 4 oz and 21 inches long—so is very long and thin.


The hospital is amazing—there is a wonderful birthing room, with a whirlpool in the bathroom and a long bench (Kara called it stadium seating and Paul slept on it each night.) They didn’t have any restrictions on visitations, so we were able to spend Easter Sunday there. And it was like grand central station. Grandma, Bob and I were there. Ross and Richard came up. Kari, Kim, and Carolyn all stopped in for a visit.

Naomi was passed around so everyone had a change to cuddle her. Poor Kara was probably beat, but she’s too polite to tell people to get out. I’m so excited to be a Grandma—I’ve heard that the ‘grandparent club’ is the best!

I LOVE chartering new chapters—I may have mentioned that before, but there is something about the excitement of the college staff, the advisors, and the new members that makes me feel practically euphoric. And this chapter is going to be one of my favorites. I had visited their college in Joshua Tree, CA when I was there in December. The advisors were very interesting people, who were really a lot of fun to be around. So when it came time to charter them, I really wanted to go and they really wanted me to come.

I was very glad I had gone (and I think they were very happy to have me), because the advisors struggled to get a list of students to invite, so they had to do a lot of extra work to find them. They were coordinating their college’s accreditation visit and had just received a call telling them the accreditation team would be on campus the following week, so were trying to get ready for that as well. Bob and I ended up setting up the room for the induction, making sure the membership roster and charter were there to be signed, setting up the head table, and I even made some of the punch. The advisor kept thanking us and saying how sorry she was that she wasn’t more prepared.

The ceremony was beautiful—there were several members from the college’s Advisory Board there (and a couple of them spoke). We kept bringing in more chairs because the audience kept growing and growing—the room was absolutely packed. I was surprised because this was a Friday night just before their spring break was scheduled to begin, but most of the students were there, with a lot of guests.

I also got the chance to visit with another chapter that I had chartered the previous October at College of the Desert. This chapter is doing all kinds of great activities. While we were there, we helped make up 160 Easter Baskets for children who were living in a homeless shelter. This shelter had a fire earlier in the year, and many of the people who were there, lost what little bit they had. So the members took on the project of providing Easter Baskets for the kids. About a dozen members were there and had all the baskets spread out all over a huge table. We ended up working assembly style to put grass, plastic eggs, treats, and candy in each of the baskets.

We talked about ‘The Paradox of Affluence’ as we were working. It was especially heart-breaking to think that there would be 160 children who were homeless—just think how many people that includes. The students also talked about what else they children might need and what the chapter could do. Maybe a gentle used clothes drive, school supplies in the fall, and possibly a mentoring program for the kids and their parents to help them do well in school or get them looking at college courses or other programs.

We had some time before our flight, so we took a tour of a wind farm. It was very interesting. The Palm Springs area is in a valley where the wind comes through the valley fast and steady--so it's a perfect place for wind farms. EXCEPT, we were told the infrastructure wasn't in place to be able to transfer the electricity to the LA area where it's actually needed. We saw several generations of windmills--and learned how the newer ones can generate so much more electricity. Even when they change out an older windmill, they don't scrap the parts--instead they send them to third world countries where they can be put to good use.

We headed back to Minnesota and a very exciting time….