Home Leave Epilogue: West Coast

Perched on Cape Perpetua

Paul wrote up the last blog en route to Kenya to get David back in time to start his senior year of high school.  On the same afternoon, I was flying in the opposite direction, heading west with my parents to Oregon. I had told them I wanted to spend an extra week with them at the end of our home leave, either to spend time de-cluttering their basement, or else to take time to visit our western extended family. They voted for the more interesting option!

My dad grew up in Portland, Oregon; I used to visit there every few years to see uncles, aunts and cousins. But due to the constrained nature of our home leaves over the past 10 years in East Africa, I had not been able to visit since 2016. Recently
, I’d been feeling like I needed to make it a priority to see my dad’s siblings and so we bought the tickets and planned to go visit everyone. Sadly, my dad’s oldest brother Bill passed away in June from an acute illness, after 88 very healthy and blessed years of life, so I missed getting to see him in person again.

Welcome from Bob and Corinna

Our flight was significantly delayed by thunderstorms in Baltimore, so we didn’t make it to Portland until late at night. My dad’s one remaining brother Uncle Bob stayed up for us and let us into our guest rooms at their retirement community. In the morning, I woke up early (thanks west-headed jet lag) and went out to explore Rose Villa, the same community where my grandparents had spent their final 20 years of life in a little cottage. Some of the old ranchers looked very familiar, but there’s been a lot of new, stylish development. 

Willamette River with a rowing team

I found my way down through the rose gardens and neighborhoods to the Willamette River. Every pine scent of the west coast air was so deeply refreshing. Fruit trees were heavy with apples and plums, falling into the streets, and every hedge is lined with wild blackberries coming ripe. Such abundance! At the same time, I noted the signs of heat and drought. We had originally planned to spend 3 nights in a borrowed cabin at Mt. Hood. But unfortunately, a major fire has been burning up the east side of the mountain for several weeks, and the area around the cabin was evacuated. 1500 firefighters are continuing to battle the flames and dry conditions and dangerous air quality even now. My cousins talked about their new normal: “snow season” and “smoke season.’

Garden tour

After a quick breakfast in our room, we stopped by to greet Bob’s wife my aunt Corinna and see a little of the indigenous gardens she’s been promoting at their community. And then we got in the car with Uncle Bob to head downtown and visit the Portland Art Museum, where their son Charles is on staff. It was a fascinating building in terms of architecture, and I particularly enjoyed the sculptures and the portraits thoughtfully displayed in various galleries. 

Portland Art Museum

Next, we visited Dan & Louis’ Oyster Bar, an old haunt for our parents when my dad was in medical school. They really enjoyed a big bowl of oyster stew for old times’ sake, and we watched the varied crowds of visitors wandering past our outdoor seating. A few years ago, Portland was dealing with a crisis of homelessness, exacerbated by the decriminalization of drug use in the city. As much as that sounded like a good idea to most citizens, there were consequences. For a while, it wasn’t a great idea to hang out downtown. But things have shifted in the city governance and downtown seemed to be a brighter and happier place these days. Our final downtown stop was a quick run past Powell’s used bookstore, another favorite place for my mom as a librarian. I’d given her a copy of Anne Patchett’s new book Whistler (excellent read!) and she was keen to pick up a few more novels by Patchett.

Back at Rose Villa, my parents took a little time to decompress, and I had a really good visit with Aunt Corinna. She is an artist and graphic designer, with such a deep sense of creating beauty. She and my Uncle Bob are also very concerned with environmental sustainability. She showed me a lot of intentional efforts their community is making to save water and energy. I really appreciated the chance to interact with her as we walked around and toured the campus. I also took a few moments for a refreshing swim in the pool! We shared dinner and good conversation with Bob and Corinna, followed by more evening strolling. My mom and I went off separately to explore the community vegetable gardens, while my dad and Bob had more time to talk and share about the recent loss of their brother.  

In the morning, I took another delightful walk down to the river before we headed to Portland Mennonite Church. We enjoyed the hymn singing, the silence incorporated in the service, and the meaningful sermon. The most ironic thing was that the closing hymn was a song I had written for the GLI reconciliation conference, which happens to be in the Mennonite hymnal. I was able to mention the connection and greet the congregation from MCC, and afterwards, a lot of folks came to talk to me. One of them was the wife and son of Paul’s good high school friend Tim Manickam. I also found out that the new pastor also studied at Regent College in Vancouver and we overlapped for one year.

With Aunt Susan

After the service, my parents and I shared a delicious Thai lunch. Then we headed over to the retirement community where Uncle Bill and Aunt Susan had shared a condo. Susan still lives there but is now in a memory care facility. We found her waiting for a group activity to start and so took her aside for a chance to spend some time together. It is not easy for her to know exactly who we are, but she remains as lovely and gracious as ever, so loving and affirming and kind. We sat around a puzzle, sharing a few photos and memories of old times, and then found ourselves singing old songs together. It was a joyful way to connect with her and I’m so glad I was able to look into her eyes again and remember the times we spent when I came to visit her family as a child without my parents. We didn’t want to wear her out, so left her to join the movie with her fellow residents.

On the Roof with Mt. Hood in the background

We did a little wandering around Portland from there, finding our way through the campus of the Med School and then up around the wooded hills towards the Rose test garden. There wasn’t easy parking, so we decided not to stop, but it was still fun to explore more of the city where my parents had lived as newlyweds.

That evening, we had a get-together at the home of my cousin Heather. Her husband Dan made amazing grilled chicken, and we enjoyed a tasty southern menu, complete with a crunch cake, together with their kids Beatrice and Baird. I’ve really appreciated talking to current college students all along the way this year, but the two of them had really interesting insights into West Coast, Greek college life, and what’s happening for people taking business degrees. The two kids were so attentive and interested in sharing conversation and I was really impressed with them. It was also great to hear more from Heather and Dan about what they have been doing lately.

Beatrice, Heather, Baird and Dan with us 

In the morning, Uncle Bob fed us delicious fresh pancakes and gave us a few travel tips before we headed further west to the Oregon coast. My dad had wisely switched gears when we could spend time on Mt. Hood and had booked us 4 nights at Salishan resort. I continued my role as the chauffeur on our shared week of travels and thoroughly enjoyed the nice rental car on the country roads. On a whim, my dad suggested stopping at the Flight Museum in McMinnville. It was a lot like the massive hanger of historic planes housed near Dulles airport in DC. 

But the prize craft in this place is the “Spruce Goose,” the largest wooden aircraft ever built. It is a massive flying boat with an infamous history. In the end, it only flew for 30 seconds. After we left, I noted all the old aircraft labeled “Evergreen.” We looked it up and found out that the establishment housing all these aircraft was originally a private company with deep ties to the CIA and their questionable foreign adventures in the 70s and 80s. I’m glad I only learned that after we left!

We finally got to the coast at Lincoln City and felt about ready for a picnic. We found an excellent perch on some rocks at one of the many coastal state parks, with amazing views of the surf, kites flying, and wind blowing wildly. The water was really cold! And the wind chilled us, despite the clear sunny day, but it was exhilarating. 

Salishan nature trail

After driving a few more minutes we arrived at Salishan, where the welcome drinks were chardonnay or lavender kombucha, which I think says a lot. The three of us shared a fairly big room with a minimal kitchenette (fridge and microwave). My parents took some time to read on our sunny balcony while I went to explore for a bit. I found a lovely little nature trail tucked between the golf course and the Siletz Bay, which led eventually to a distant view of the ocean. In the evening, we enjoyed the hot tub and pool and hot showers and then got to bed.

We took our time to enjoy the resort in the morning, in our various ways. Salishan has several gas-powered fire circles running all the time, which I found to be a great spot for morning prayer, along with the good coffee always available. Then I went to enjoy a complimentary yoga class. Finally, we had some lunch and headed out to explore more of the coast to the south.

Boiler Bay

By instinct, I pulled over at the overlook on Boiler Bay. We found a line of people gazing out into the ocean below, where several boats hovered close. What was going on? It was a pod of whales, two adults and two juveniles! Our neighbors helped us to find them, spouting 2 or 3 times, and then showing us their backs and sometimes their tails. We were transfixed, watching and waiting to see them as they surfaced. The scenery was spectacular, glistening in the full sun. We didn’t take a boat out but passed by a little marine museum in Depoe Bay to learn more about the gray whales who are resident there. And then we kept driving further south towards Newport, where we found our way to place where a big colony of sea lions were crowded all up onto a special designated dock. It was incredibly funny to watch them rolling over each other, barking, diving and wrestling with each other in the water.

Sea lions in Newport

That evening we returned for a very special dinner in Depoe Bay, at a restaurant just hanging right over the water. The food was incredibly good, including steamed clams, fried oysters and fresh halibut in white-wine sauce with capers. It was a great way to recognize again that my parents have been married for 60 years this August. We had a really nice time sharing stories and memories over dinner, including the different ways that they used to come to the coast as kids, and how they learned to love seafood. My dad would always come when his Iowa cousins visited. Meanwhile, my mom’s family would drive out in the summer, pitch a big army tent, and then spend a week digging oysters, shucking them and canning them in a pot over an open fire on the beach. It was free meat, worth the gas money, and would supply them with oyster stew all winter.

On our Wednesday at the beach, we actually headed inland. My mom still wanted to have a walk in the mountain woods, and fortunately the low mountains of the coastal range were just next door. We had identified a nicely maintained all-ages appropriate trail just 35 minutes’ drive away. The unexpected bit was that the forest road started just 10 minutes from our resort and rose up steeply, through countless sharp bends and curves up to the top of the ridge. I would have expected it to be a gravel road, but it was beautifully paved and maintained, taking us through thick forest and then logged/thinned areas. It was lovely to drive through, like a pre-hike. The trail itself was also very satisfying. A few of the massive old-growth hemlock stumps were still visible, but most of the trees looked like they had been planted not so long ago, perhaps 60 years. 

Winding road to the trail

The forest was rich with a variety of ferns and undergrowth, exactly the kind of woods we had been looking for. We ended up at a suspension bridge over a dramatic waterfall. We picnicked on some rocks looking back up at the Drift Creek Falls, checking for trout in the river. The return journey uphill was a bit more challenging, and I was really proud of my parents for doing such an ambitious walk successfully.

Back at the hotel, we took a little break, and then I mentioned that I wanted to drive out on the spit and see the beach at Salishan. I was surprised when my parents said they wanted to join me. We took the 15-minute drive through the private Salishan housing development and arrived to admire fierce surf in the late afternoon sun. The sand was deliciously warm on bare feet. We sat for a long while just contemplating the end of the continent before going back to relax in the hot tub and get a nice dinner.

Spouting Horn

On our final day on the coast, we drove all the way south to Yachats. It is a famous spot for spectacular coastline. We walked down to the water’s edge to admire some tidepools – I was able to get close enough to see green anemone in the cold water. Further along, the erosion of waves has created sink holes in the volcanic rock, and a sort of ocean geyser, the Spouting horn, where water builds in pressure and then shoots up a jet of spray as the waves keep pounding.

At the CCC shelter

Next, we drove up to the overlook trail to see the view from above at Cape Perpetua. We looked straight down a vertical cliff back to the winding Route 101 and the parking for Spouting horn. The spruce old growth was still there at the top of the ridge. Almost 100 years ago, young men with the Civilian Conservation Corps had built the road and a rock shelter and all the trails with their guardrails around the edge of this promontory. I was grateful for the risks they took in this work. We finished our excursion with a lunch of fresh hot fish and chips and fish tacos at Luna’s Sea Kitchen.

On Friday, I rose early to make sure I had one more chance to walk the beach. It was mysterious and misty, with a few dog walkers appearing out of the mist. The tide was low and I walked way out onto a sandbar, spotting gulls and sandpipers and one sea mammal that may have been a seal, another that was a human surfer clad head to toe in a black wetsuit. They didn’t look so different in the water. The sun was just breaking through the clouds when I left to join my parents for breakfast and packing up.

Aunt Kathy, my dad and I

We took the country roads back to Portland, stopping near our destination at the confluence of the Willamette and Clackamas rivers. The water levels are dangerously low with the current drought conditions, and apparently salmon are struggling to spawn these days. Everywhere we went, we admired the beauty and also witnessed the groaning of creation against the conditions of climate change.

My aunt Kathy came to join us for a little get together that afternoon at Rose Villa and I was so glad to see my dad’s other living sibling again after a very long while. We had lots to talk about with her work at a Christian school and the developments of her grandkids, my cousins’ children. Bob and Corinna then invited us to have an early supper together at Lake Oswego. 

Corinna, Bob and I

Our sunny table hung right over the lake, and the restaurant was absolutely hopping with the hip young wealthy Lake Oswego crowd. It was a very festive way to wrap up the week. I had one more chance to meet up with my cousin Gretchen after dinner. She’s my Uncle Bill’s only daughter, and we always connected really well when we were young. I’d had the chance to meet up with her in Dallas, and this was the second time we could get together. We have a lot to share, both having young adult sons, as well as thinking about the both the grief of losing her dad, but the gratitude for his life well-lived.

My mom with Gretchen

In summary, it was such a worthwhile week. I was able to connect really well with so many members of my extended Sack family in a way I hadn’t done in years. Even more, I had such a positive and fun experience spending time with my parents, away from our various responsibilities. We haven’t had a real family vacation in a long time, and this seemed to be the most uncomplicated way to enjoy each other’s company before I have to leave them for another 10 months. I’m grateful I could take this time and really focus on being with them.

Last morning at Salishan

On Saturday morning I got a very early uber to the airport and caught a plane back to Washington, D.C. My dear college friend Margaret picked me up from the airport and I had the great pleasure of staying at her house overnight, spending time with her and her husband and kids. This morning, I attended mass with them. Margaret served as the cantor, singing the liturgy and leading the congregational singing with such beauty and simplicity. She is truly gifted as a singer, and I was very blessed to be there with her family. And now I’m in the skies, somewhere over the Atlantic, hoping that the 2-hour delay caused by another East Coast summer thunderstorm  won’t stop me from making my connection in Paris and returning home to Nairobi and to Paul and David. (and I'm in Paris now, but I might miss the flight posting this post!!)

Bonus photos: 

 

Homeleave Recap

I am sitting on British Airways next to David. We have been on the ground waiting for our turn to leave. I think we are ninth in line at the moment due to inclement weather. I hope we will make our second flight to Nairobi from London.

I think the last time I posted, I was in transit from Kenya and summing up the past month. This period is even longer as I missed the July recap. I think it is best to encapsulate the summer in one posting as it is kind of a completely different sort of activity than our normal work.

There is a rhythm of years that we have experienced at least 15 times involving 10 to 11 months on assignment and one to two months back in our home country to see family. We have developed habits of visiting involving time in Baltimore to see our parents, then some time (a week to 10 days) on the Chesapeake Bay, then maybe a short vacation with other family members, like my or Rebecca’s brothers.

This year was significantly disrupted with my parents moving to Dallas to live with my brother Jonathan for this season of life. It was a good plan but changed our summer significantly as we now divide our parent visits into time in Baltimore and time in Dallas.

We have also maximized our time with family by staggering our visits, with David and me going back to the US in mid-June to return the first week of August, and Rebecca coming a week later and returning a week later so she could have some more time with her parents at the end.

The first week of return began in Maryland, where David had several items on the agenda: 1) to get his driver's license (he got his learner's permit last year) and also to visit two colleges on the East Coast (Messiah and Juniata). David and I flew to Dulles and were picked up by Pappa Dave and Grandma Jean and spent the first week at their house in Baltimore. The week felt quite busy with us engaging in some chores around their house (going to the dump, repairing a lean-to, and extensive mulching). We also made trips to two colleges in Pennsylvania.

I think David was most impressed by Messiah between the two, and they made an impressive effort at very personal recruiting, meeting profs, etc. Juniata was a bit more generic, and we toured the college with 50 other families. David is interested in marine or aquatic science, and both had some offerings for ocean study even though they are landlocked. Environmental Science is a popular major at this time.

Honestly, the first week seemed like a bit of a blur with a fair amount of work, travel, driving practice, and work around the property (we did get down to the Little Gunpowder twice for fishing though). By the end of the week, we were ready to go to our next destination, Dallas, Texas.

The plan for our family time together was to have a rendezvous of all of us in Dallas at my brother’s house, which is quite large. My parents are now staying there; David and I were coming from Baltimore, Rebecca from Nairobi (within an hour of us), and Oren from South Bend, Indiana, as he has a summer internship at his college.

I am happy to say that the timing worked out well for all of us, and we successfully arrived and found our rides to the homestead. My brother Jon, his wife Emma, and Fletcher, their son who is a Junior in college, were all there. This was ideal because the cousins are great friends with each other and were thrilled to see each other.

My parents were also thrilled to have us there all together, and we had a great time with them. My mother, who is 90 now, has some aphasia so struggled to speak, but it was clear from her eyes and smile that she was delighted to have us all together.

Dallas was very hot, but we made the most of doing some touristy things like visiting the Ross Perot museum, the aquarium and the JFK memorial, and Top Golf. We also watched a number of World Cup games as they were happening in Dallas. (but not live as tickets would have been insanely expensive!)

Jon and Emma have a small pool in their backyard that was very refreshing. We also played many games, both board games as well as Cornhole which at one point, because it was so hot, we brought inside and played in their main hallway. We also played a fair amount of music on guitar and banjo!

About midway through our time there, Rebecca, Jon, Emma, me, and the kids headed up to Oklahoma City to visit some cousins of mine that I had not seen for years. My mom’s family is from there, and we used to go to Oklahoma to my grandparents’ farm to harvest wheat, ride horses, round up cattle, etc. My parents’ move to the Midwest afforded us the opportunity to visit them, as we would normally not be in this part of the country during our summers. On our arrival, we met my cousins Linda and Joe on my dad’s side and had lunch with them. It was great to talk to them, and I swear they may be the only 2 Democrats in Oklahoma! But they are doing well.

That afternoon we did some sightseeing in Oklahoma City in historic Bricktown, including a visit to the American Banjo Museum and a boat trip on a canal which ran through part of the old town. Fletcher and Oren went to a minor league baseball game. After sunset we walked over to the Oklahoma City bombing memorial, which is quite memorable at night.

On the way home, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel and met my cousin John and his wife Lujean. John was close to my age, and we did some crazy things in our time together as teenagers ‘cruising the main drag’ on summer nights in Shawnee and Muskogee. (Sounds quaint but there were a fair share of ‘hell raisers’ in those towns on a Friday night.

In Dallas, we also saw some more family with a visit to my cousin Greg, who lives in nearby Ponder where he has an interior landscaping business as well as an impressive vineyard. It was great to go there with my parents, as Greg has many old photos on display of my grandparents on my mom’s side (the Hawkins’). It was great to watch my mom look at the photos as she remembered all of them even though she could not say much about them. We had a very nice lunch with him, his wife, and two adult children.

Rebecca’s cousin Gretchen and husband Juan also stopped by Jonathan’s house briefly to greet Rebecca toward the end of our stay.

Good times always end too quickly, and so it was to be with our trip to Dallas. After about 10 days, the Mosley family all headed back to Baltimore by plane. Oren came with us as part of his vacation time so he could have a chance to visit. We had a few short days there and did see Rebecca’s brother’s family for a meal, but the time felt short. Oren wanted to take a walking tour of Fells Point and the inner harbor, which we did one afternoon with our friend Chris and finished off with a great meal in Little Italy. 

The next adventure was a trip to Goshen College, where Oren is attending and doing a summer internship at a custom motorcycle shop called Janus. We left early Sunday morning as the drive is about 10 hours. The plan was to take Oren back so he could continue work as well as do a college visit for David. Serendipitously, my high school roommate from a boarding school in India (Woodstock) had just retired in Goshen town and offered us a place to stay!

We arrived in the evening and stopped by an Italian pizza parlor in town that had the best and most authentic pizza I have had anywhere! We proceeded on to Mark L’s house after dropping Oren off at his summer dorm. Mark and his wife Laura’s house is charming and kind of reminded me of an old Cape Cod-style house in New England. It has a nice garden and a mill race (canal) going behind the backyard that one can canoe on or fish in.

Goshen is charming everywhere and has a kind of slow pace, as it has a huge Amish and Old Order Mennonite community, which means there are many horses and buggies travelling around and parking at the Walmart. There were also a fair number of Amish youth on bicycles, which I had not seen in the past. Neighborhoods are old but well-kept with nice gardens and houses.

The visit to Goshen College for David to see it went well, and Goshen is now at the top of his list. I think the opportunity for a good music minor with choirs, musicals, etc. was a selling point. The only downside was a lack of a pool on campus, but there is one nearby that people from the college use.

We visited the Mennonite Thrift Store and MCC Great Lakes HQ during our time there. They are a huge contributor to MCC, and Rebecca and I were able to tour their material resource center where they package many relief supplies for shipment overseas.

We had one nice evening with Mark L. and his family where we took a walk around Goshen. There are some very charming places, and we knew quite a few people in town who we were able to visit. We were even invited to a bluegrass evening on Mark’s brother’s front porch. I got to play the banjo a bit. We also met some of Oren's friends,namely Ziway and Pilar, fellow transfer students and two of his best friends at Goshen from the past year.

One other highlight was a drive over to Lake Michigan, which is only an hour and a half away, where our family spent a day at the beach. One of our acquisitions this year was an inflatable windsurfer which David and I enjoy using. We had the chance to use it and the stand-up paddle board while we were out there. It was a highlight of the visit to Goshen.

At this point, we left Oren in Goshen and had a plan for a college visit to Wilfred Laurier, a University in Kitchner/Waterloo Canada. We have some good friends, the Guengeriches, whom we knew in Tanzania. We wanted to take advantage of being able to see them and tour a college at the same time. It was also not far out of the way from our return to Baltimore.

It took us about 6 hours from Goshen to get there. Sadly, this was the week when there were intense wildfires in Canada and the air quality in that region was considered the worst in the world during the days we were there. This meant that our time was spent almost entirely indoors or wearing a mask when we were outside. The fine particulates in the air actually hurt the lungs! Despite this, we did visit the Wilfred Laurier campus and saw their science and music offerings. I think David felt it was a bit too big for his taste.

We really did enjoy the time with Eli and Carolyn, our friends. They love board games, and we spent one evening playing Puerto Rico on his deluxe set. We had a great time despite being confined indoors. (Eli also cooked us a really good barbequed ribs recipe.)

After 2 nights in Kitchner we headed back to Baltimore. The air quality remained bad and was following us down to Maryland, where we had another two days of bad air before it began clearing up. I was grateful for the improvement because one thing I love to do in Maryland is ride my bicycle!

I should mention a few Birthdays that we celebrated during these first 2 weeks before I forget. Oren had one in Texas (#21!), and we celebrated with Jon, Emma, Fletcher, and my parents. Rebecca had one the following week in Baltimore. I had a big surprise for her because I got her a ‘fiddle’ (or violin), because we are thinking of expanding our bluegrass repertoire and she felt up to the challenge of learning a new instrument this year. It was a huge surprise for her, but she really appreciated it!

At this point in the summer, we got our first week of actual vacation—about 8 days to be precise. We got back to Rebecca’s parents’ house on Friday, and on Sunday, after visiting our home church (North Baltimore Mennonite), we went to the Chesapeake Bay where we are able to use a really nice lodge of a family we met during COVID. It is on the Charter Hall Peninsula, which is on one of the furthest north estuaries of the Bay in Maryland. It is quite a unique environment with lots of wildlife, especially bald eagles.

We bring all of our watercraft and fishing gear. Most of our boats are inflatable stand-up paddleboards, a windsurfer, and a fishing kayak. We also have access to a canoe. Other highlights of staying there are a beautiful yard overlooking the bay where we can have a campfire, an excellent croquet set that we use every year, and the interior of the house is such a throwback to the 1970s and looks like a place for the Brady Bunch—especially the carpeted floating spiral staircase up to the loft where 2 bedrooms are. We love it! David and I did a lot of windsurfing, and David did a 1000-piece puzzle on their indoor patio table every day!

During our time there, we hosted some visitors as there are extra bedrooms. One of the big surprises was Oren coming down! He was laid off from work for one week and took the opportunity to drive down and join us at the lodge. It was nice to have an extra week with him. Rebecca’s parents joined us for a night, and Rebecca’s brother’s family joined us over the weekend. It was great to see all of them together, and we played Puerto Rico and Wingspan, 2 strategy board games that are favorites of our families.

Rebecca and I even had a date night and went out to a local restaurant on one of the quieter evenings. David likes to be left alone these days, so he was happy to fend for himself at the house.

All good things must come to an end, and we had to return to Pappa Dave and Grandma Jean’s house for our last 2 weeks. This period was filled with a lot of administrative things like vaccinations and doctor’s appointments. I did take the opportunity to take a 2-day trip down to North Carolina to see my brother Mark and his wife Christine and my niece Grace. This would be the only chance to see them this summer, so I took an overnight Greyhound to Greensboro and an Uber to their house in Winston-Salem around 6 am. Mark was awake, and we had some coffee and caught up.

My brother is dealing with a degenerative muscle condition, and I was very pleased to be able to help him out that day by replacing door knobs with handles for easier access and repairing two lawn mowers. In the evenings we all went out to the restaurant Grace, which their daughter manages, and had an excellent meal. I stayed the night in a hotel and had breakfast with Mark the next morning before taking the bus back to Baltimore.

It was a very satisfying albeit short visit. I would have liked more time this year, but with all the different visits we had, it was not possible to do everything perfectly. The Greyhound experience was interesting and reminded me of my college days when I used to take the bus between St. Louis and Kansas City. It is a cultural experience to say the least, and for better or for worse, bus terminals are among the few remaining places that offer shelter to people who are on the streets or suffering from mental illness, PTSD, etc. I had at least one person randomly shouting or prophesying at me at nearly every stop.

When I returned, it seems like the programming in our last week amped up in anticipation of our departure. First, we had a visitor, Bereket (Barry), who is the student from Ethiopia that we helped get a visa for and admission to EMU. He finished his sophomore year and was doing an internship in Washington, DC at a hospital. He took the train down to see us on Friday night and stayed until Sunday afternoon. We had a good time catching up with him, and played a number of games with him as he is also a big board game fan; we did some fishing as well in the Little Gunpowder near Rebecca’s parents’ house.

During that same weekend, we had a transition to our last destination, just 20 minutes away from Rebecca’s parents’ house, to her brother’s house to housesit for a couple of cats while they took a trip to Spain. We got there on a Saturday and bid them goodbye. Bereket came with us and spent a night there as well. We took him to church on Sunday and on a tour of the harbor (in the rain) before putting on a train back to DC to finish his internship.

Rebecca’s brother also left us with 4 tickets to see Weird Al Yankovich, as it conflicted with their trip to Spain. David, Rebecca, and I went and invited our good friend Chris, who is a huge fan. The show was at Maryweather Post Pavilion, and it poured on our trip down there. We had outdoor seating on a lawn and realized we were going to get wet. We packed ponchos and umbrellas as well as folding chairs and trudged from parking to the lawn outside the amphitheater to get seats. I am glad to say that the rain stopped after about 45 minutes and well before Al played his set. We enjoyed Puddles’ Pity Party as an opener, then Weird Al was phenomenal. David loves his songs, and it is funny because I loved Weird Al in the 80s for his parodies of songs by Michael Jackson, Madonna, etc., but for David, he knows them as original songs, as he had not heard the songs that Al was paradizing. David could sing along with just about everything, especially White and Nerdy, Amish Paradise, and all the Star Wars songs. It was a super fun evening, and we got home about 11pm, fully invigorated.

But there was to be no sleeping in the next day because on Monday we had our last college visit in the morning at a place that was almost 3 hours away. St. Mary’s is an honors college in the University of Maryland system, which is good for us as residents. It is on the coast of the Chesapeake Bay in historic St. Mary’s, Maryland, a town that dates back to the 1600s. We had a nice visit, and they definitely have a lot to offer as far as marine biology, as well as many watersports including swimming, rowing, sailing, paddleboarding, windsurfing, etc. It ranked on top of my personal favorites, but I think David is still leaning toward Goshen or Messiah.

We finished off the week with a few more visitors and visits. We saw Chris’ family, Ella, who is David’s age and looking at colleges as well, and his wife Lisa. It is always great to connect with them as they used to do mission work in Kyrgyzstan and are sympathetic to our cross-cultural challenges when we return for a visit.

On our last 2 days, we had a visit with Rebecca’s college friend Margaret and her family, also with kids the ages of ours, and then we had a dinner out with Rebecca’s parents for their anniversary as our last supper.

The next day David and I headed to Dulles on a plane to Nairobi (I am on the last leg now as I write this), and Rebecca and her parents headed to Portland, Oregon to see family for a week before she heads back to Nairobi on a different flight today as well.

We had bad weather out of DC, and all of us experienced delayed flights that caused David and me to miss a connection at Heathrow. We are finally on the second flight back to Nairobi about 12 hours later than expected. On our first leg from DC, we were bumped up to Economy Plus, which was luxurious. We are currently in 'steerage class' on this second flight, located in the last row in the 2 inner seats in the middle. But we are grateful to be heading back and are ready to start a new academic year—and David as a Senior!