So I haven't written in a while. I haven't had much time to stop and think. Well, I take that back; driving 3,200 miles gave me plenty of time to think. However, living in a car and crashing at friends' houses didn't allow for much writing. To be honest, traveling is quite taxing on me mentally.
Kayla and I left Mt. Rainier just in time to see the snow begin to fall once again. It seemed like only a month or two before the snow had finally stopped falling from the previous winter. Winter certainly has dominion over Mt. Rainier, controlling it 9 to 10 months of the year.
Looking back on the summer, things started off bad and only got worse. When the 30 feet of snow on the ground finally disappeared by mid-August, things did start to come back around though. I can honestly say I came to enjoy living in Paradise after the weather allowed "Paradise" to be worthy of its name. Flowers popped up everywhere as if to take the mountain back by force. But it was no longer than the blink of an eye, when, I went for a hike amongst the wildflowers and was bombarded by a winter storm. Purple pedals curled back into a bud, as if moving backwards through time, just to hide from the cold. Through the sheets of rain, I could make out the silhouette of a lone marmot crying a warning on a nearby hillside. Visibility was dropping. The sun set deep behind the clouds and pelting mix of rain and hail. I hurried my pace. The rain and hail turned to snow.
Soon, I stood proudly atop a rocky mountain vista, drenched in my raincoat. I felt the storm's fierce ice punch of wind as it struck me and almost knocked me over, but I reacted quickly and took it as a shot of adrenaline down the trail. I couldn't see twenty feet in front of me but I was running. A snow-covered trail quickly became my racetrack in a sprint against daylight. I took shelter from the wind behind a cliff and regained my breath. Continuing down, I broke through the snow. Arrogantly, I stopped to turn around. My breath was stolen again as I beheld the revelation of soft blue sky from behind the menacing clouds. The bristly blades of snow cut through the air above me on wings of ferocious wind. Through streaks of bright sunlight, the flakes appeared sharp and dynamic as one could imagine. The sky was an orchestra of illumination.
If I had to rank National Parks by the times I gasped in amazement or simply stopped, looked up and said, "Wow," then Mt. Rainier would be my favorite. God continually displayed such wondrous views that I often couldn't help but gaze in awe. His power and beauty were clearly evident at Mt. Rainier and it made praising Him easy.
What wasn't easy was upholding our job commitment and staying until the very end. The regional managers stopped by and commented at how impressed they were by this year's staff and our staying power. They said that only one or two employees honor their commitment and actually stay until the very end. This year, however, we seemed to have a record number of people who actually value the word they gave.
From there, we proceeded to Portland, the Oregon coast, the tree covered mountains of Oregon, Crater Lake National Park, through the Redwood highway, HWY 1 down the California coast, Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Big Sur, Death Valley, the strip at Las Vegas, Zion Canyon, Grand Canyon, over the Rocky Mountains, and down to the flatlands of Kansas.
A week later I hopped on a midnight train and a thousand miles later, here I am, back home in Wisconsin.
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