More travels, some special photography, and some increasing spiritual challenges

 There's no question that life was continuing to be full, and busy, and even more so as my retirement was on the horizon. The previous post featured some special travels to tallgrass prairie country in the mid-western USA. We continued some traveling to other places, but also spent time not far from home exploring a more specialized focus on photography. Sunrise and sunset photography had been a growing passion, and it was especially handy to be living close to areas with water to accentuate the beauty of this type of photography. One of my favourite places to go for sunsets, and not far from home, was the very north end of Bear Line, where it looks across the Chenal Ecarte to Walpole Island. Both of our kids joined me on occasion, although the mosquitoes in mid-summer could be a bit annoying. Nonetheless it was often worth the effort.

Here is Kristin getting ready to get a photo with her camera.

Next is what she was looking at, and this photo was taken about 5 minutes earlier than the one of her, above.

As I said, the conditions can change rather quickly. On one occasion, when I was out there on my own, I had essentially given up getting anything more, and was actually driving away when I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw things developing much more to my liking, so I quickly returned and this is one of the first photos I got.

And only 6 minutes later, I got this one!

Depending on how high the clouds are will affect the reflection on their underside, as the sun continues dropping below the horizon. It often pays to wait a little longer, just in case!

Sunrise photography can be just as rewarding, if one is willing to get up an hour or two before sunrise and get to the photo point, in hopes that the clouds will be what you want. Here is a sunrise photo I got in early August at Erieau, a few years ago at 6:27 a.m.

And another one, looking out over Lake Erie south of Morpeth, in early April, at 6:48 a.m.

 By the early 2000s, Marie was dealing was with the struggles and challenges of coming to grips with her early childhood abuse, and had been seeing counselors fairly regularly for a few years already. This intensified as the years went along, and she was also having to deal with things from a dental perspective, etc. This resulted in numerous visits to dental specialists in London, and even as far as Burlington on several occasions. So added with her regular visits to counselors, and naturopathic specialists, life was increasingly busy and demanding on those fronts. I will be getting into the challenges of those things in future posts. Nonetheless we did manage to get away a few times for a change in scenery from time to time.

One of the trips involved Kristin, Marie and I venturing to southern Texas. We did stop in at a prairie site or two, one of which was in Missouri near the George Washington Carver National Monument. There was some great prairie there in the spring, some of which I featured in my previous post, but we spent a bit of time exploring a non-prairie trail. The information at the visitor centre was enlightening, realizing how this humble scientist relied on God for his scientific direction which resulted in some amazing discoveries.

Here the two of them are looking at little critters in the shallows of this stream.

 We saw lots of bluebonnets along the roadsides, as well as some prickly pear cactus which was not in flower this early in the spring.

At some places the Texas Bluebonnets were so abundant, and I got Kristin to pose in with them.

Lots of Painted-cup Paintbrush dominated some other sites.

 We explored a bit of the Pedernales Falls State Park, a bit north of San Antonio, TX. We didn't quite make it to Big Bend National Park, as a national holiday was looming, and we didn't have reservations for camping so decided not to take a chance by driving an extra few hundred kilometres just to find out there was no room. So we modified our plans.

 

 On other trips, we went north. We had connected with the family who adopted Kristin's biological brother, and we ended up visiting them and some of Kristin's biological relatives on Manitoulin Island. Here are Kristin and her brother Ray, at Bridal Veil Falls on Manitoulin Island.

Kristin ended up moving to North Bay a bit later, in part to attend Canadore College there. She spent a summer or two working with her biological relatives at their store on the island, and we visited them on a couple of occasions. They lived right on the waterfront on the north side of Manitoulin, and this first photo shows the lake view.

It also provided some excellent sunset opportunities.

We also visited Kristin in North Bay, managing to get there at least two or three times a year for a few days. On one occasion during a fairly mild period of mid-winter, we took a chance and went north. 

The Laurier Woods Conservation Area had some appealing trails, which we visited regularly when we were there. Here Marie and Kristin relax on a bench on a short tower that overlooks the landscape.

  

View along the trail

Being flatlanders from extreme southwestern Ontario, we always enjoyed the northern landscape which particularly appealed to us once we got north of Orillia. Rocks, hills, lakes and trees...what a concept! And Marie was always on the lookout for natural springs, from which to fill some water bottles. One of the sources we regularly stopped at was just north of the small community of Novar, and this is a short distance from where we filled our bottles.

Waterfalls were always of interest, so we managed to stop at a couple of those either along the way, or in the North Bay area. Duchesney Falls, first, is just outside of North Bay.

Brooks Falls is much harder to find, part way between Huntsville and Burk's Falls, but oh so worth the effort. I particularly liked it in the autumn.

Brooks Falls, April

Brooks Falls, September

As mentioned, there were some increasing spiritual challenges during these years. In part it was because of Marie's trauma of sexual abuse as it became more and more difficult for her to find healing from. Another reason for the spiritual challenges was due to some serious issues that the senior staff of the church we had been actively involved with for about 20 years, acted inappropriately towards us. I will be getting into some of this in future posts, as well as my looming retirement that occurred at the end of 2011.

When all is said and done, there have been so many blessings given to us by God, and even though I am aware of many, I think that as time goes on more and more will become apparent! Hallelujah!! 

I would like to end this post with one of my favourite songs, sung by one of my favourite singers. The song is How Great Thou Art, and it is sung by Sandy Patti. No one can sing it like she can, and it always brings so much joy listening to it.

Here  is the link. It is a black and white video from a few years ago, and I don't often actually watch it. I find the best way to get the meaning is to put the head phones on, close my eyes and either sing along with her or just think about so many incredible landscapes and blessings to realize how creative and loving God is!