Friends,

Here is the final "far north of Noble" blog.  We are no longer far north of Noble, the small village near Eicher Mennonite Church.  We are about a mile north of Pettisville, Ohio.  Pettisville is several times larger than Noble, but still small.

Our time in Fairbanks was a good year.  There were many new experiences.  We met many wonderful people.  Alaska is quite different from the lower 48 states.  Generally, Alaskans are more friendly.  I think there are two reasons for this.  There is a common question that people ask, "Where are you from."  Most people there were not born in Alaska.  We met many people from Iowa, Colorado, and the mid-west.  So it was easy to talk about places in the lower 48 that you both know.  The second reason is a frontier attitude, the feeling that everyone is in this place together and that to survive there must be some cooperation.  One or two generations back it was nearly impossible to survive alone.  People needed each other.

Being in the far north provided many different experiences.  Short sun-light in the winter was interesting, especially how the sun just got a few degrees above the  horizon.  Along with the short sun-light was extended twilight.  There were a couple hours of light at each end of the day.  Temperatures were certainly affected by the high latitude.  There is usually frost around the first of September.  We had snow the middle of September.  There is usually continual snow cover for about six months.  Normal snow for a season is around 60 inches.  But it is a dry snow.  Sixty inches of snow there is about three inches of precipitation.  We also saw the northern lights.  Last year was supposed to be a good year for northern lights but this year, so far, sounds better.

Here are some picture comparisons of our time in Alaska and our time so far here in Ohio.

Across the road in Ohio   ---

 Geese in the harvested corn field.

Across the road in Alaska.

 Looking down on ice in river from bridge.

 Ducks and ice on Chena River

Snow machine course on river in February.

 Youth dog mushers

 Taken from our apartment window, "Tired Iron Dog" racer.  This race was with snow machines older than 35 years.

The Chena River across the street from us was the center of much activity.

There are wild flowers in Alaska and Ohio.
Alaska  ---

And in Ohio

Even though there were many new experiences in Alaska, it was friendships that made the time there most enjoyable.

First Presbyterian Adult Sunday School class

 Choir (with Elva).  There were usually considerably more than this in the choir.

 Dave Moody, Associate Pastor, preaching.  He was also the Sunday School teacher and our small group leader.

 Daniel, friend from Church, in his kitchen.

 Glenn, friend from Church, he is a former Alaska Representative in Juneau.

Of course, there are people here in Ohio also.  We are getting to know people at Tedrow Mennonite Church.  We eat breakfast with my three brothers and two wives Melvin's wife died six years ago. Our daughter and her family live about five miles away.  (Trevor was not feeling well, he is usually much more perky.)

It appears that Elva and I will be spending November through January in southeast Colorado were I will be interim pastor of East Holbrook Mennonite Church. I grew up in that congregation.  It will be interesting to see how much one can "go back home."

God's creation is amazing.  No  place is without beauty.  No place I have been is without hundreds of wonderful people.  At the end of creation God pronounced it very good.  Since sin has marred creation it is still good, but fallen.  People, even at our best, are also fallen.  That certainly includes me.  But we have the opportunity to be redeemed.  God loves each of us immensely and longs to have each of us in heaven with Him for all eternity.  Be sure to take this wonderful opportunity for yourself.

Thanks for your interest in these blogs.  May God bless each of you.

Larry and Elva

Days 11 and 12 ---

Here we are in the mid west again.  More humidity, Menards, Pizza Ranch, Casey's stores, oak trees, and corn and beans and corn and beans make sure we know where we are.  We have had two nights in Wisconsin, one on the west side and one on the east side.

Here are some highlights of the Sculpture Garden in Minneapolis.  First is "Frog for Supper."  You can zoom in on the poor little creature and see that it is a frog stabbed through.

 Hare on bell

 Giant fish, perhaps this one swallowed Jonah.

 Cherry and spoon (water came out the end of the stem and kept the cherry wet and shiny.

Jesus says we should not build our lives on the sand.  Perhaps trees also should not.  This one is along the St. Croix River on the Minneapolis side.  It is a big old tree and has survived a long time.  Disaster appears imminent.  Sooner or later, not following Jesus' teaching will be one's own peril.

May each of you accept God's blessings.

Elva and Larry

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Out of Montana, into North Dakota, through Williston, and to central ND at a small town called McClusky.
Have you heard that there is a new booming oil field in ND?  WOW, is there ever an oil field.  And the pumps, tanks, and drilling rigs look new.

Not all the pumps fit into this picture, there were eleven of them within about 50 feet.  I wonder if they go down and then go horizontally to different places, but I don't know.  This just seems to be too many all going to the same place.

 Notice how clean this drilling rig is, and all the other equipment too.

 Many tanks to hold the oil.

 Again, everything appears clean.  I have been through the oil fields in Texas and they are not at all like this.  Of course, those in Texas have been there for many years, even decades.

Driving a little over 100 miles we saw perhaps 400 or 500, they were thick.  Roads are being upgraded.  New houses are being built.  We saw dozens of wells being drilled.  Semis were on all roads hauling oil or construction materials.  Overnight villages have sprung up to house thousands of workers.  To say that there is an oil boom in NW North Dakota does not tell half the  story.  It was amazing.  First Elva took a picture of onewell.  Then she took a picture of two side by side.  Then she took a picture of three together.  Then she did not know what to do.  Finally she took the picture of the eleven pumps together and quit taking pictures of pumps.

God, of course, knew that we would want a lot of oil.  Did He think we would need a lot of oil?  I don't know.  Unfortunately those who have become greedy.  Quite a number of years ago I heard an interview on WHO radio (Des Moines) between the co-host of the morning talk show (Bonnie, for those who like WHO) and an expert in oil production.  Bonnie was pressing the expert as to why oil prices had gone up.  He gave various reasons, all of which did not stand up to Bonnie's arguments.  Finally it came down to this   ---   the oil companies were charging more for the oil because they could.  They were simply greedy for as much profit as they could get.  They realized that it was a hardship for millions of people.  They were still  greedy for more profit.

Now with more oil coming from North Dakota, will the price go down?  I am quite sure it will not.  People are still greedy.  That is not only the oil industry.  Greed basically drives the American economy.

At least that is how I see it.  I know some of you will disagree with this.  You are welcome to argue with me if you desire.

Thanks.  This will probably be the only blog that turns political, so don't give up.

Elva and Larry

Day Nine   ----

We look outside and it is dark at nine in the evening.  It seems that is should be light for a couple more hours.  But I guess this is Montana and not Fairbanks.  More specifically this is Wolf Point, MT.  We are about 70 miles from North Dakota and about 50 miles from Canada.

Some things are starting to look "normal" to us   ---   sunflowers

 and wheat harvests.

The point of interest we visited today was Fort Peck Dam.  It was built with "New Deal" monies during the presidency of FDR, partly to help with unemployment.  This is a satellite picture of the water behind the dam.  It stretches 134 miles up stream and has a total of around 1600 miles of shoreline.  By comparison, California's total shoreline is about 800 miles.

Building the dam required the equivalent of 12,000,000 dump truck loads of dirt and cement.  Depending how full the dam is, the  water covers around 245,000 acres, which is about a third of the area of Rhode Island.  The generators in the dam produce an average one billion kilowatt-hours of energy per year.

Here are some pictures around the dam.  These are the generator towers.

 This shows some of the electrical works at the dam.

 Water behind the dam, though it is hard to tell the distance here.  At this point it was maybe five miles across the water to the far side.

Thank you very much.

Elva and Larry

Now in the Lower 48   ---

Yes, we arrived at about 1:40.  In Canada we had left the mountains going east to Calgary.  Then we went mostly south, figuring we would still be out of the mountains.  However, apparently the mountains slant to the east of south, so once we entered into Montana we were in the mountains again.  Then we headed east out of mountains, and mostly out of the foothills.  We are in Cut Bank, Montana.

Elva used to be president of the MCC Thrift Shop (Crowded Closet) in Iowa City.  So she was eager to  check out the shop in Calgary.  She was impressed.  Their sales are about twice that of Crowded Closet.

The mountains in Montana also had glaciers - I guess I should have known - that is where Glacier National Park is.  There also had been a forest fire in the last few years.

We also saw some extended farming area.  We had seen bits of farming before but certainly very limited compared to the Midwest.  Here is a canola field.

 And a hay field.

There were acres and acres of these purple flowers in northern Montana.

We went to an Indian museum in Black Foot Montana, but they did not allow taking pictures.  So here are all the pictures we took of the museum.  It was interesting, especially talking to one of the artists working there.

The mountains were spectacular, but I think I am a flat-lander.

God made the plains also.  The fertility of the plains feeds millions and millions of people.  That which we see daily becomes mundane.  We are impressed with what is unusual to us.  I praise God for the mountains and the plains.

Elva and Larry

Hello Everyone,

Here is the report of days six and seven of our trip home from Alaska.  I would have sent a blog yesterday but the motel charged  $10.50 to use internet.  So  --  you get two days today.  Yesterday we entered Jasper National Park, drove into Banff Park, today we finished Banff and drove to Calgary.  Yesterday and today we have probably seen the most spectacular mountain scenes of the trip.  Here are some of the better mountain, lake, falls pictures.

First   ---   Falls, many of them have carved interesting designs in the rocks

 Yes, it was raining Aug. 3.

Mountains, many with glaciers.

 This is my favorite!

Streams and lakes.  Again, glacier streams and lakes are green-blue.

Interesting items.  While driving down the road we noticed that the leaves on many trees looked greyish green instead of a bright green.  We discovered the problem.  

We finally found a glacier we could walk to and on, Athabasca Glacier.  It is interesting that the natives in Alaska around Fairbanks were the Athabascan Indians.  This is people on the trail to the glacier.

This is the glacier's toe.  This picture is taken at some distance from the glacier.  The little specks on the left of the picture are people walking on the glacier.

This is me on the glacier.  It appears brown from the dirt that was incorporated into the ice over the centuries.

This is a small part of the glacier.

Going away from the glacier were markers like this with various years on them.  This show the extent of the ice during that year.  The oldest year was 1905, it was probably a mile from the glacier.  My guess is that the 1905 marker is 1.5 miles from the glacier.

Since 1885 Athabasca Glacier has lost more than 60% of its volume.  That is more than 350 million cubic meters.  That is 92,400,000,000,000 gallons of water.

As a kid in Colorado we had many magpies.  We hated them, they ate our hens' eggs.  Now I like them.  This one is in Calgary.

This is a large animal overpass.  It allows bears, deer, caribou, moose, etc to go from one side of highway 1 to the other allowing them and the vehicles more safety.  This is near Banff.

Another surprise for you!

Sure enough!  Elva and Larry went down the Skyline Luge at the 1988 Olympic Park in Calgary.  We rode a ski lift up the hill.

Here is part of the path down the hill.

 And this is where we started our trip down the hill.  We were given about a minute instruction and then down the hill we went.  No,  we were hanging onto the steering bar on the way down the hill and have no pictures of that.  I thought it was fun.  Elva even said it was fun - for less money we would do it again.

Thanks for your interest in God's creation and our enjoyment of it.

Elva and Larry