Different Destinations
You see, the thing is, I have a much stronger inclination to stay home than I do to travel, unlike the family I married into. More than one person has told me I was crazy to pass up the chance to travel to Italy’s Amalfi coast with Cyndie, her parents, Barry and Carlos.
I’m okay identifying with a percentage of crazy.
But, I’m not stupid. As our kids grew older, the opportunities to expand their world with travel made total sense to me.
While we had indoctrinated them to the three-hour drive to Wildwood starting from the first weeks of their lives, other destinations soon beckoned.
Disney in Florida was a no-brainer. It would have been just fine with the four of us and Cyndie’s parents, but having her brothers, Steve and Barry figure out a way to include themselves pushed it up to that next level of greatness.
The plan wavered a couple of times, such that a room reservation for them was canceled, but when they were able to make it work at the last-minute, it meant that Fred and Marie would get to cut their space in half to share a Disney Resort room with two of their grown sons.
The daily Disney parade had life-size green army men from “Toy Story.” The Tower of Terror was a real scream. It was Disney-erific!
Cancun, Mexico was a perfect next step. Part artificial environment of the tourist hotel, part historic Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza.
We swam with dolphins and played volleyball on the beach. It was a great vacation for us and our kids.
I had an opportunity to venture out on my mono-lingual own in search of a souvenir soccer jersey from a local shopping mall. It was interesting because I had no idea what team I was choosing and I needed to rely on the clerks guessing what I was after through gestures and facial expressions.
¡Go, Pumas!
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Winter Olympics
Among the too-many-to-count moments of my life thus far when I have found myself in the midst of something that my wildest dreams never imagined possible, attending the 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway, was off the charts.
That Fred & Marie were able to consider this a viable option for a family vacation, and then pull it off with such incredible results, is enough to leave me at a loss for words to adequately describe.
I love sports. Olympic competitions are some of the best. Winter is my favorite. A trip to Lillehammer, Norway? A bonus on top of a bonus and a bonus, and another bonus.
This trip was spectacular! To be able to do this with family was wonderful (although we left our young children at home with a nanny). The other family (Friswold friends) traveling with us were precious. The authentic accommodations were priceless. Obviously, the Winter Games were world-class. And Norway did a fantastic job as host country.
We were able to stay in the home of a farm family. The boys gave up their rooms and slept somewhere else, but they still had to come home to do chores, so we saw them at breakfast.
Through the Friswold connections, we ended up attending a black-tie dinner event heavily themed with Norwegian culture. We had an opportunity to do some nordic skiing in a gorgeous mountain forested landscape blanketed with deep snow. We attended a hockey game, a downhill skiing event, saw the luge up close –nothing like it with the roar of speeding blades grinding against ice as sleds rocketed past our heads– and watched moguls freestyle skiing.
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This trip was so much fun that the experience lingered for a long, long time as one of the best things I had ever done.
Other than the week Cyndie and I spent learning winter survival skills from Will Steger at his homestead property in Ely, Minnesota, and the lodge-to-lodge dogsledding adventure vacation we took our kids on with Sue and Paul Schurke, the trip to Norway for the Winter Olympic Games fulfilled my snow-season passions better than I thought possible.
The success of this family trip went a long way toward showing me how much fun was possible, traveling with this clan.
Even if the next excursions weren’t likely to be headed to a cold weather climate zone, it was pretty easy to talk me into going along with whatever wild idea the family was plotting next.
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Happy Christmas
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But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”
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Club Wildwood
Becoming a member of the Friswold family also made me an instant member of their vacation home association, Wildwood Lodge Club. It is an awesome amplification of everything precious about the Friswolds. It’s as if the things that make them a special family is taken to the 7th degree by six amazing other like-minded families that join together with a common zest for loving life and other people.
Located in the beautiful northern Wisconsin woods, spending time at Wildwood is inherently enthralling. There is always something to do, even if it is simply sitting quietly and soaking up what nature has to offer. But that doesn’t hold a candle to the energy and love shared among the people who truly make Wildwood what it is.
In a way, traveling the roughly 3-hour drive from home to be at WWLC was the first version of Friswold family trips. That is why I am featuring it near the beginning of this little series highlighting our travels with Cyndie’s family.
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There are often community games spontaneously forming –basketball, soccer, boot hockey, tennis, card games, night games– and shared meals are a common occurrence. For some years, there was a progressive dinner to each family’s “cabin” on New Year’s Eve.
There are often themes devised for Wildwood events, such as “paint your own t-shirt” for Independence day (seen above) or “make your own holiday hat” (below).
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Wildwood Lodge Club could be seen as my gateway into the next level of travel adventures I would continue to experience after becoming a member of the Friswold Family.
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Getting Married
After six years of off-again, on-again navigating our growing relationship, Cyndie and I committed to cementing our connection in marriage. During a summer break when she was home from a graduate program at San Diego State University, we decided to begin the process.
I remember pausing on a bench in the 50th & France shops area where we asked each other, once and for all, if we were prepared to make this commitment. Then, we walked into a store to talk to a jeweler about making a ring that we designed ourselves.
We didn’t specifically speak about it again until I made a formal proposal in the form of a Christmas present I gave her at a Hays family gift exchange in December, 1980.
During the intervening months, I worked on a wax model of the ring, delivered it to the jeweler for casting, and asked for the blessings of our parents.
I’m pretty sure I surprised my parents by even asking. My father’s reaction was to say that I didn’t need his approval. Happily, Mom and Dad both offered their support.
Asking Cyndie’s parents, Fred and Marie, was a lot more nerve-wracking. All these years later, the thing we laugh about is that Marie was in the middle of untangling Christmas lights when I finally summoned the courage to utter the request for their daughter’s hand in marriage.
“You’re asking me now? In the middle of this tangle of lights!?”
Caught them by surprise, too.
I was incredibly relieved to find they were able to maintain their composure and avoided grilling me too hard about what the future might hold. Despite my worries, they accepted me as I am and gave me permission to marry their oldest child.
To this day, I have difficulty comprehending how they were able to process the reality of the events I had set in motion that day.
Marie was sworn to secrecy from that moment until I “officially” popped the question, but she didn’t know exactly when that would be. It was a wonderfully joyful night when we finally were able to share the news with Cyndie’s whole family.
I’m the fifth of six siblings, and my getting married was not incredibly dramatic in the grand scheme of other Hays family significant events. Cyndie is a first-born, their oldest daughter, and the first child to be married. I knew this was a big deal.
Beyond the amazing bond being put in place for Cyndie and me, the next biggest impact was that I was becoming a member of the Friswold family. That brought benefits and responsibilities that stretched the limits of my ability to grasp.
It is inextricably linked with the soul-connection Cyndie and I share. It is an honor of epic proportions that I am humbled to be able to claim.
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The Note
In the fall of 1974, a group formed to attend an October session of Bill Gothard’s Basic Youth Conflicts Seminar at the Civic Center in downtown St. Paul. Cyndie was not only in the group, she offered to drive. It would be my second opportunity to spend time in her proximity and she was a powerful blip on my radar.
On the second to last night, after we pulled out of the parking ramp, a 3-ring binder that someone left on the roof of the car slid off, hit the road and burst into a cloud of pages. What a disaster.
Without wasting a second, Cyndie choreographed a controlled response where we pulled over safely, everyone jumped out (probably dangerously) and chased down pages. Shrieking and laughing, we saved every last page and made it back into the car without further incident.
We drove on as if nothing had happened.
It was such a combination of out-of-control chaos, yet at the same time, calm, controlled recovery, that I struggled to comprehend what I had just experienced. Cyndie didn’t show any sign of stress over the situation. I was captivated by the mastery of her response to the calamity.
I ended up in the passenger seat directly behind the driver in a station wagon packed with bodies. Suddenly, Cyndie’s arm swung around and the huge parcel she carried as a purse landed in my lap.
“Hold this while I drive.” I was instructed.
I’m not sure how I managed it in that car full of rowdy teenagers, but with little light and less space, I decided to write her a note to express how taken I was by her impressive handling of the event and the screaming car-full of panicked kids.
It was a little scrap of paper that I slid into that huge bag, wondering if it would ever be found.
Wanting to convey that I was falling madly in love with her, but not knowing her well enough to justify it, I remember ending it with the precautionary qualification.
“Too mushy?”
The following day, the last one of the seminar, I learned Cyndie did indeed find the note. She handed me an envelope filled with multiple handwritten pages in response.
We were sensing a similar vibe.
Sometime after that, we went on our first date. My mom dropped me off at Cyndie’s house and Cyndie drove us to the Southdale shopping mall. I was fifteen years old, she was sixteen.
Cyndie saved that note I slipped into her purse. Last time she pulled it out again to show me, I had a hard time reading it. I don’t know exactly what that was about. I’m probably just too old now to deal with the fifteen-year-old version of myself.
I’m so grateful that she was able to accurately interpret what I was trying to say that crazy night in the seat behind her in the car.
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A Beginning
If memory serves me correctly, it would have been sometime in the summer of 1974 that a friend of mine, who had taken interest in a girl from the class ahead of us in high school, was looking for someone to join him in a long bicycle ride. We weren’t old enough to drive yet, and Cyndie was working at a home in Minneapolis, caring for a family while the mother convalesced from surgery. He wanted to go see her. I agreed to go along for the ride.
This would be probably the longest bike ride we had endeavored to complete at that point in our lives, and I think the adventure of that was the big draw for me. I didn’t even know who this girl was that we were going to see.
Struggling now to excavate details of that day, I come up with two specific tidbits, and neither of them have anything to do with the cycling. I think that is funny, but I guess it makes sense. I expect we must have needed to do some degree of planning a route, and then labored over the effort of so many miles, but I have no recollection of doing either.
I remember feeling a very specific spark the moment I laid eyes on that girl. Is that love at first sight?
I’m pretty sure it was that instant which probably obliterated memories of anything to do with the bike ride. There is an image in my mind of this alluring girl in a red halter top, up on a step stool, reaching for something in the glass-faced cupboard overhead.
Oh, hello!
That is the first specific memory. The second one is a moment of connection that felt very rewarding. We walked down to Lake Harriet with young John Magnuson, the youngest of the boys in the family Cyndie was working for, so he could go swimming.
We sat on the sand to chat while John played in the water. In getting to know each other better, Cyndie and I discovered we had both worn braces on our teeth and shared a wealth of experience in the related hassles.
It obviously wasn’t anything earth-shattering, but it allowed for a happy, silly conversation that just plain felt nice.
That feeling, and the memories of that first sight of her, provided endorphins that made everything else that happened that day inconsequential.
It probably wasn’t a beginning, but it certainly was a seed of potential.
Looking back from today, given everything that has happened since, it absolutely was the beginning.
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Getting Started
Preparations are underway for our trip with Cyndie’s family to the Dominican Republic. I’ve been enjoying creating the early posts in the series I have planned to explore events that led up to this latest adventure, starting way back with the first time I met Cyndie.
To give myself more time for planning and packing, I have decided to begin the series tomorrow. I hope you enjoy my trips down memory lane.
I will take advantage of the early break from daily posting to finish making lists and actually start packing.
Sounds like we will be getting away at a good time, as temperatures are expected to drop precipitously in the days ahead. I’m hoping that it won’t snow enough to require plowing until after we return, but it’s okay with me if the cold snap happens while I’m gone.
There was a little extra excitement around the ranch yesterday as the neighbor on our southwest corner reported he was going to be hunting coyotes and might cross our property.
Early in the morning, Cyndie came upon some lone tracks in the snow that just might have been those of a coyote scout venturing out on its own overnight.
If our neighbor is worried about his cows, I wonder if we should be concerned for our surviving three chickens.
We are really hoping the young woman who has agreed to take care of our animals while we are away won’t have any difficult problems to manage.
It’s just seven days. One week. Is that too much to wish for? An entire week at Christmastime of calm and quiet?
I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
I need to go find my battery charger for the camera. When we get back, I’m going to want to post lots of pictures of the tropical beach, palm trees, sun, and surf.
I hope you’ll be entertained by the stories I have scheduled to post while we are gone.
I intend to return to live, daily posting by the end of the month.
Bon voyage!
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Animal Magnetism
For most of my life, it was a struggle just to take care of myself, due to a condition of undiagnosed dysthymia. The additional responsibility of caring for pets every day was a burden I found ways to avoid.
Now I know why people who love horses become so passionate about it. I’ve spent the last five years learning what it is like to own horses, and it has changed me to the point I think it would be hard for me now to live without them.
It’s kind of ironic that caring for animals has contributed significantly to my healthier life. The very thing I was avoiding turns out to be therapeutic for what ailed me.
Yesterday morning, Cyndie captured this wonderful moment as our four Arabians made their way along the fence line of the hay-field back toward the barn in the enticing soft light before sunrise.
She and Delilah had just come out of the woods on their morning walk along our trails, a situation that signals to the horses, breakfast at the barn will soon be served.
As powerful an energy as the horses are for us, Delilah radiates her own compelling magnetism. She looked absolutely stunning after a grooming appointment yesterday.
When I walked in the door and reached down to pet her while she was leaning into me in her overly affectionate greeting, I asked Cyndie, “Did you just brush her?”
Oh, no. That was a full-fledged professional job that gave her the silky smooth coat.
Later, I glanced at our beautiful Tervuren under the old Hays family table and caught her paw draped over the antler chew she found in the woods.
Yeah, it can be a lot of responsibility, but I think I’m getting the hang of this animal magnetism they seem to have.
What a rewarding blessing it is to be healthy and have the added benefits of the positive energy our animals inherently provide.
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Waffle Pattern
Did I mention that I have sensitive skin?
Last week, I went shopping for shirts that would work well if I happen to suddenly find myself in the tropics for a week at Christmastime. Gladly, there will be no ugly sweaters packed in my luggage for this trip. Tropical materials were not all that I found.
I couldn’t resist a long-sleeved zipped mock turtle neck shirt that would be ideal for winter days on the ranch. It has a waffled lining fabric that offers a small insulating feature.
The thing is, the shirt is cut in a form-fitting design. At the end of a long day Saturday, I pulled it off to a startled exclamation from Cyndie.
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Oh, and an urge to scratch my back like you wouldn’t believe.
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