It's Sunday Night in Minnesota...

It's Sunday night back at home in Minnesota. Vacation is done, work awaits in the morning.

Some weeks ago the plans were ambitious, a trip to Seattle to get in a baseball game or maybe a flight to New Mexico to view archaeological sites. A hard month of work and the preparation for our Bishop's visit took that all off the table. We settled for a trip to Bemidji, Minnesota and followed the fall colors to Marquette, Michigan on the Upper Peninsula.

Even on vacation I enjoy driving, miles under the wheels and simply seeing things I've never seen before. Planes are faster but cars are more real, what you see from the air as little squares of ground and distant roof tops fill with people and houses and the palette of life. From 30,000 feet you'd never know that below you was a place called Ball Club, Minnesota or see Agate Falls hidden under the Michigan trees.

Moments with nothing to do are rare for me. I usually get a few hours on Saturday morning and the quiet of the ride home but often not much else. Yet work and family found their way into this time as well. Even if you go away from it all it seems to have a way of finding you and dragging you in to its own whirlpool. I remain convinced that cell phones and the internet have played havoc with the whole idea of vacation. You can never seem to get "away" because whatever you've left behind can track you. It was good to leave work for a while but I never did get a few hours on a beach or a long walk in the woods. I miss that and as Monday morning looms I feel like I only had part of what I needed and that it will be months before I find it again.

Yet sleep is coming and I'll take as much of that now as I can and we'll see what tomorrow brings.