The Fashion Statement

My dad has always had his own unique style. It’s the way he casually tucks in his shirt with no belt, the way he wears plaid and paisley together, the way he wears white socks and flip flops with the air of a man who will continue to dress that way until there is a no-clothes option.

For years my sister and I have struggled to find clothes that he was willing to wear on a daily basis that didn’t offend the fashion sense of almost everyone else on the planet and weren’t 3 sizes too big for him. We usually failed. But as the years have gone by and he’s moved across that invisible line that marks the place between ‘young and clueless’ and ‘old and eccentric’, we’ve begun to see the wisdom in his clothing choices. What once just seemed like an excuse to be asked where he was from has turned into a heightened sense of the practical. No matter where we are he is always comfortable, if not a little underdressed. He’ll repeat the same outfit for days on end but carry it with such a different style that you fail to notice. His baggy jeans never seem to wear out and his flip-flops are never really out of style. He also provides endless amusement for our family.

Shopping with my dad is a trip. He enters a store with the confidence of a man who knows what everyone needs and isn’t afraid to ask whoever is nearest for their opinion of your outfit. He also has that grim determined look that let’s you know he’s resisting all natural urges to run out the door and kiss the first patch of natural ground.

You always know when it’s time to go by the way he swoons on the waiting couches with an ill look and the struggling smile of a martyr. He always stays though, until the call is given to leave.

There has only ever been one item of clothing that my dad has actually asked for in his life, and that’s a kilt. For years we’ve searched in vain for a reasonably priced piece of tartan for him but we’ve always been unsuccessful. Even when we considered sewing our own, the cost of the fabric has always been astronomical. Even though the image of Dad wearing his Hawaiian tourist shirt with a kilt, white socks up to his knees and flip flops will forever remain one of our fondest ‘not-memories’ of Dad we’ll keep searching.

My dad has always had his own unique style. It’s part of what I love about him. It reflects his own beliefs and life choices. He understands the importance of wearing clothes and at the same time as he understands the importance of being a free spirit. Each neatly-gelled curl and rakishly tilted sock is a life-fashioning statement that will live on long after his clothes are gone.

It was the best of times, it was… nah, it was just the best of times :)

On our way back from Alaska there was one Canadian stop that couldn’t be missed. It wasn’t the hot springs or the cities, it wasn’t even the biggest mall in North America. It was better than that, the icing on the cake of our Alaskan adventure: the St. Cyr cabin.

When you’ve been on the road as long as we have, it’s easy to think that you’ve seen it all, but we haven’t even come close yet and the cottage is a perfect case in point.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, that’s okay. We didn’t even know the place existed until last year.

We found out about the St. Cyr cabin, and more importantly, the St. Cyr’s, in the way these things usually happen… in the way you least expect it:

“When are we going to play?” It was the question that was running through all of our minds last year in Calgary. It was a raining hard, freezing drops mixed with a sprinkling of hail. We were downtown, set to perform at a Stampede party that was quickly turning into an icy version of a Wet N’ Wild. The rain was relentless and our speakers were softly soaking up the moisture, but the idea of not playing was too much to bear so we unpacked our instruments under the safety of a tent.

It was cold and our fingers were frosty on the strings but we played away, dancing on the tables and weaving in among the crowd. That’s where we met the first St. Cyr: Annette. She saw us perform and invited us to come and visit her at her cottage on our way to Alaska. That’s how we learned about the St. Cyr cabin, nestled in among rolling fields of canola (who knew canola was a plant?) by beautiful Gull Lake.

The St. Cyr cabin is an artfully designed work of handcrafted wood that the St. Cyr family built by hand as a party and retreat for their friends and family. We’ve learned a lot of things there over the past 2 years, vacationing with Annette and her family. Things like how to wakeboard, play beersbee, make a garbage-can turkey and party like a Canadian. We even got a chance to sit in on a permaculture course that Annette’s daughter and son-in-law taught. But most importantly, we learned that we have a Canadian family we never knew existed.

You may never make it to the St. Cyr cabin, but here are some pictures from our trip that can take you there, if only for a little while:

What to do with a 16 year old?

It’s hard to believe that it was only 16 years ago that Christian was born, a bouncing baby boy with lungs that made themselves known in an unforgettable, yet somehow tuneful way. It’s hard to believe that it was only last month that we were singing Christian a birthday song at the top of our lungs, purposefully out of tune in the joking way that made us all cringe. It is also hard to believe that the ‘baby’ of the family now needs to be addressed as sir because he is taller than all of us.

We celebrated Christian’s birthday on the road. He doesn’t eat any sweets so we made him an apple and grape cake with a few candles.

We all sprayed our hair with white streaks to sympathize with his advanced age and decked the bus with streamers and balloons. We blared music from the party bus and played games as we traveled.

When we got to the Canadian border the guards weren’t impressed but eventually they let us pass and we continued our journey to Alaska and beyond!

An Afternoon Stroll...

Our family’s idea of an afternoon stroll is a little different than most peoples. For most of my life I had no idea. I figured that it was normal to travel miles on a short walk or climb for hours on a short hike. I guess I assumed everyone did it that way. It was especially easy to believe when my 22 aunts and uncles and 46 cousins on my Dad’s side all shared the same understated measurement of distance. Of all this I remained blissfully ignorant, until recently.

I came to my awakening in Colorado Springs. When we saw the mountain they call Pikes Peak there was no question about whether or not we were going to climb it.

The city sits high up at 6000 feet where the air is clear, but rather thin. Pike’s Peak and our ‘little’ hike would take us up 13 miles with an altitude gain of an additional 7,400 feet.

It takes the average hiker at least 8-10 hours to make the assent. At the summit, legend had it, surprised and admiring tourists who had paid to take the train up would greet you with awe and listen to every step of your perilous journey with wide eyes and slack jaws. The hike could be dangerous and required waking up at the ungodly hour of 4 in the morning. But even that couldn’t stop us.

We took mostly water and waterproof gear with us. The mountain had the nasty habit of turning out hail and thunderstorms at random and a number of hikers had been struck by lightening or perished of hypothermia on the mountaintop. These thoughts were enough to keep us cheerfully engaged as we climbed.

The first few miles were a breeze. Two of my leg muscles had the indecency to get themselves pulled within the first few miles but with the help of Ibuprofen and the sacrifice of a few days walking afterward we pressed forward.

We made good time. At base camp we took an hour break and refilled our water bottles and ate our carefully prepared peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But this was merely the breath before the storm, in more ways than one.

Our troubles didn’t start until we hit 10,000 feet. We had heard the rumors that severe thunderstorms were due to strike the mountain earlier than usual, but it had been raining every day since we had arrived in Colorado Springs and weather is a finicky thing, so we weren’t too worried. We split up for the hike, the boys taking the accelerated climbing track and the rest of us following somewhere behind.

The altitude struck first. As we approached 11,000 feet our heads started to pound and our stomachs protested. We all started to feel like Johnny Depp as he staggered around the deck of the Black Pearl in Pirates of the Caribbean. It took all of our remaining brainpower to remember to put one foot in front of the other. It was worst for Dad. Altitude sickness hit him hard and fast and disagreed with his lunch. Let’s just say there was only room for one of them and his lunch didn’t win.

When we started to hear the thunder just a few short miles from the top we decided that it would be safer to try for the top than turn back. It snowed, rained and hailed alternately as we climbed, forcing us to seek shelter in a crevice a few feet wide and only a little deeper. The temperature dropped and the thunder crashed. We were all soaked and freezing and our muscles were starting to forget the meaning of simple words like ‘hike’ and even ‘move’.

When we got to the top people looked at us like we were insane and suddenly the words, ‘dry’, ‘chair’ and ‘furnace’ all took on wonderful new meanings. None of us could walk very well the next couple of days but by then we were already on the road, on our way to another adventure.

Here is photographic evidence of our trip:

From the Road...

Our family would, among other things, make a great internet access commercial. We are the people you see on the sidewalk, carrying our laptops high above our heads, praying for a glimpse of a signal so that we can get our mail or load a single web page.

I thought that all of our internet troubles were gone once we got the iPhone, but international borders have separated us from the thin web that connects us to the world. Granted we are more productive when the internet is absent, but not so much that we feel it truly justifies it's distance.

As of today we are in the middle of Canada, on our way up to Alaska once again. To make this particular journey more intriguing, we found two people to travel with us! Our Grandparents!

8 people + 1 RV = The Adventure of a Lifetime!

It’s the little people in life :)

We were waiting in Middlebury, Indiana. Our RV was in the repair center again and so our family set up camp in the cool internet-filled space of the library. Being an autodidact and an avid reader at the same time, this was a difficult space to be in, but I was resigned to my fate. I was staring blankly at my computer screen trying to come up with a good enough excuse to stop working and start reading when a little girl came up to me with her eyes wide and her mouth open. It took me an embarrassingly long moment to realize that she wasn’t staring at me, but at the computer next to me.

“Is that a compooter?” She asked in breathless amazement. Oh, if only the written word could truly portray the shocked expression on her face, the cuteness of her lisp, the way her jaw looked like it was about to fall off.

“Yes, it is.”

Silence.

“What’s your name?”

“Deanna. I’m 5.”

She was so small, her vibrant dress and long dirty-blond hair making her look even smaller.

There was proper etiquette here and so I aptly obliged.

“I like your dress. It’s very pretty.”

She didn’t even look down.

“It is. I picked it.”

She walked over and sat next to me as if we’d known each other since she was born. Obviously anyone who could tell that her dress was pretty was all right by her. She asked me if she could use my computer. Together we typed out our names on the keyboard, our ages, her mother’s name, my mom’s name with the random age assignment of 87. My mom watched us and laughed. She didn’t see the 19-year-old woman seated next to a little girl; she saw two very small, very alike little girls poking away at a computer. When Deanna found out that there was a camera on the computer it was all over. We started to take pictures making funny faces and laughing. Deanna’s mom had a hard time convincing both of us it was time for her to go.

When Deanna left I sat and stared at my computer. The computer was exactly the same as when Deanna had first seen it, wide-eyed and excited, but for me it had changed. It had become a magical thing; a place where flying arrows lead you where you want to go and with a single click you can reach out and touch the world. Deanna may have learned to spell such important words as ‘Mom’ and ‘Decorate’ but I had been given a gift even more precious. Deanna gave me the opportunity, just for a moment, to really see the world with new eyes, to look at an everyday tool as an exciting opportunity, an out of this world adventure.

Some people believe that it’s the little things in life that bring you joy and they may be right, but Deanna has convinced me that it’s the little people.

Day number….the next one!

Clue # 11 How to tell when you are out in the wilderness:

You have to put nails in your restricted access signs so the bears will stop chewing on it. True story.

We went to Anchorage and did a show. As usual we took everything very seriously

(Your seat is third row second from the left)

Moose!

We headed back into Anchorage where we met with some awesome organizers from ACYC. We worked with a whole bunch of teens to make great music for the services and had a blast.

We took time to play too, climbing up Flat top.

When an Alaskan tells you it’s a hike, they’re not kidding!

We had many more amazing adventures but only a few pictures so take a moment, close your eyes…no peeking! ….and use your imagination…good. Wasn’t that awesome!?

And now another brief Moose break:

As many of you may know, we are serious hikers.

I mean, really serious.

So before we head back to the lower 48 we make a few stops down state.

Fr. Tero showed us around Seward, Dad ran up Mount Marathon and we went hiking at Exit Glacier!

It was amazing! The glacier was so strong it could even hold up Andy!

Later, Fr. Tero and Brother Craig took us out on a float trip on the Kenai River

And then it was time to hit the skies

Christian called shotgun

Travis and Brother Craig took us up in the air

And I got to fly!

My mom was terrified as soon as I took over but she held it together admirably. We didn’t hit any mountains so I’ll take that as a good sign.

All too soon it was time to drive back to Anchorage and fly home.

One thing we learned on this trip?

We love Alaska!