Wow!! Happy brand new week! Just look at that sunshine out there and my thermometer says 50 degrees. That’s a great start to the day. 

I am scouring my computer, well, actually my iPad trying to lay out a vacation for Ms. kate and me. II don’t want to be a braggart by any means but frankly, as much as we have traveled, we are running out of places that we actually want to see, or worse yet; —— are still able to get around in. There are many destinations that we could go but just aren’t on our radar. I wouldn’t want to go to many places like New York City, or Chicago; too much traffic and I don’t feel they are safe. My daughter Heather and her hubby John love, love, love NYC. They go and they rent an apartment with some friends for aa week and the walk all over the place. Ms. Kate and I are many years past that ability. But — I have five weeks of vacation a year from my churches and we seldom ever use them all. For 2022 I think maybe we used three and for 2021 maybe three, I’m not sure. I just know we end up not taking them and a lot of that has to do with the church calendar year, up coming weddings etc. but this year, being my last year, I want to try to take them all; —- call it practice retirement, or “what do you do with yourself when you don’t have to be working?”

We were looking at going to Custer State Park in South Dakota for the annual Buffalo Roundup. It is always the last Friday of September but we have ruled that out because all of the lodging around there is already booked. And —- as much fun as that is to do, there isn’t a lot of restaurants around there and we have not only done the round up, we’ve done Custer, and Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons several times. 

We settled, I think on Fredericksburg Texas. We visited there one time several years ago and it was a lovely place to go. It is in the Texas Hill Country and is a German/Bavarian type community. The scenery is beautiful, and the food is a good combination of German food, Texas ranch type food, and Mexican food. There are lots of wineries around there and I think it is going to be fun. We’ve invited Heather & John, Steph & Chris to join us and I think we’ll also take Kate’s sister Karen with us. I began my early search and there are a lot of vacation homes in the area to rent and the prices are very reasonable. So, I’m going to go for it. I’ll let you know if it is going to work out. 

We had good worship services yesterday although I don’t know what took so many people out. The congregation was small at both services. Some Sundays are like that though. It will get worse I suppose as the weather starts to get a little better and then planting season will be coming along just after Easter. That’s life in a rural community. 

Times for me to move on to other stuff for today. Have a blessed week. I wish you peace.