Sunday December 1, 2024
Dear Diary,
Good morning God,
- Thank you for this day.
- Thank you for road trips.
- Thank you for my kids.
- Thank you for sunshine.
- Thank you for winter.
I love you!
I woke up at 4:30 am. I had slept hard through the night. I played wordle and connections, then I wrote my blog. Angel woke up at 7 am, just as I was finished writing. We folded up our blankets and sleeping mats. Then we quietly went downstairs with our suitcase. Angel ate a muffin for breakfast and I made tea.
By 8 am we were on the road. We listened to a Louis L’Amour audiobook on the drive and when it was finished, we listed to a Diary of a Wimpy Kid audiobook. It was another beautiful sunny day and the roads were clear. I decided to stop at one of my favorite places in Idaho. I wanted to show it to Angel. It’s called Malad Gorge and it’s a small canyon in the middle of the high desert. The gorge was carved out by the Malad river and it is really neat. It’s amazing and beautiful and deep and scary all at once. If I even get near the edge of the gorge, my heart starts beating fast with fear. It’s a 100 foot or more drop straight onto lava rock. If you go underneath the I-84 overpass next to the lookout bridge, there is a grated metal bridge held up by cables that goes across the gorge. I’ve gone over it in the past but I couldn’t convince myself to go over it today and Angel wouldn’t even go near it. Instead, we walked along the edge of the gorge but not too close. I took pictures of plants, rabbitbrush, wild rye, snakeweed and my favorite, sagebrush. I love the smell of sagebrush, it brings back so many childhood memories. My dad loved the high desert and would take me out walking with him when I was a kid. We would walk for miles and miles. He would look for arrowheads and I would explore. The desert looks flat from a distance but it’s not, there are all kinds of surprises such as plateaus, lava rock formations, canyons, lava-tube caves, cliffs and an amazing amount of creeks and rivers.
overlook
would you go?
under the grate bridge
rabbitbrush
snakeweed
wild rye
sagebrush
Angel had a great time running around, looking at deep cracks in the ground caused by lava rocks shifting and climbing up and down big lava rocks. It reminded me of how much fun I had in the high desert as a kid. It’s hard to decide which I love more, the mountains or the high desert. I love both of them equally. We wanted to drive around the state park loop but it was closed off. Which is probably why it’s free to go there in the winter. We stopped at a bathroom in a picnic area and they were surprisingly very clean. That was a man coming out of the men’s side and he smiled at me. He said, “it’s really nice here isn’t it?”. I smiled back and said, “yes”. There was only one other vehicle in the parking lot, he walked to it and drove off.
We arrived at my moms in Caldwell, Idaho at around 2:30 pm. She was experiencing a lot of congestion and wasn’t feeling well. On the phone earlier, I had offered to come visit another time when she was feeling better but she wanted us to come today. I brought in our luggage and we sat in the living room and talked while Angel played watched a movie. For dinner we had a salad with some homemade dressing that my mom had made. It felt good to eat some salad. I have been feeling heavy and sluggish and there is a lot of inflammation going on in my body. The Holy Spirit has been telling me to eat all raw food again and I’ve been resisting. There are so many temptations this time of year. I prayed for the strength to eat only the foods God had called me to eat. Beautiful, colorful, nutrient rich fresh fruits and vegetables. Food full of living enzymes and vibrant energy. God’s gift to us, good energy food from plants and trees. I know without a doubt that going back to all raw food will lift this depression that’s been hanging over me, it will also lift the 30 extra pounds I’m dragging around. The Holy Spirit has been crystal clear about that. My body is depressed, therefore, so is my mind. My body feels heavy, so do my thoughts.
After eating the salad, I felt the energy of the plants fill me with peace and love. My mom showed me some things she was working on in her sewing room. She is teaching a quilting class on Saturday and needs to cut out all of the quilt pieces. I told her I could help with that. She picked out the fabric and ironed it while I did the cutting. It was great team work. I had cut out 32 fabric pieces by the time we called it quits.
We wanted to take Angel to downtown Caldwell to see the lights along the Boise river. Angel was excited to go and we brought Bits and my mom’s dog Max along with us. It was crowded downtown and it took us a while to find a place to park. Angel loved the lights and ran all over. The lights went on for a long ways but we only walked a little section since my mom wasn’t feeling good and it was really cold out. I took a video:
When we got back to my mom’s, we all got in her hot tub and got nice and warm. Then we all went to bed early at 8 pm. Angel and I slept in one of her guest rooms. I read Angel a story and then we had a half hour of reading to ourselves. I jotted down blog notes and we went to sleep at 9 pm.
Thank you for reading my blog and being a part of my life. I appreciate you.
Love, Victoria
P. S. This blog post was inspired by the Holy Spirit.