Vacation. Isn’t that a perfect word?

We’re taking one, too. A long one, and long overdue. Our last family vacation was to the Grand Canyon in 2008, which was stunning and lovely and rather short, but it accomplished what it needed to do. This one we’re embarking on as of Sunday is EPIC.

We’re packing up our car and driving West- through South Dakota and Wyoming and ending up in Montana, where I have an Uncle and Aunt, where there is gorgeous, wide open sky and plenty to see and do and hike and explore. All three of us are going, all three of us can drive and manage the miles and enjoy the scenery and time together. There will be the flat, slow plains of South Dakota, a trek through the Badlands, then the twists and turns along the Needles Highway, Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills area. In Wyoming we’ll see Devil’s Tower, and in Montana, Yellowstone.  And more.

And what am I looking forward to the most? If I’m honest…. the sky. And the scenery. But the wide open spaces above me are what I crave the most, and what I am most eager to see.  In 2008, on that Grand Canyon jaunt, the sky over Nevada, Arizona and Colorado mesmerized me. It was utterly captivating, and I felt small and insignificant, yet at the same time, enormous and powerful that with a plane ride, a car and a fistful of desire, one could travel endless ribbons of highway, crossing miles of land and dirt to see the wonders of God’s creation. And while I realize that the sky over Minnesota is the same as that over any other state in the nation, the ones I’ve seen and the ones unexplored, still, it’s a sky that I’ve not seen from Montana. Or Wyoming. Nor, since 1986, from South Dakota. The miles will grind away under our tires and my heart will leap out the window and soar alongside as we drive, because that’s just what wide open sky and land does to me. And mountains, and natural wonders and prairie and desert and endless, endless sky.

But I’m really going to miss these guys.

See you in two weeks.