It was great to finally meet Dawn's family. Ron had been with their older son while Dawn was carrying the younger one during last year's family reunion. The boys are early walkers and physically active, very happy kids! Dawn was surprised that they warmed up to me so quickly the previous evening. Because they are very young and have to be protected from falling down stairs and not going where they don't need to be, I saw something I had never seen before; I don't know what they are called, but I would call them "door knob blockers." You install them over the door knobs, so that you can't just twist and open the door, but you have to have a certain amount of strength to pinch the device onto the door knob to open the door. Very clever!
Last night, I had been thinking about going to a jeep dealer to see about the battery terminal, so I found one with Ron's help and decided to go there this morning to look at the terminal. I got to shower and watch the family on their morning routine until it was time for me to leave. We said our byes, and I was on my way to the dealer.
When I got there, we found that the battery terminal could be turned on the post with the hand! I decided then to get it fixed so it wouldn't be a problem anymore. I picked up a positive terminal to keep in case that one becomes a problem in the future. Unfortunately, it didn't fix the AC and the cruise control problem. I'll have to look into it later.
On the way to Columbus on I-71, I saw I'd say 20-30 feet tall walls of stone very close to the road. You could see layers of stone, mainly gray and white, aged with black streaks. As soon as we got past these walls, I came to a bridge being worked over, spanning over a fairly deep chasm coated with trees! It's green up here!! And it was foggy, which looked like I was driving above clouds on a high-altitude spanning bridge. Over an hour later, I met Panna at the gas station (I still hadn't figured out exactly where the cabin was; I just knew it was "out there somewhere"). We just don't get to see each other often enough! We went out to the cabin to get settled in. Unlike last year, I was not dead-tired and about to fall over. I felt ready to do everything we could do in one day.
Panna bought a new Toyota Prius in the last year.
This was a very different ride for someone getting used to a Jeep Wrangler! It was quiet a lot of times, and it's hard to get over the fact that the gear shift isn't one at all, just a lever to turn on certain modes. A very different ride!
I went with Panna to visit her pastor of her church. While I was there, attention was brought to the wildfires back in Texas, and I related to her the stories coming from the victims of the fires who had lost everything, even their animals. Out of the blue, the pastor had suggested collecting a donation on Sunday for these victims and I could take it to them. I would not know the nature of the donations until later.
Anyway, during this time, there was a brief mention of the labyrinth to be made outside, across the street from the church. This labyrinth represents to many people the walk of life, the challenges that life presents, and the inner stillness of the center. It has not been built yet; at present, it is an open field that has been cleared, with the center marked with a tree branch stuck in the ground, tied with prayer flags and four stones at its base, representing the directions of north, south, east, and west. This represents a Native American ceremony. It was a nice, warm day out, sunny and yet punctuated with clouds to remind me of the seemingly ever-present "risk of rain" we'd very much would like to have back in Texas, whether rancher, farmer, gardner, nature lover, or city slicker otherwise.
Later, we went to the store to collect food for a few days and went back to the cabin for the evening. We had great conversations about a lot of topics over some dinner before heading to bed.
