On a vacation I’m pretty amenable to suggestions. As long as the suggestions don’t involve hiking in a treeless environment in temperatures over one hundred degrees, or driving at night, I’m game. That’s how I ended up eye to eye with an ichthyosaur: a sculpture of one, to be exact.
My husband, Rob, wanted to go to the Berlin Ichthyosaur Museum, but naturally, after driving a mere four hours out of our way, it was closed. Like forlorn children, we peered through the windows at the in-situ bones and life-size replica of the extinct marine reptile caught forever swimming through the air.
At least it was only ninety-eight degrees
with heat rising from the metal roof like reverse shivers.
I could see why this place had given up its ramshackle ghost.
And I was ready to abandon it as well.
Even if it did have a few trees alongside the tumbleweeds.
Yet I stayed until Rob had explored everything he wanted to see because that’s what partners do: support one other while silently whining. And before too long, as dusk was falling, we were back on the road—forty-seven miles of dangerous, rough gravel road to be exact. But I was amenable to that because Rob was driving.
Photos © Sondra Sula; taken at Berlin Ichthyosaur State Park, Nevada.
Take a walk with me by reading my most recent daily devotional book, Meditations on Mendocino by Sondra Sula. Available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle versions.
If you’d prefer a daily river walk, Reflections on the Fox River and Beyond by Sondra Sula, might just be the book for you.
My husband, Rob, and I recently visited Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks for our wedding anniversary. How does one condense such a diverse experience into a single blog? I guess it’s a lot like trying to fit twenty-three years’ worth of marriage sentiments into a single card.
Or trying to live inside a single log.
Marriage is an eye-opening experience.
It requires two sets of very different eyes.
And seeds of love:
One plucked from each heart.
The seeds grow,
mature
and make more seeds
so that even if an interloper tries to steal the seeds—
tries to consume the love—it doesn’t work.
Because love hangs on.
Love knows how to go through dry periods.
How to cling to its foundation through all sorts of weather.
Until it is full and lush again
undeterred by any scars. That’s just the way steadfast love is.
Sondra Sula's Blog: The Nature of Spirituality 