Earth Hour

My son and I participated in Earth hour Saturday night. We turned off all lights inside and out. I lit a fire and some candles and it was really a neat experience. Eric went outside once to see if any of the neighbors were in the dark, and couldn't see any other dark houses. Oh, well, at least one house on my block took part.

There are some really cool pictures of different cities around the globe going dark. It was on Boston.com March 30. You can click on the before pictures and watch it go dark. It is really neat.
It's great how many places around the world took part. It was a stand against global warming, but also seems like a stand for world solidarity; so many countries standing for the same thing!

VOTE EARTH

I had not heard of this before, but will be participating.

YOUR LIGHT SWITCH IS YOUR VOTE

This year, Earth Hour has been transformed into the world’s first global election, between Earth and global warming.

For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.

When: March 28, 2009

Turn off your lights in support of the earth. 8:30-9:30 p.m.

Check out this website for more informaton: www.earthhour.org.

Return to Holden (the week in review)

I had the opportunity to make a quick trip to Holden this past week. I arrived on Monday and left on Friday. While there I took a lot of pictures and enjoyed various events. Here are some of the highlights:

TUESDAY

I woke up Tuesday morning to a snow covered wonderland. As I walked from Chalet 2 toward the dining hall I stopped to take a few pictures. As I looked up I saw.......
....Wanda heading toward the dining hall also taking pictures. We both stopped and took a picture of each other!!

Later that morning I took this picture of the cloud covered sun trying to shine. The view through the branches of this snow covered tree was amazing.

This is Holden's 1958 Bombadier. It is one of three of these that are put into use to transport folks to and from the Lucerne boat dock when there is too much snow on the road for the buses to get through. After lunch, Terry, the mechanic, wanted to take this one (called Yellowstone) for a trial run since it hadn't been out yet this year. He invited anyone interested in riding with him to go along.

Here are a few of the nine crunched into the back (notice baby Aubrey, age 6 months...her mom thought it would be fun! I am riding shotgun and taking pictures.

All went well on the ride down the road, but on the way back, old Yellowstone overheated and steam poured out. Terry called back to the village to have a jug of antifreeze brought down for the rescue. Most of us decided to walk back instead of wait in the cold. We were about 1 1/2 miles from the village.

Here we are walking back. The people in the picture are the teenagers, who got back in plenty of time for the afternoon school session. The rest of us walked a little slower and before we got back, Terry had gotten the bombadier running and picked us up on the way back.

Tuesday night we celebrated Mardi Gras with costumes, face painting, masks, and a true Cagen meal of shrimp gumbo (or vegan gumbo for those of us who don't eat shrimp.) Here are some of the faces painted by Rachel Weeks. (She is the unpainted one.)

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday morning saw more snow....more beautiful that Tuesday. Big, fat, fluffy flakes that came down all day long. This was Nancy's birthday. Every year, on her birthday, Nancy, her husband, Mark, and daughter, Raina, along with any other daring souls, take a dip in Railroad Creek. Last year I watched and took pictures. They all got lost off my computer somehow, so I have to repeat the event this year.

Here are the hearty souls (minus two) before the big dip.

Here they are dipping in the creek. The air temperature was about 20 degrees.

After the big dip! Luckily they had warm clothes to put on before walking back to the dining hall.

Later tonight we had our Ash Wednesday Service led by Dawn Coffey. Jack preached and I served as Assisting Minister.

THURSDAY

Thursday afternoon was cold and sunny. Several of us took a walk to the Ten Mile Bridge and back. (A total of two miles). It was a beautiful day with the bluest sky you ever saw. It was fun to walk and talk with these friends again.

The view from Ten Mile Bridge...the creek is mostly frozen over here.

This is the view of Buckskin Mountain we saw on the way back to the village.
Believe me, the picture doesn't do it justice.

My trip ended too soon on Friday morning. But I got to travel downlake with several Holden people who were going out for the winter school break. This was a great week....and these are just some of the highlights.