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Back in the U.S.A.Sep 1, 2010
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ready to leave Grand Forks, B.C. - washing the windshield so Madolyn...
nothing brings on the rain like a clean windshield
Good friends and a warm welcome in Spokane
Wednesday
After a short drive east from Grand Forks, we crossed the International Border at Christina Lake shortly before noon. A polite Customs agent seemed interested only in what fruits and vegetables we were carrying, and he ended up confiscating two tomatoes and a lemon before waving us through. At least he didn’t make me walk them back across the border and leave them in Canada.
We’ve never seen this end of Washington state before, and the drive down to Spokane was a fine way to get acquainted with our own country again. The rain clouds hanging over British Columbia followed us for a ways, but the sky ahead of us was bright blue and inviting. After thirty miles of winding our way through woodland, we crossed the Columbia River at Roosevelt Lake and emerged onto high country plain. Soon we were passing golden fields of wheat.
We arrived in Spokane late afternoon and had a warm reunion with our friends John and Susan Noble and John’s sister Judy. There has always been a controversy over which proverb is correct. Is it ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ or ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’? After three long years of absences I can answer only for myself, but I would say both are correct.
In the immediacy of traveling to foreign places, everything that is out of sight is out of mind, because in a strange place we need all our attention focused on the present. But as you return home you become keenly aware of how much you’ve missed the people you love, and they seem all the more precious to you now that you’re back!
Glad to have that question answered at last!
