I have never been to Canada before. Once I went from Detroit over into Windsor, Ontario, but that doesn’t really count. I fully realize Canada is larger than the United States and seeing one part of Canada is not seeing Canada, but what a beautiful place!

We flew into Calgary today and then rode from Calgary to Lake Louise in the rain. The mountains were beautiful, but we just came from Colorado so we were already in the Rockies. Then the car pulled up to the hotel at Lake Louise.

We walked to the front desk to check in, got our keys quickly and headed to our room. The first event of this business trip was taking place in a couple of hours so we wanted to get settled in as quickly as possible. When we got to the room the cleaning crew had left the curtains open. Good call…

It looks like a postcard but that picture was taken from our room. We stepped out on the balcony and took this one for good measure.

I have never seen water that color. Anywhere. And I have seen some water.

We have to get ready to go to dinner. Then we will come back to our room and wait until daylight so we can look at this again. Then we’ll go exploring. But for now, wow.

I have written before that Peggy and I go to Colorado every summer. We usually go right around our anniversary, but sometimes the calendar conspires to make us go a little earlier or a little later. Today, a memory popped up from a trip we made five years ago. That year we had to go early in July because of work obligations and because it was a very busy summer.

We have asked my brother and his wife to join us in Colorado at least twenty times over the years. One of the reasons this particular memory is meaningful is that is the year they finally took us up on the offer. And I am guessing they were pretty excited about it because they actually beat us to the condo on the day we arrived. Peggy and I walked around the corner and found them sitting outside in the sunshine and cool afternoon enjoying a beer. It was a great start to the trip.

We took them all the places we love to go when we are in Colorado. They aren’t particularly comfortable on bicycles, so Peggy and I did the downhill bike ride on the day they played golf. Since we were there earlier than usual there was a little more rain than we typically encounter, but the day they played golf was beautiful.

The two pictures we have to take every time we go to Colorado are at Sapphire Point and at the Continental Divide (we usually hit it on Loveland Pass, though sometimes the photo is at Hoosier Pass). That year we took one of my all-time favorite pictures. It is a favorite for a couple of different reasons. Here is the picture:

I laughed this morning when this memory came up, and I laugh every time I see this picture. Why? Because it looks like I was photoshopped into the photograph. It is a great picture of everyone, but it looks like I wasn’t really there. And Peggy and I have what she calls our witness protection look going since we forgot to take off our sunglasses.

The other reason I love this picture so much is the amount of snow still on the peaks. We rarely see this much snow when we make the trip, so this was a particular treat.

And on that same day Peggy and I got our obligatory Sapphire Point picture. We even had someone with us to take it — frequently you have to ask another visitor to take it for you.

It was a great trip, and seeing the pictures this morning was a great memory.

Coincidentally, we are currently in Colorado Springs and will be heading over to Keystone for a couple of days later this week, so we may get to see some snow on the peaks again. 

And I will make sure it looks like I am actually in any pictures we take…

Let’s just say we have seen it before.

Perhaps six times before.

Peggy and I travel to New Orleans to see the touring plays at the Saenger Theater. It is one of our favorite things to do. And “Wicked” is unquestionably one of our favorite plays.

The trip also usually includes a meal at the Palace Café. It is right down the street from the theater and is simply spectacular. It is also close to the hotel we stay at when we want to make a weekend of the trip, but this time we just drove in for the evening.

Dinner was tremendous (as always), and the show was fantastic. If you have not seen it, you need to. If you have seen it, you know that the quality of the show mostly depends on the quality of the actor playing Elphaba. She was amazing, so the show was amazing.

This show also has the added bonus of making you think about who your best friends are and how they became your best friends. Like the characters, most of us become friends with people we meet at school, whether that is college, high school or preschool. We never know what it is about that person that “clicks” but we are forever grateful that it did.

I am lucky enough to have a group of guys with whom I have been friends since I was eleven years old. We still get together at least every other year as a group, and the older I get the luckier I realize we all are. Coincidentally, the last time we all got together we had dinner at this same restaurant. Or maybe it’s not a coincidence…

Anyway, if you get the chance to see the play, I highly recommend it. Just be prepared to be emotional and to think about some people you may not think of often enough. Then pick up the phone and call them.

More plays, less therapy. Your public service announcement for the day…

I know I am technically a week late, but our week celebrating Mother’s Day at the Island is ending today and it is time to head back to Baton Rouge. Have I mentioned I love this place?

We made the decision to celebrate Mother’s Day all week, and I spent it with the woman I love at a place we both love. This was her first Mother’s Day without her mother, and my fifteenth without mine. Another good reason to travel, do something fun and make a memory for Mother’s Day.

We talked in the car today about our lives without our mothers. Since Peggy and I started dating so young, she was very close to my mother, too. In fact, during those early years when I was not really a happy addition with Peggy’s family, we necessarily spent a great deal of time with mine. I think the loss of my mother impacted Peggy almost as much as it impacted me, and now she is dealing with that kind of pain again.

If you still have your mother, love her well. You literally never know when you will no longer have the chance to do so.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you! I hope you got to celebrate all week, too!

You should be aware that the apostle Paul wrote to his protege’ Timothy and instructed him, “Stop drinking only water, but use a little wine for your stomach because of your frequent illnesses.” It was pretty cool of Paul to not only give us permission but to also write it in English so we can all understand.

Right up the road from the Island is a wonderful Texas winery called Flat Creek. Each time we come to the Island we usually make the drive (at least) once to taste what’s new and see how things are going. When we lived in Texas we were part of their club, but they do not ship to Louisiana. If we want wine from them now we have to buy it and tote it home.

The tastings here are a terrific experience, and there is also an excellent restaurant on the premises. If you ever have the opportunity to visit you should do it. You can tell them I sent you, but they have no idea who I am.

It is a great way to spend an afternoon. And it leads to a great way to spend an evening. And it’s what God wants you to do. Paul said so.

This place is just awesome.

Every time we come we kind of forget how great it is. You walk down to the pool with the incredible views of the lake and the cliffs on the other side and you can actually feel the stress begin to leave your body. There are no restaurants on the island, so you either need to plan to cook or leave for meals. If not for that we would probably never get dressed for anything other than the water…

Today is chill day. We hung out at the pool until we got hungry, then we went to a very unique restaurant in Point Venture. The restaurant has had at least three names in the years we have been visiting, and is currently known as the Gnarly Gar. It floats on a barge in the lake. When the lake is low it is quite a hike from the parking lot to get to where the restaurant is floating, but it is always worth it.

You sit outside and eat in the breeze. The food is good and the drinks are cold, and most of the people who arrive are still in swim attire. It is appropriate as many of them arrive by boat and dock at the pier (which is one of the former names of the restaurant, by the way).

If you stay until evening there is frequently live music, but we try to be back to the Island before sunset. It’s kind of a ritual for us here.

I may or may not post something tomorrow. Chill, you know…

Peggy and I drove from Baton Rouge to Texas City, Texas, this weekend to sing with friends and celebrate Mother’s Day. Texas City is a little north of Galveston and is the heart of refinery country in Southeast Texas. Let’s just say it is probably not somewhere we would travel except for…friends.

When you’re young the concept of friends is pretty simple — you grow up together, you go to school together, live near each other, whatever. Somehow it gets more complicated when you get older, but it’s really the same idea.

We met John and Marcy when John became the Minister of Music at our church in Katy, Texas. We immediately hit it off for all the reasons friends become friends. For ten years we helped raise each other’s kids and quite literally traveled all over the world singing and worshipping together.

Life happens, but friends are friends and support each other when the junk occurs.

We had a blast this weekend. We attended a concert on Saturday where a friend of ours, a young girl who is bravely battling cancer, had the opportunity to sing with the symphony. Then we led worship with our friends in their church for Mother’s Day on Sunday morning. And we went out to lunch to celebrate with them before we left for the lake.

This much I know — the people you can count on when stuff knocks you down are the only real friends you have. I am lucky to count these folks as real friends.

And it doesn’t hurt that we laugh a lot…

Peggy’s mother died a little over a month ago. Peggy and I had been attending a small church close to the house, mostly so we would be close to Peggy’s mother if something happened and we needed to get to her quickly. I had become quite involved singing with the music team on Sunday mornings, and Peggy had plugged into some of the women’s group activities in the church.

When Peggy’s Mom died, it became apparent that we had not knitted ourselves into the fabric of the church well enough. Peggy grew up Baptist and I grew up in a small town — one thing you can count on either way is an outpouring of love. And food. We didn’t see either one.

When we returned from Dallas after Mary’s funeral, Peggy asked me if we could re-open our search for a home church. It was Easter Sunday, so I took her to the largest Baptist church on our side of town.

It was like watching a fish that has been out of the water when it gets put back into the stream. We attended the early service, and when it was over we stayed for the music portion of the late service. We went outside to the information center and got every piece of information available. I’m sure there are other things you have to be a member to receive, but we got everything else.

We found out when choir practice is held. The lady who was helping us happened to be the pastor’s secretary, so she was a wealth of information. She even told us about the Sunday School class she and her husband attend and invited us to check it out the following Sunday.

We went to choir practice on Wednesday. In the rehearsal they mentioned that there would be no church in a couple of weeks due to an event called “Go 225”. The church closes its doors one Sunday every year for the congregation to go out into the community and work. Each organization in the church finds a group to whom it wants to donate its time and effort, and then the church uses the budget for that week to finance all of the projects. The choir was planning to work at a homeless shelter cleaning up and putting fresh paint on the building. Peggy signed us up on the spot.

Today was the day for Go 225, and it was quite an experience. It was a great day to get to know other choir members while accomplishing something meaningful. There is an old saying that “Many hands make light work.” And it doesn’t hurt that you feel like you’re getting away with something by not being in church on a Sunday!

Most importantly, Peggy feels at home. I like it, too, but making Mama happy is more important. Go 225!

So, when I accepted the job that brought me back to Louisiana, I never really mentioned the fact that I grew up here. Everything on my resume’ indicates an entire career spent in Texas, and even my undergraduate degree is from the University of Texas at Dallas. I didn’t try to hide anything, I just never thought it was worth mentioning.

When I went to LSU in 1980 I had one desire, to play baseball. I walked on and made the team, but due to a variety of injuries and other reasons I never got to take the field for the Tigers during a game. No success, but no hard feelings, either.

I went back to Texas, married Peggy, finished school and went to work in Dallas. I spent thirty years building a professional reputation in Texas.

Back to the hiring process. When it became apparent that they wanted me to take the job, Peggy and I had dinner with the couple we would be replacing in the company. At dinner, Bill told me that one of the problems with the job was that the company had club seats at the LSU football games and a box at the baseball games, and sometimes you just had to bite the bullet and attend the games for the good of the company. Peggy and I remained completely stoic and I gave Bill the reassuring nod that I understood and that it was a sacrifice we were willing to make to ensure the company’s success.

So, tonight was opening night for the LSU baseball team, and Peggy and I had to go to the game. It’s a sacrifice, but I think we will survive it…

Today I am 53 years old. That seems weird to me. I am now older than the highest jersey number I ever wore.

We had a great weekend celebrating. Peggy had been in Dallas all week shooting a movie so we met in San Antonio and celebrated my birthday and my sister’s birthday with the entire family. We watched LSU beat South Carolina. Had the kind of fun you can only have with family. Hung out in the pool. Grilled on Sunday and didn’t watch the Saints lose to the Eagles. Great weekend.

We traveled back home today and let the weekend celebration be enough. A birthday on a Monday is always a little odd, anyway. Who wants to celebrate on Monday? Of course, Peggy and I have rarely celebrate anything on the actual day. One benefit of all the travel we both did for work when we were first married — you celebrate when you have the opportunity regardless of the day. It has carried over into a wonderful tradition that makes it almost more fun to celebrate on the wrong day…

Maybe the combination of a wonderful time with family and the Monday thing is what made me think of my mother so much today. She was only fifteen years older than I am today when she died. One of the (very few) things that sucks about being the youngest child is that you are really not prepared when a parent dies young — I was only 39 when my Mama died. She was only 34 when her Mama died. It is pretty sobering to think that there may only be fifteen more years of this life we have built.

Is it OK to say for my birthday I want more than fifteen more years with Peggy?

Live it to the fullest, my friends. The whole box of chocolates thing, you know?