from Laramie, WY

I (Geoff) love Wyoming. The open space, the antelope, the lightning and thunder shows, the torrential downpours, the beautiful sunsets, the older-middle-age couples riding to McDonald's on their ATV. . . . Yep, we saw all that today. We started in Nevada, went into Utah via the Bonneville Salt Flats, the Great Salt Lake and Salt Lake City and up into Park City. WOW! Park City was beautiful. Some rolling thunder and the view of the mountains where the Olympics were held. We were able to see the ski jump clear as day. Then we hit Wyoming, our third state for the day. The old west feel just permeates the air and I love it.

The van and trailer seem to be doing great. We take the trailer off the van each night just to give the shocks and tires some relief. I don't know if they care or not but it makes me feel better. The rooftop carrier and the trailer got their first real waterproofing test today with all the rain. They seemed to have passed just fine.

For all you CA friends who forget what precipitation is like, I include this brief video from just outside Green River, WY. This shows about a third of the strength of the strongest downpour we had, but at least it's something :-)

Tomorrow we hope to make it to Omaha (that's Nebraska) after maybe stopping briefly in North Platte to checkout Buffalo Bill State Park where they have some cool stuff to see. This way we hope to make it to the Chicago area by Saturday night and spend a couple of days there with numerous family members.

Today we listened to a talk by Erwin McManus on relationships. He started in John 17 where Jesus prays for our unity with one another. The character refining and relational art skills that unified relationships demand are at least half (Matthew 22:36-40) of the fulfilment of God's will (sanctification - 1 Thess. 4:3) for us. May we all enter the process with soft, teachable hearts.

Onward, with love and thanks.