Holcomb to Pierceville; Distance = 23 Miles; People Met = 14
For the third Sunday in a row we attended a church service. This time it was a UCC church. Since they were having a Missions Sunday I gave a short talk during the sermon and played Humility, Faith, Courage for the offertory. Getting to meet Pastor Mike Lake and his wife Mary was truly a pleasure. Mike has done a bit of everything, with experience in everything from economics to engineering, and has a playful since of humor. Mary gave me some valuable advice about how to continually part company with all the good folks along the way, based on their own necessity of moving on for pastoral work. She says: “Thank you for being in my life.”
Pastor Mike giving a Children's Sermon
The Lakes hooked us up with the Boltons. I knew we were staying with them before meeting them. When I mentioned that to others at the service they nodded their heads as if to say: “Of course you are staying with them; everyone does.” Debra Bolton loves to host company and Dale is a good sport about it. Dale is a programmer for the local public radio. Debra works with Cooperative Extension through Kansas State. Her job is to work with diverse groups in Garden City to work together in community. Hmm. Now what is it I’m documenting during this journey? I interviewed Debra about her work and will feature that in the Kansas edition of the newsletter. By the way, the Colorado edition is coming out soon.
Just a normal evening at the Bolton house
We stayed two evenings with the Boltons. Ky brought us back for the second evening rather than taking our chances camping out on Halloween. There was a dinner party the first evening, a typical event at the Bolton household. One of the people there was Roddy, who gave us a tour of the Sandsage Bison Range when we came back to town on Monday. The range started out as part of an appointed National Forest, but most of the planted trees for the forest never quite made it. Now they keep a wild buffalo herd on this portion. Roddy is a volunteer tour guide for the Range, as are Mike Lake and the Boltons. It was a special treat to spend time watch a bison herd and a very kind gesture on Roddy’s part.
Our tour guide Roddy at the Sandsage Bison Range
Halloween at the Boltons is a little bit different than back home. For starters, there wasn’t 18 inches of snow out here, but of course that’s not normal for our Norfolk home. The Boltons give out toothbrushes instead of candy, to both kids and their parents. This year they gave out 1600 of them. That’s right. In a town of about 30,000, sixteen-hundred kids and parent came by. That’s Norfolk’s total population!
Garden City Halloween. Debra and Dale are furthest right
