Epic

When I went running today it was quiet. It wasn’t a peaceful quiet. But it was an eerie quiet like something was not as it should be. Even the birds weren’t singing, and the breeze wasn’t blowing.

I felt like a bear was going to jump out of the woods at any second to pounce on me since I was probably the first sign of life it had seen all day. I even thought I heard animal sounds behind me, but turned around anxiously and nothing was there.

Our usual bustling cafeteria was dead at lunch. Dom made cricket noises, and I laughed. It was the loudest sound in the whole building.

Even though everything around us feels dead, the mountains aren’t. Dom couldn’t resist one last Teton photo shoot today before it snows again tomorrow. We drove a few minutes down the road to take pictures at Oxbow Bend of the orange leaves, snow-capped Mount Moran, and the cloudy blue sky.

Yet it isn’t the scenery that makes this place, but the people.

Jackson Lake Lodge closed on Sunday at 11 a.m. and ever since then the fun that filled the area all summer has been slipping away with each good-bye hug and farewell wave.

It was our friends we met that made our summer Epic. When we first arrived to the snow and cold in April, I was depressed. We had left a great church community, a loving family, and close friends and now we were alone. The mountains were gorgeous, and we loved taking pictures of them, but I still was sad to go back to our dark dorm room at night with no one to hang out with.

But a month in, things changed.

We found a gospel community group at our church where we felt like we had joined a long-lost family.

We met Georgi, and Lacy who were just like us but different and became fast friends.

Dom found a great hiking/adventure buddy in Norbert, and I re-connected with my dear college friend Isabel.

And then there were the hundreds of other employees here—crazy, funny, and sweet characters that made our days.

Lately I have felt the same as when we left NC. My eyes were red and puffy for a few days when I said good-bye to our friends and family we had spent a year and a half with. And even after only 6 months of living here, the ripping apart of the strong ties we have made is daily smudging my mascara as the tears fall again.

And now we are packing, cleaning, and getting ready to leave on Saturday morning. We are glad to leave since everyone else is gone, but sad to leave behind a place that around every corner holds a precious memory.

We fly to Europe on Monday from Spokane, WA, and will be there for 18 days enjoying not just the new cities and cultures, but being with our German and Belgian friends and the new ones we will meet.

Then we hope to move to Austin, TX where we have been told from at least a hundred customers this summer that it is the place to go for IT work for Dom. Also, it has a lower-cost of living than most big cities, has a great music and art scene and is full of young people.

But it doesn’t really matter if it does have all that.

It is the people we meet there that will make the place. We are excited about our friends we are going to live with, and the new ones who will make Austin feel like our new home and not just a big, hot, city.

Thank you God for an Epic summer and hope for the Epic winter that awaits.

Advertisement