I wish when I thought of a great idea I would write it down, I swear I had a couple of wonderful ideas to write about on our trip here to the Pacific Northwest but then when it is evening time and I am sitting down to write I feel like the idea was either to complex or I just happened to forget it all together. Regardless, I am sitting here in the Windham hotel in downtown Seattle. I can’t see much outside my window besides some office lights from the building next door and the orange glow from the brightly colored leaves reflecting off the tree outside our window. We had a wonderful dinner tonight at Buca De Beppos in downtown Seattle. We took the new S.L.U.T (Seattle Lake Union Trolley) down Westlake and besides being saddened by the state of the unfortunate acronym, were in awe of all the new construction and beautiful buildings that have encroached upon the lakefront. We took an evening stroll and enjoyed the Autumn leaves, the surprisingly warm and cheery Seattle night, and the welcoming view of the space needle and our most beloved gasworks park. It was great seeing Mark Davis my old buddy from PA school, and I was honored to be able to attend this intimate gathering. We waxed politics, met some of his friends and family and had a genuinely good time. All while stuffing ourselves silly. Tomorrow we will be enjoying our first East Indian Wedding. Mark will be wearing a cloth type undergarment, for which we all had an unusually good laugh!

I started the morning out today with a run in the rain. It was still dark out when I left the house and I found this wonderful wooded trail just about a mile from Wendy’s Parents house in the Vancouver Suburbs. Again, the leaves were just spectacular and it had been so long since I had ran in the rain. Probably since I was a kid and my dad and I ran at Delta College. We took our shirts off and ran in the pouring rain. I have no idea why we went running that night in the first place, or even if we had expected it to rain. I just remember the warm night and the way the rain felt as we moved through it running taking it all in. It is a great childhood memory. Today, I let the cool wind and rain hit my bare skin like that day as a child. I felt so refreshed, so wonderful, and I thanked God that I could have the ability to run so freely. I have to say in all my life of attending organized church services, I have only a few times felt as free and spiritual as I do when I run. The silence, the way I can feel my heart, my body, my mind clearing, and the rain as it hits, the trees, the smell of morning coffee brewing and families waking up to the new day. It all defines what it means to be alive. And my appreciation, my awareness, and my feelings of closeness with nature, made ever so vibrant with an arm swing and an advancing step.