Friday, August 31, 2018

August 17th and 18th - Patriot Guard Remembrance ride



The day started like a few had that week.  The sky was hazy due to the smoke from the California and Oregon fires being blown east.

We drove to Jamestown to attend the annual Remembrance ride.  As usual, we got there just about the time things were starting.  Our hotel, the historic Gladstone Hotel was right across the street from the Memorial center where things were being held.  We got checked into the event, met a bunch of our old friends, and checked out the silent auction before having dinner. 

The next day, was the day of the ride.  We got set up with riders after breakfast and headed out to Lisbon, ND to the Veteran's Home 85 miles away.  The home was very nice.  spacious with wonderfully kept grounds.  We had lunch with the residents, sang some patriotic songs, and then had a tour.  After that great afternoon, we mounted up and headed back out towards Jamestown. 

The route.  We went south out of Jamestown down hwy 281 and turned east on hwy 46.  We made a right turn on hwy 1 going south to hwy 11 where we went east again into Lisbon.  After we left Lisbon, again on hwy 11, we turned south on hwy 1 and took that to hwy 13 at Verona, turning west and after a brief stop at Lamoure, continued west to pick up hwy 281 to go north back into Jamestown.

As Laurie and I were driving home, we put on the Red Sox game which lasted until we got home. (and they won again).

At the Memorial building


Jamestown Sports Museum





The ride begins

Staging for a police escort in Lisbon









We adventurers, Gerald, Me, Laurie, and Tony



Is this cool, or what?















Downtown Lisbon







Thursday, August 23, 2018

August 11th - Survivor's Outreach Services weekend

Huge thank you and hellos to Sara Blazik, her team, the NDPG, and Dr. James Coyle.

It was an amazing weekend in Bismarck where we got together to learn and share stories with our families of the fallen.  Our presenter, Dr. James Coyle was a riveting speaker and his words soothed and touched our hearts.  There is still so much to learn about our emotions and how we manage them instead of having them run our lives.  We engaged in a project where we took blank tiles and wrote words of description for our feelings and such. After doing that, we put the tiles into a bag and broke them up, symbolically taking control of them.  A day later, we took picture frames and put parts of every body's tiles on them so we would all have a share of each other.  We had a church service on Sunday and had some great dinners and did a lot of singing.

Arlen Halverson's sweet ride with all the fallen heroes on the saddle bags


The shards of our frustrations

Displays of the fallen








Craft time.  The fragments have put in bags for us to pick.


Dr. James Coyle
Dr. Coyle's books
Our Art

At one point in our day, we visited Bismarck Brewing.They had a nice restaurant and taproom downstairs and the main brewery room upstairs.