Quist World Tour

We are safely home, and I always like to take a moment to reflect on what I’ve learned over the course of a trip. Here’s a top 10 list of things that tell you it’s time to go home. 1. When you notice that the outside thermometer on your car is reading -18. 2. When all the Christmas cookies are gone. 3. When you’ve started to forget that you have a dog (but your dog-sitting parents surely have not). 4. When you catch yourself trying to point out the Mississippi River to your children again, which produces somewhat infuriating, polite “mm hmm’s” from the children who think it really doesn’t look that different from the Grand River at home—just like you did when your parents tried to point it out to you. 5. When the stations play Phillip Phillips or Imagine Dragons or Matchbox Twenty about fifty times too many, and your 9-year-old is constantly requesting “Madness” by Muse. 6. When you realize that you are no longer offering to take over driving from your spouse beca...

Yesterday we decided to explore the big town of Fairplay. Fairplay is a happenin’ town of 675 people, and it has a small shopping district with some cute stores and hotels. Unfortunately, as we found after half of us piled into the van for some souvenir shopping, most of the stores were closed. Funny, people here apparently enjoy taking New Years Day off. Does no one care about the 15 tourists in town? Sheesh. We did stop in at the Hand Hotel, which is purportedly haunted. As far as we could see, it is only haunted by four enormous and friendly golden retrievers. Though one of those retrievers was not in attendance; the manager said he was in time out. The hotel has a gracious staff, as they let us see almost the whole place. There is a breakfast room/sitting area at the back of the first floor, and it looks out over the South Platte River, now frozen and covered with a pristine white spread of snow, and gives a breathtaking view of the white-capped mountain range. Most of the ...

On Saturday morning, we said farewell to dear Jeter, the dog that Natalie has grown to love more than her future children. We left Colorado Springs for Fairplay, CO, where Brian’s sister and her husband have a cabin. The drive to the cabin was clear this time, so we could see snow-capped mountains across the horizon. Truly, it is more of a vacation home in the woods—all 12 of us have our own beds and ample space to hang out. It backs up to a forest with mountains all around. So we eat too much, we sleep just the right amount, and we every once in a while make a foray outside. That’s been the last two days, since we drove here on Saturday, and on Sunday had Christmas. Really not a lot that’s terribly interesting to anyone else! View from the short hike to a clearing For instance, Brian has found a new calling as the guy who matches up magazine articles with appropriate readers (so far the two he’s pushed into my hands have been excellent). Andrew is “helping” 7-year-old Levi b...