When you leave the first tracks of the morning on your country road, you feel a sense of pride.
Our paper didn't come this morning, so even the driver's tracks were not there.
I wondered if everyone is sleeping in today.
I also enjoyed having the whole road to myself while walking north and then turning around.
It was quiet and peaceful and pretty as an inch or two of new, fluffy snow has fallen overnight.
This past week Annie has been working and traveling in Texas with Austin being her home base for a while.
Since she had a geocaching event, she decided to work remotely around those days and then enjoy the President's Day weekend doing a little traveling.
One trip took her to beautiful San Antonio where she stopped by the Catholic school where her Grandma Tibbs attended in the late '20s/early '30s.
Mother and her sister June attended St. Ursuline Academy while their Aunt Anna completed business studies in San Antonio.
On Sunday's, Aunt Anna, who lived at the Gunter Hotel, would pick up Mother and June (both parents had died) and take them to brunch at the hotel.
Since those days of long ago, Annie and I had the opportunity to enjoy the Gunter Hotel brunch with Mother while we all visited San Antonio a few years ago.
After Aunt Anna, a widow, completed her business studies, the three moved back to Manistee, Mich., where they lived in the beautiful Douglas family mansion.
Keeping the nostalgia tour going, Annie drove to Oakdale, Louisiana, yesterday. She visited some Love family points of interest, including the house where Bill and his twin sister Margaret grew up.
After the house sold a few years ago, it became an office building.
In Bill's childhood, the house served as a small hotel as well as their residence
Annie also visited her grandparents' graves, her dad's high school and other places around Oakdale.
While Annie was in Oakdale sending us photos of her stops, Bill was attending the Lady ZAGS game in Spokane.
One player on the opposing team was from Lake Charles, Louisiana, where Bill earned his college degree. Lake Charles is about 30 miles from the Gulf of Mexico
So, it was a serendipitous moment of family nostalgia, for sure.
We're pretty lucky to have a confirmed and frequent traveler in the family who appreciates her heritage and shares the visits to family spots with the rest of us.
Thanks, Annie.
Today, the gentleman below is celebrating his 90th birthday.
Talk about a Sandpoint icon AND a good friend.
That's Gary Pietsch, former publisher of the Sandpoint News Bulletin, a weekly paper which served the community and its outskirts for decades.
Gary has also written a few books about the area, and I'd be safe to say that he might just be a walking encyclopedia for Sandpoint's history.
Our family connections with Gary and the Pietsch family are almost too numerous to mention.
We can talk 4-H, we can talk journalism, we can talk Hereford cattle, we can talk about the beautiful irises Gary and his first wife Carol gave me or the relationship I've enjoyed with Gary's kids---the list goes on.
Gary was my boss when I worked summers for the Sandpoint News Bulletin.
He came up with fun assignments for me to do, including a two-page story about the Selkirk Hereford Ranch moving its herd to Dillon, Mont.
I followed the move with my camera and enjoyed an afternoon touring the 30,000-acre spread where the herd, started by Howard and Mary Ellen Thomason, moved.
Gary also assigned me a series of stories and photographs which made up a tabloid newspaper insert about the 1973 Boy Scout Jamboree at Farragut State Park.
And, guess what? That's where I met Bill.
We have so many reasons to celebrate Gary, as do his family and his many friends here in Sandpoint.
So, that's what we'll do today, and we sure hope he has a good time learning about how appreciated he is in this community.
Happy Birthday, Gary.
Happy Sunday to all.
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