Ed and I just returned from a more than 4,000-mile road trip through Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho. We call it our “reconnections” trip as we planned the itinerary around visits with eighteen friends spread across those western states. Some of them are new acquaintances, like Hank’s new wife in Tucson. Some are friends from a very long time ago, like Don and Nan, whom I’ve known since I came to the U.S.in 1970.

A stop that was especially memorable was Grand Lake, Colorado – the place where Ed and I were married a very long time ago along the banks of the Colorado River (in crotch-deep snow).

The trip was filled with fun and adventure. Each time we left one place to head for another, we played Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” – cranking our car speakers up loud and bellowing in unison:

“Goin’ places that I’ve never been,
Seein’ things that I may never see again.”

But mostly, the trip was a reminder of the value of relationships, and it stimulated profound gratitude for the deep bonds between us, and the connections with dear friends in our lives. Maya Angelou said it so well in her poem “Alone”:

“Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.”