Glad to be home

My husband, Bill and I took a 12 day trip to Vietnam. It was a trip Bill has wanted to make for quite a while. He had a cousin, who he was very close to, that served and died in Vietnam during the conflict.

Wally was like an older brother growing up in South Minneapolis. He was the one who bought Bill his first pair of hockey skates and taught him how to skate.

I was at first reluctant to go but the more I read about Vietnam the more interested I became. So with a bit of planning, off we went.

The people of Vietnam were friendly and smile readily. Always willing to answer your questions but language was a bit of a barrier. Most spoke some English but not always fluently. We knew very few phrases or words. The upside was that all signage and menus were in English.

There is beauty there but sometimes hard to see because of the debris that fills the streets and waterways. We stayed at a resort on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City the last 5 days that was on the Saigon River. Looking at it from a distance was fine but up close the amount of garbage floating in the water was unbelievable.

Where the streets were once filled with bicycles they are now filled with small motor scooters. The exhaust makes your eyes burn. Combine that with temps of 80+ degrees and humidity levels that exceeded 90% some days, made for some very slow walking.

While there I came to appreciate where I live even more. The clean waters of the lakes, streams, and rivers. The majestic forests. The fresh air and the blessed quiet. I tried to describe it to one of our guides and he just shook his head in disbelief.

There I saw rampant overdevelopment, no visible zoning restrictions and little to no mass transit, although to be fair they are working on it.

As a friend, who’s well traveled told me, “We’ve traveled all over the world and what we’ve seen just firmed up our commitment to preserve and protect our place in the world, Town of Spider Lake.”

There’s a reason we have what we have here in Spider Lake. It’s our Comprehensive Plan that was created in 1967 and has been updated regularly by people who live here and love this area. People who recognize the value of having zoning that puts the brakes on over development. Our zoning not only protects the natural resources of our area it also protects our property values both on and off the lakes.