While he says he will hang some Christmas lights next year, just not fifty thousand of them, he’s probably going to miss the notoriety…albeit not as much as we will miss his annual holiday displays. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something in particular that took the wind out of his sails. Perhaps this addition to his Christmas display for 2007 holds a clue:

This isn’t how I originally intended to show you this photo. I had planned on writing a simple message of condolence to Paul Schaff that I doubt he’d ever read, but one I felt compelled to put into words. While I haven’t met Mr. Schaff, I’m one of many people who derived a great deal of joy from his labor each Christmas season. Now, however, the photo accompanies the sad news that we won’t have his Christmas displays any more. But the real loss is that of a wife, mom, and grandma.

I hope it isn’t intrusive to mention this openly. Since he put his words into the area’s most popular Christmas display, I’m guessing Paul Schaff doesn’t mind that we all know of his loss. This is simply a way to share kind feelings back toward him for the joy he’s provided .

So…we’re sorry for your loss, Mr. Schaff. We’re also sorry for the loss of the special touch you put on Mandan’s Christmas each year. Like your display said this year, you’ve got loving memories of Ann…and we’ve got loving memories of your Christmas cheer. Thank you for the thousands of smiles you’ve brought each year, and for all the faces you lit up along with your home.

This marks two years of blogging. It’s too late to get into too much detail, so I’ll post some stats later on in the day. But here are a few numbers I can paste right from my reports:

689 entries using 226,483 words;
750 comments using 74,632 words;
147,691 votes stored in 13,612 bytes;
1,019 photos stored in 373,866,496 bytes.

I can’t believe I’ve written 689 of anything! I’m even more astounded at all the cool photos I’ve been able to take, over a thousand of which were deemed “blogworthy.” I’m truly blessed in that I get to take all these pictures and write about what I see, and then that people actually take the time to read and view them. Crazy. If only I was able to make money this way…

It’s late and I want to cuddle with my wife. I’ll summarize some site stats and stuff later on. Happy New Year!

Thankfully my friend Ken was willing to take a hike up the hill in the single digit temps and wind to take some pics of this event. We dressed warm, stowed our camera gear in my truck, and made our way south. State Parks pass firmly affixed, we entered a serene and completely abandoned park and began our walk at the bottom of the blockhouse hill.

We walked back down the hill (okay, I skated as much as walked) and hopped into the nice warm truck for a drive past the Schaaf house and back into town. Neither one of us had done our fair share of photography lately, so this was a great time for both friendship and our favorite hobby.

If you’re in the mood for a hike and have five bucks or a state parks pass, hoof it on up to the blockhouse! I recommend swinging through Fox Island recreation area first and looking across the river, just in case their generator ran out of gas. It would be a real bummer to brave the cold for nothing!

There are a lot of fun places to go looking at Christmas lights. Marina Bay used to be a hot spot, but I’m not sure that’s the case any more. The limo companies used to offer packages to cruise around in a limo and look at lights, but I haven’t heard much about that lately. Hopefully it’s still going on, because there are great displays if you know where to look.

If you want to see this house, simply look southwest from any high ground in Bismarck-Mandan. Seriously, though…simply cross the river and take the first right. Stay on this road until you reach the Fort Lincoln school. Continue to go straight from the 4-way stop there, and you can see the house to your right. From there I forget the exact turn to take, but I think it’s the third turn on the right. You’ll figure it out. If you get lost, you can always look for the glow!

With the NWS forecasting temperatures around 30 for the next couple of days, with the strong possibility of freezing rain, I really hope our cities can keep their white blanket intact. A white Christmas is the only kind of Christmas for this guy!