At 18, Tri Robinson talked his dad into fronting $1,200 for a 1944 J-3 Cub, got fifteen minutes of instruction, and was handed the keys. What followed was a season of flying by feel — old crop dusters who took him in, whiskey-and-story nights in a hangar, a landing on a mesa that cost him a tail wheel, and one afternoon above the clouds when the engine quit at 14,000 feet and the only thing he had to hold onto was something his father once told him.

He did a loop on the first date. She married him anyway — and decades later, they built a chapel on the land they'd flown over that day without knowing it.

In Episode 3 of Journey of Gratitude, Tri Robinson explains the four-seasons metaphor at the heart of his book — spring's wild growth, summer's toil, fall's harvest, winter's reflection — and tells the full-circle story behind the book's cover.

The Journey of Gratitude is a deep-dive conversation centered around Tri’s book, A Journey of Gratitude: Traversing Four Seasons of Life. Together, Ruben and Tri go beyond the pages of the book to explore the profound, sometimes messy, and always miraculous ways that God directs our paths. Part memoir and part spiritual retrospective, this podcast is a guide for anyone looking back at where they've been to better understand where God is leading them today.

What does a vineyard have to do with gratitude? In this first conversation, Ruben Navarrete sits down with Tri Robinson at Timber Butte Homestead — home to what may be the highest-elevation vineyard in Idaho — to hear how it all came to be.

Tri shares the story of walking the Camino de Santiago with his wife Nancy at the end of his years as a pastor — not as a bucket-list trip, but as a pilgrimage: seeking God for direction in a new season of life. The answer came through a Mother Teresa quote, an unexpected request from his kids ("Dad, we think we should grow a vineyard"), and a stranger in overalls who turned out to be exactly the teacher they needed.

Along the way: 25 experimental Cabernet Franc vines, 500 bottles a year, a family drawn closer through shared work, living with the land rather than off it, and the question Tri and Nancy have asked since their very first date — what do you really want out of life?

This is the first in a series of conversations working through Tri's book, Journey of Gratitude — reflections on the seasons of a life shaped by seeking God, one decision at a time.

Get Tri's book, Journey of Gratitude, on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DQ5H6VC1

More from Tri at Timberbuttehomestead.com

Hosted by Ruben Navarrete and Tri Robinson.