Road Trip To California - Day 6 (San Diego, CA to Riverside, CA )

Alright well... this morning we woke up about 8 and took from Noel's house... We drove up the coastal Highway 1 through Laguna Beach and stopped at Huntington Beach.... It's definitely an amazing area... We walked around on the beach for a few hours... I was able to join in a drum circle of some Christian hippies... I met an old guy named "Pogo Stick" and another named Bernard, who kept singing about "Calvary, let's all go to the hill of Calvary!" during the drum circle. Then we ventured to In-N-Out Burger and then onto Riverside... where I met up with the group that I will be living with for a while now...

Road Trip To California - Day 6 (Las Vegas, NV to San Diego, CA )

Welp... a wild night (not really) in Las Vegas leads us to an 10 AM (ish) takeoff on the road towards California!! Alright, so we stopped just outside of Vegas (just on the California border) at a place called Carl's Jr., which is basically Hardee's for all those people in the East. We received our daily fill and a half of cholesterol and then proceeded through the desert...

In the middle of this desert, we saw a couple signs for Calico Ghost Town... We thought it would be pretty cool, right? Well, we stopped and it was basically like a half-size Dollywood 20 years ago, if you can imagine that... It was a small, kinda crappy theme park... but hey it was definitely interesting! We were able to see a gun fight b/n these two actors... like the sheriff and a bank robber... Pretty funny...

We continued driving and arrived in San Diego around 7 PM... at my friend Noel's house... He was at a soccer game, so his mom took us down the beach... My first sight of the west coast might I add... We ventured down to "Seal Beach" where there were about 100 seals just hanging out, most of them laying around on the sand and some of them swimming... We went to stick our feet in the water to what felt like ice! We then met Noel and his girlfriend for dinner at a Mexican restaurant, came home, and fell asleep pretty soon...

Road Trip To California - Day 5 (Grand Canyon, AZ to Las Vegas, NV )

So... today we woke up at 4:40 AM to get up and watch the sunrise from one of the many views around here... It proved to be a fun-filled morning, despite a rather uneventful and cloudless sunrise (except for the small cloud that hung out just over the sun for its first 30 minutes of risenness (not really a word I'm sure) of the day.... It was cool though, all four of us jumped some fences and hike down to some of the bluffs (Pictured above: Kacey, Will, and I are just under the word "here"...Hint: we are the small specks)... Don't worry, it wasn't really against the rules or that dangerous. There were already paths carved out where other people had done it before. It proved for some really fun video footage, as Will crawled up this crazy steep rock face... I attempted the same feat, got halfway, and backed down... Dude is crazy....

As one of the top pictures show, Will and I reenacted the scene from Titanic, where Jack and whatever here name is embraced at the bow of the ship... Quite hilarious might I add... It was totally my idea, I just told Will to stand up on the bars and shut up... Haha, he didn't get it for a second, until I went, "No, Jack, I'll never let go..." The responses around were Kacey (Will's sis) rolling her eyes at me as usual and muttering, "So stupid.." and Dad laughing, grabbing his camera to take some pics (as shown above), and perhaps a subconcious, "Crap, I hope my son really isn't gay..." Haha, naw, I'm joking about that last part, although.... I cannot read Dad's mind... Oh well... Anyway, we took off about 11 or so bound for Las Vegas...

In the meantime, we stopped at Hoover Dam, just 30 miles from Vegas... We ended up unintentionally getting a discounted tour of the place and got a lot of fun pictures... we went through the "guts" of the dam... with lots of videos and commentary beefing up the fact that apparently that President Hoover was God's gift to America, or perhaps the electrically-needy of southwest Pacific area... The political propaganda provoked a small bit of nausea, but hey it's cool... Anyway, the Hoover Dam (yes) is ridiculously huge... It was definitely a cool experience... Pictured above, all four of us are on top of the dam on the line between Arizona and Nevada (woot woot)....

Las Vegas was great fun! We checked in to Circus Circus Hotel... What is really funny/ironic is that Will's sis has clown-fobia... She flips out at clowns, it's crazy... Anyway, Will and I (more Will than I) toyed with her a lot of the time, since there were clowns everywhere, including a 100-foot one in front of the hotel... One of the first trucks we saw in the city is the one pictured... it cracks me up yet depresses me at the same time (I will save it for another day).... That night, we walked around in Vegas, through the Venetian, Treasure Island, and down the strip... It's amazing to me that a bunch of dang people are gathered together, partying in the middle of a dang desert!!! Anyway, we saw the Treasure Island ship-fight show (as pictured), complete ofcourse with lots of girls in lingerie... Anyway, it was great fun and definitely a cool experience...

Road Trip To California - Day 4 (Green River, UT to Grand Canyon, AZ)

After a late night of driving, we woke up to a beautiful scene of nowhere... haha, I drove for about 2 hours on a pitch black highway last night, just wondering what was around me... I saw pretty much any star in the sky that I wanted but could not make out what was around me. This morning, I found that I was simply surrounded by lots of desert and towering rocks, similar to that of stalagmite in a cave... It's pretty crazy. Dad and I drove through this for quite a few hours... (well, really I slept for about 4 or 5 hours off and on while Dad drove)... I woke up intermittently to see more rock and more desert here and there..

We stopped at Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah which is where two of the pictures were taken (driving through the rock and the rail). I walked up to astonishing open spaces with giant rock formations all around as I peered into Bryce Canyon... I snuck off for a little bit off the trail to take some pictures and hang my feet off the edge... I reminisced of a Fall Creek Falls trip when I was about 8 or so with my Mom and Justin (my bro) and his friend (Michael Smith). Justin and Michael (or "Hamburger" as they called him) hung their feet off the edge of a bluff above a green canopy of trees roughly 400 feet below them... (to which Mom yelled for them to be safe and/or scoot back from the edge)... I remember I wanted so bad to go to the edge with them... to be a big kid, ya know? Haha, anyway, my experience was similar to theirs, except for the bottom surface was reddish-orange rock? I wondered what it would be like to be a bird... you know... to be able to fly around in all that... I know it's cliche, but hey...(similar to the day before)...

Dad and I (really I while he slept) raced through the base of Utah into Arizona to try and catch the sunset at the Grand Canyon... (Seriously, I do not believe I turned once in 20-minute stretch going about 80 mph... the roads were a bit boring)... We ventured through I think the Navajo Indian reservation, passed up the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and reached an overlook for the South Rim with about 20 minutes to spare; it was amazing! I read one of David's psalms about nature and God... I looked around and in the giant amount of space, I felt, "God is bigger than this?" I was blown away... Never before have I really ever looked at an expanse this huge and tried to compare it to God... It's amazing that the Grand Canyon doesn't even compare at all... It was a neat experience....

Well, later on that night, we caught up with Will Butler and his sister and stayed the night at one of the lodges on the South Rim... (it was a bit of an ordeal meeting up, b/c there was no cell phone service and little prior plannning)... All in all, the day was filled with huge amounts of beautiful open spaces, large expanses of desert, rock, and open air, and a lot of driving (about 11 hours to be exact)... Peace!!

Road Trip To California - Day 3 (Canon City, CO to Green River, UT)

So...another day has gone by... one filled with high elevations and low temperatures... The lowest it got today was 26 degrees!! That was on top the continental divide at about 12,000 ft elevation... There was atleast 1 foot of snow up there with more coming down all day. It's pretty crazy.

Before that, this morning we went to the Royal Gorge, which is apparently the highest suspension bridge in the world, over like 1,200 feet high.... They had this thing called the Sky Coaster, which is just like one of those giant human swings, except on this one you swung out over the canyon... It was pretty insane. I saw this girl down the way who was over the fence and climbing around on the rocks with a mother who wanted her to come back. I kinda laughed, she was gutsy, being roughly 1200 feet above a huge gorge at which the bottom is the shallow Arkansas River. Dad and I got to talking to her and her family a little bit and discovered that she too wanted to the SkyCoaster. (Dad and I talked about it earlier, but I was a little jittery.) So anyway, we decided to save some money and go together. Her name was Lacy; we made small talk while rising high above the canyon about how apparently there is nothing to do in Iowa and other random stuff. She got the responsibility of pulling the cord. "3,2,1.. GO!" My stomach lept in my throat and the both of us screamed bloody murder! It was really cool... I no it's cliche but I kinda felt like a bird...

Well, the rest of the afternoon was spent wandering 1 1/2 hours up a two-lane highway in a mild snowstorm that apparently was closed until June. Our goal was to swing through Aspen and eat dinner there on the way to Utah. However, about 15 miles before we were to hit Aspen, a sign read, "ROAD CLOSED" with huge blockades in the road... Maggie told us we should take this dirt road next to the highway. So we did for about two-tenths of a mile until it ended completely up an bank and into a river. Haha, it was crazy. So we turned around and headed back... All in all, we lost like 3 hours, but no biggie... We were able to shoot some fun pictures, get a little bit lost (no thanks to Maggie, our navigator), and experience the absolute serenity of the cool Colorado air with the silence of snow falling and a slight wisp of streams in the background... This day was sweet.. Also, what was cool... Dad and I listened to a Donald Miller sermon while driving through the mountains. It was a dual sermon with John MacMurray (whose nature photography has been featured in National Geographic) and it talked about where photography and theology coincide. It was pretty sweet.

Other adventures of the day included finding an abandoned mine town, which was cool. Lastly and most amazing was this... I was on the phone with Will, chatting about meeting up tomorrow and I looked to my right... I was this giant mountain next to with half of it being bright orange. I was like, "Dad, did you see that? I wonder what's up with those trees." Within three seconds I figured it out. It was the most welcomed sunset ever... In a day when every waking second was cloud-covered, the sun managed to squeeze in a few minutes for us to enjoy... It literally lit up the entire valley. It was amazing. Reds and oranges everywhere... By chance?

Road Trip To California - Day 2 (Oklahoma City, OK to Canon City, CO)

Pictured above is 38 years of work by one man... with a whole lot more to come... I will get to that later on in the blog... But, I saw three tumbleweeds today!! Alright, so that's not all that exciting. So we drove through the Texas panhandle (which was okay, difference of scenery, eh?) early this morning and made it to New Mexico about 1 PM or so. We just took a ton of pictures while driving and I slept quite a bit.

We crossed the border to Colorado driving up Interstate 50 (I think) to a beautiful display of mountains to our west, with vast plains to our east. Misty water and almost-snow (maybe that's sleet?) lingered in the air most of the afternoon, darting the windshield almost like the bugs we hit on a regular basis... We decided to take the scenic route to Royal Gorge, just outside of Canon City, Colorado... From the Colorado-New Mexico border, instead of a 2-hour drive to Royal Gorge, we decided to take the scenic route: a nice little two lane highway that wove through the mountains and the valleys between them. We stopped A LOT and took pictures and video... We saw plenty of wild deer and gazelles to go around... (and did I mention the tumbleweed? haha)...

So, we were randomly coming around this corner and saw this giant mailbox that said "See the Hand-Made Bishop Castle". Dad and I were thinking.. "eh?" until we peered up about 160 degrees to see a ridiculously huge stone castle. The largest tower of it reaches about 170 (ish) feet high. (That's me in each of the tower pictures... I was shaking really bad.) I quickly threw it in reverse and parked on the side of the highway.

After passing a bunch of signs bashing the government, welcoming anyone to come in as long as they would not sue if they got hurt, we wandered up a small hill to the sound of machinery (one small dozer the owner was working with) and the presence of this gorgeous stone monstrosity lingering above our heads. So I started climbing the steps like crazy! I have my entire journey to the top completely on video. We probably spent like an hour climbing up and down the castle.

When we came down for the last time, we got to chat with the owner a little bit (that's him in the picture in front of the steps)... His name was Jim Bishop and we was a total conspiracy theorist... He went on for twenty minutes or so about how the government was awful - like 9/11 being an inside job and how Jimmy Carter was the only good president we've had in 100 years (haha, it's crazy). He proved to be a very interesting guy. He also said as we were leaving (concerning the government), "I'm a Christian. I'm just not one of those 'turn the other cheek' Christians. I don't have a skeleton in my closet." It made me think of a video from my New Testament interpretation class, that claimed that passage in Jewish culture being more of a plea/demand of respect and that Christians should not be doormats. I thought it was absolute crap at first; but after a while, I kind of feel like that's right. (The idea has to do with giving the other person the opposite cheek; the right cheek would imply a backhand slap to the face from the left hand, the hand that Jews during this time used for contact. It apparently was a sign of huge disrepect in Jewish culture, whereas when Jesus said to offer him your other cheek, implying an open-hand slap, on that is much more respectful and constructive. I am not sure really but I think it's a balance, just like everything else... (Thank you Mark Nicks of Cool Hand Luke.)

On that note, it's time to get some sleep... Peace be with you...

Road Trip to Cali - Day 1 (Morristown, TN to Oklahoma City, OK)

I'm listening to Dad catch some beautiful, well-deserved, yet noisy ZZZZ's on the other bed... so I figured I'd update this thing... Today was cool. As was said earlier, I did not sleep last night. We ended up leaving Morristown at 5:30 AM EST with the sounds of Phantom Planet's "California... Here We Come!" keeping us alive. We made it to Nashville about 9:30 EST and we stopped at Matt Hodges' and Dan Faber's apartment to grab a few things that I left there earlier - being a pair of shorts, a djiembe, tripod, and a pillow; I returned Dan's copy of Blue Like Jazz that had been sitting on top of my old sunday school teacher's toilet, keeping him company while he did his business.

Dad and I stopped in Memphis for lunch at this famous barbecue place; it was in a pretty rough part of town, with bars all over the doors and windows and stuff. It cracked us up. I forgot the name of it though. So Dad asked the our waitress what sides he could order with his dinner plate of ribs, to which she replied, "You get two choices of baked beans, cole slaw, and potato salad." Seeing his face at the sound of the latter two, in referring to him wanting a double order of baked beans, she said in a very Memphis draw, "Don't worry. It's not too much. Won't give ya gas or anything." And then she just kinda walked away. We were both pretty much in shock and nearly in tears because of laughter. It was pretty ridiculous.

So we kept driving and met up with my friend from Belmont Lauren Turner and like five of her friends. We ate at this Mexican restaurant in downtown Oklahoma City (I also forgot what that was called). We all had really good conversation, really good food, and a great blessing by Rachel Turner. It's funny - I remember when she came and hung out at Belmont; we were all hanging out late at night, Steve had his guitar and some were singing. She was dancing in a very hippy-like (reminiscing of Bonnaroo) manner; I say that because it was beautiful. Maybe it was the lack of self-conciousness, but also she commented to me upon my inquisition that she was dancing for her Father Jesus. How amazing! Honestly, all of Lauren's friends are pretty much amazing. They are all very warm, welcoming, accepting, fun, goofy, and followers of Christ. I respect them all deeply.

On another note, after some hour or so of debate, Dad and I named the new navigation system (well really the voice inside that tells us what to do). After I proposed Gretchen, Robin.... we threw around a few other names Arial (haha, get it? aerial...)... However we finally agreed on Maggie. She's been super-helpful so far. Anyway, it's time to get some sleep. Good night...