DStilled

Deep In The Heart Of Texas

June 26, 2007 on 2:34 am | In Blog | 8 Comments

After I left you on Friday, Christa took me to see the missions in San Antonio (which includes the less than impressive Alamo) and the Riverwalk. I really like San Antonio and part of the reason I do, is because it feel very non-white/middleclass/American. The city is somewhere between 1/2 - 2/3 hispanic with a large black population. A movie line that gets me is in “The Last Samurai” when Tom Cruise’s commander asks him, “What is it about your own people that you hate so much?” Cruise doesn’t answer. I don’t hate my own people, I just wish I were a part of something else much of the time. Or maybe it’s the culture of poverty that has made me hate the ethnic and societal barriers we erect and the innate way I bring them down is to cross them, ignore them completely. Anyway, I like the city of the reigning basketball champs. When we got back to the house, Christa and Willa Rose decided that camping would be extremely fun. I already have all the necessary camping supplies so we went out into the heart of Texas and car camped. We cooked a rice dish (Willa Rose is vegan), did some stargazing, and found out that Ryan’s tent I’m borrowing is indeed a three person tent; as long as you leave the
door open to not suffocate.

Saturday morning I woke up and cooked eggs and toast and we drove back into town. We went to the SA zoo and enjoyed all the great animals. For those of you in Ky, I recommend the Louisville zoo, for after seeing a supposed amazing zoo, I liked Louisville just as much, if not more. Something happened to the flash card in the camera so I don’t have any pictures of that. Don’t worry, I also brought my camera and it too has a CF card. Then Christa and I went to a Latin American restaurant that had awesome food I haven’t had since Guatemala. Christa’s going to Peru next year so eating at this place is extra special to her. Then we came back to the house, hung out, watched some Flying Circus on PBS and turned in.

Sunday morning I woke up and we went to Max Lucado’s Church of Christ her in San Antonio. It was good and from his books, felt very Lucado-like. The service was very music filled and lacked a traditional sermon. Max probably spoke for the same amount of time, it was just split up throughout the service. The theme was freedom. Christa aptly noted that the freedom Max was speaking of didn’t jive with her because it was soley focused on personal freedom in Christ where her past year in the Jesuit program has been about coorporate freedom of the people using our convictions as children of God to take socially responsible and active actions to free everyone. It’s not that she felt like Max’s message (oh, and they also only used the Message version of the Bibile - paraphrase, not a translation) was bad, only that she hadn’t thought really about her own freedom in Christ in quite a while. After lunch I left to go to Austin. Once again, another Texas city I really like and wouldn’t mind moving to, in the winter. It’s a college town of 600,000 people. The University of Texas’s campus is really cool (Garrett! you should look into going there!) and the live music scene is very happening. I was stealing internet from a motel and found the Austin paper’s site and on it had all the live bands playing. I had the choice of over 30 venues to choose from. So I went a downtown park to see the wind ensemble from the Austin Symphony and then to an authentic Irish pub. At the pub I was able to eat real shephard’s pie while listening to some great celtic music. The meal was sort of expensive but there was no cover for getting in.

Monday morning I woke up and drove to Waco. Cool little town with a massive Baptist college. Oh, and one other important thing: Dr Pepper. That’s right, DP are you with me? Oh yeah, I got two cases and I’m goin’ somewhere. You might have noticed there is no . after Dr in Dr Pepper. That’s becasue of an unusual font they used originally and just decided to keep it like that. Also, Dr Pepper is 23 different flavors and not one of them is prune. I also learned that Cadbury/Shweppes owns DP/7UP and they franchise the bottling rights out to Coke/Pepsi for each zone in the country. Which is why some places DP/7UP is with Coke and sometimes with Pepsi. Then I drove up to Dallas and saw the sites. By that I mean I drove around and saw the Cotton Bowl/State Fair grounds, the place the Mavericks play, and a bit more elusively, Texas Stadium, where the Cowboys play. Hurray for climbing skills.  Dallas, for those of you that have not been here, feels a lot like Atlanta, but with more hispanic influence and less hills.  Talk to you later.

Through The South

June 22, 2007 on 2:08 pm | In Blog | 5 Comments

Hello all! Thanks for checking my site while I’m on my trip. I’m doing well, slightly bored at times but what pilgrimage isn’t? Anyway my chronicles are as follows:

Sunday morning I woke up too early and made breakfast for my Dad, Mom, and Garrett for Father’s Day. I took a short nap, finished the loading of the car, and headed out. My first stop on the trip was 10 miles away: Kentucky’s own famous castle. I made it to Memphis a little before dusk and found a cheap hotel. I ended up just watching Discovery channel and falling asleep early. Afterall, I was now on central time.

Monday morning I toured Memphis and found a random pyramid. I went to the gates of Graceland and saw the ghost of Elvis. I didn’t pay to go in because I really just don’t care that much about Elvis. I went down to Beale St. and saw all the blues dives. I drove across the Mississippi river to touch Arkansas and add it to my state list for the trip. I made it to Pass Christian, MS, around 6pm, toured the city a bit, and then saw my friends down there doing humanitarian work. Jenna and Matt were the ones I knew but Tony and Elizabeth came from UVa as well. The other guy we hung out with was sort of a project manager and had been down there over a year. We played some basketball, ate lazagna, and then turned in. That night I woke up around 7 times due to the humidity and very loud noises (train, fridge).

Tuesday morning we woke up and ate breakfast with a group from California that had just arrived. We then broke up in teams and went to different worksites. The city of Pass Christian is 100x better now than when I first saw it shortly after Katrina. All 5 of the site we were on were CONSTRUCTION, not DEconstruction. So I stuck around all day, ate diner, played some good ping-pong, and drove to New Orleans. On the way there I witnessed some of the coolest and most intense lightning I’ve ever seen. I spent some time on the phone with my Dad who was on the internet trying to help me find a good place to hear some live music and a hotel nearby. He did find a place but then when I called them to verify, they apologized about their website info being incorrect. By this time it was already 11 and I was ready to sleep. I found a cheap hotel again, but this one was very nice (mini-fridge, good bed, and even better pillows).

Wednesday morning I woke up to cruise New Orleans. I went down to the French Quarter walked Bourbon and Tolouise and ate at the famous Cafe du Monde. The ben-yays (I hate French because nothing is intuitively spelled) were very good. I would liken them to the greatest funnel cake you’ve ever had. I saw the Superdome where the Saints did shockingly well last year. About a month after Katrina one of my discussion classes at UVa was discussing whether or not New Orleans should rebuild or just abandon the wreckage and move elsewhere. After going there, I see why people wanted to rebuild. Was it worth the 300 billion or whatever they spent? Let’s just say that world hunger or the oil problem could have been solved for that much. The founders of New Orleans shouldn’t have built a city on the marshlands in the first place. Driving through, I’ve never experience a city in America that felt so much like Guatemala City. But now that the people and culture are there, I guess we should support them as citizens of this country and help them rebuild their lives and city. I then drove to Houston and loved it. If I had the money, I would have a winter home in Houston. I heard people talk about it being a concrete jungle but I saw plenty of green in parks and wooded subdivisions. The city was clean and tidy, which in my book is a great plus for an enjoyable living environment. I spent most of my time around the theatre district downtown but drove through most of the forth biggest city in the USA. I took the twenty mile drive to the Johnson Space Center found another cheap motel for the evening.

Thursday morning I woke up and went to the Space Center. It was obvious that the center was made for children but appropriately so becasue there were at least 400 children there from daycamps and whatnot. I got to see the new bast-off theater. Not NEARLY what I was expecting but enjoyable nonetheless. The tagline was “It’s like experiencing a launch in 10-D!” Nope. But after the disappointing launch they took us in a control room theater where someone walked us through the mission control and details of the space flight going on right now. That was neat. I did a simulation landing the shuttle and docking in the space station. I’m guessing the real thing is a bit harder than what I was put through. After that, I took the tram tour of the facilities and saw all the real stuff. The training facilities and rocket area were awesome. I left shortly after and traversed the state to San Antonio. I met up with Christa from UVa and met her housemates and friends. We went to dinner at a Vietiamese restaurant and just hung out in the cool drizzling night.

Friday morning I woke up and wrote this rediculously long entry. Something else I would like to tell you is that I’m reading the Bible through while on this trip, on CD of course. Yesterday I finished the Pentateuch. I’ve never read the whole book cover to cover in a row, and this way I will do the whole thing in a tangibly short period of time. And I can tell you, I honestly have some issues with the Bible so far. “Progressive revelation” answers some of those issues but I’m trying not to cheat by knowing the whole story yet. I figured going through the whole Bible quickly would give me a better understanding of God, Israel, and my place in the world. So far I don’t really like God, Israel’s an idiot, and my place in the world is worthless.

Anyway, I’m going to enjoy San Antonio and the rest of Texas before I update again. Take care and give me a call every now and then.

Getting Ready

June 15, 2007 on 2:13 pm | In Blog | 10 Comments

Ok, so now is the time of reckoning. My site is back up and running and I’m sure I haven’t lost ALL my readers. In less than 48 hours, I’ll be on the road towards Memphis as my first stop on the greatest trip ever. At least, I hope. No one can predict the future but if all goes well, this pilgrimage will be one for the ages. I have nearly everything I need (camping gear, dry ice, camera) and some stuff I hopefully won’t (batter jumper, first-aid kit). As the third installment to my road trip list, this will be the longest of my life. The estimations are somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 miles. 12,000 miles is half-way around our planet! for reference. The first half of the trip will be hot (Southern/Desert half) and I will be by myself the whole time. The second half will be much cooler and for the last 9 days I will have a friend Jeremy Porter joining me. Hopefully I will be able to see all my friends in all the different places they are along the way. Just for heads up, the website format I’m using is dynamic and could change drastically even while I’m on the trip. So if you don’t recognize the site at first, keep reading and you will soon discover it’s still me. I will do my best to update often with many pictures and if you click the RSS feed button then you can subscribe and therefore be notified when I’ve posted something new. Well, I’m off to continue preparing to embark upon an epic journey. Pray for me and leave some great comments! Also, my phone will be constantly on if you want to call me in your city of choice. Here is the basic schedule so you know what’s coming up.

June

17-Memphis, TN

18-Pass Christian, MS

19-New Orleans, LA

20-Houston, TX

21,22,23-San Antonio, TX

24-Austin, TX

25-Dallas, TX

26-Ft. Worth, TX

27-Santa Fe, NM

28-Bryce Canyon, UT

29-Zion, UT

30-Grand Canyon, AZ

July

1,2-Phoenix, AZ

3-Joshua Tree, CA

4,5-San Diego, CA

6-Los Angeles, CA

7-Sequoia, CA

8,9-Yosimete, CA

10,11-San Jose, CA

12-San Francisco, CA

13-Lake Tahoe, CA/NV

14-Redwood, CA

15-Portland, OR

16- Seattle, WA

17-Olympic, WA

18-Victoria, BC

19,20-Vancouver, BC

21-Banff, AB

22-Calgary, AB

23-Glacier, MT

24-Denver, CO

25,26-Colorado Springs, CO

27-Kansas City, KS/MO

28-Lexington, KY