DStilled

Rockies to Home

Tuesday morning I woke up in the US for the first time in a week. Jeremy and I had veered slightly off the original course in order to see Yellowstone. I had been there before and knew a couple of things for him to see so a drive-thru was almost possible. The thing is, Yellowstone’s the second biggest national park in the contiguous country (behind the ever ridiculous Death Valley) and the roads kinda loop on themselves. So we saw Mammoth Hot Springs, Lake Yellowstone, the canyon with Yellowstone Falls, and Old Faithful. I only had to wait 30 minutes to see it this time. After about 5 hours we left and headed due south to see the Grand Tetons. I would say this was one of the coolest mountain ranges I had seen on the trip because of their crisp jagged peaks. But what made it ultimately worth is to go to Tetons was when we suddenly stopped in traffic. Jeremy had a good feeling about this stop and sure enough, I rolled down my window to ask someone what was going on. Right off the side of the road, a small black bear was eating a deer!!! We were all closer than the recommended distance and the fading light made pictures difficult, but I GOT TO SEE A BEAR!!! We decided to keep driving towards Denver instead of going through the whole park. This decision would haunt us the next morning when we realized we didn’t go through Idaho. So now I have 4 states I haven’t been to instead of just 3. What makes it even worse, I have ABSOLUTELY NO reason to go to Idaho independently. The Idaho, Oregon, Nevada corner is the largest non-roaded place in America–for a reason. We stopped at a KOA at dark and then watched Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within using my laptop and the car’s speakers. We also met a few people at the campsite that were from Cincinnati before we crashed.

Wednesday morning I woke up pretty early and we headed out on the road. Jeremy drove for the first time on the trip and he got a good helping of it too. He basically drove the entire hypotenuse of Wyoming and down into Colorado. Once we arrived at Estes Park we went into Rocky Mountain National Park. This was a very cool place with peaks in the 12, 13, and 14,000 ft range. We drove around a little bit but because it was raining we didn’t stay too long. After the curves increased, the altitude increased, and the rain increased, I wanted to drive. Call it control or whatever, but I know my car, tires, and brakes better than anyone and the conditions were far from ideal. That didn’t stop us from being slightly stupid outside the car. At the highest point on the road (12,100) we pulled off and figured we would run up the short path to the top of the mountain. After about 20 seconds of running we both died. The oxygen difference finally caught up with us. We slowly walked to the closer summit all the while tasting blood. Iron was getting in our lungs it was so bad. Jeremy turned blue and took almost 30 minutes to change back. I had some issues with coughing up croup but I think that had more to do with the fact that it was 40 degrees and sleeting than the oxygen. I used to get a little of that when I would go from a warm car to a cold cross-country course back in high school. Every 1000 ft vertically = 600 miles due north for temperature. So in the middle of Colorado, Jeremy and I were in the Arctic tundra. Trees don’t even grow that high. Anyway, we drove through Denver and towards Colorado Springs where we had another lovely KOA campsite available for us.

Thursday morning I woke up ready for the highest drive of my life. Colorado Springs has a ton of really cool things to do around it and we decided to get as much as possible in. First stop was Garden of the Gods. This is a red-rock garden with the two main pieces being a couple of hundred feet tall and wide. What made this awesome area so unique was that most all the rocks were very thin (relative to their size). We did some crevasse crawling and I pushed the legal envelope on one of them. It was wonderful. You can get permits to climb one of the over 300 routes they have but we didn’t have time or the gear. William, most of it was some of the coolest trad ever. After we finished exploring we drove to Pike’s Peak. It costs 10 bucks a person to drive up the mountain but is definitely worth it. Most of that money goes to road maintenance anyway. I’ve never driven on a road so steep and so windy that I actually couldn’t go fast even if I wanted. The record for the Pike’s Peak race is just over 10 minutes! It took us more like 40. You have to have balls of steel to cut some of those corners the way they do! They higher we got up the cooler it became and the shady temp at the top was 38. Good thing the sun had come out right as we reached the summit. At 14,110 ft, we were woozy for the first time on the trip. The oxygen is half up there as it is at sea level. The simple act of drinking makes you go too long between breaths! Both of us turned a little blue. We ate lunch at over 11,000 ft at the mandatory break inspection place. The limit for safe temp is 300 and mine was 156. The guy gave us an impressed affirmation and told us to keep it up. The lowest temp he had ever seen though was the ambient temp of the air. So I’m nothing TOO special. I made mushy spaghetti (because I didn’t know about the high altitude boiling rules) and we headed to our last stop of the day. My mom had simply raved about a place called Royal Gorge so we figured it was worth a stop. It was an hour away but we had time. We get there a little after 5 and see that it’s over $23 a person! We immediately pull off to discuss our options. I called my house to talk to my mom and see if it was worth the money that we didn’t really have and she was asleep. So my dad got online and read us the brochures and info about the place. As soon as I was about to say, “Let’s not do this,” Jeremy blurts out, “Alright! We’re doing it!” Turns out the 23 bucks covered a bunch of pretty cool things and the attraction wasn’t just the highest suspension bridge in the world. We took a 45 degree railway (world record) to the bottom of the gorge, a 2,200 ft single-span air tram (world record) , saw the highest skycoaster in the world, a wild-life area with a white buffalo among other things, and both walked and drove across the bridge. We drove to the edge of Colorado and spent the night in a motel, with two beds.

Friday morning I woke up ready for the longest drive of my life. We were on the road at 7 am mountain time, grabbed a quick bite to eat at McD’s, and celebrated Jeremy’s birthday. That’s a match in his biscuit in the picture. We went all the way to Kansas City before really taking a break and the only reason why we stopped there was we were only a few miles away from where Jeremy lived at ages 5 and 6. We saw his old apartment and elementary school. Turns out his kindergarten teacher is still there. We couldn’t get in (thanks Mr. Frowny Janitor) so Jeremy left a note. We were soon back on the road headed for Evansville, IN. The reason we stopped there was because Jeremy’s wife Karissa came and picked him up. She was in Owensboro already and she wanted to see him on his bday. Jeremy said it was the most unique birthday he’s ever had and will remember it forever. My gift was driving him 850 miles to his wife. It was now 10 pm central and I had 200 miles to go. Without a companion to dialogue with, I quickly faded mentally. I resorted to being stimulated physically. I got something to eat and danced to hip hop for nearly two hours. It worked and I rolled into home at 2 am eastern. I was plesantly surprised to see KY’s interstate speed limit had been changed to 70 and that all the road work done around my house was finished. I said hi to Ann and hit the sack after over a thousand mile day.

Saturday morning I woke up without anything to do or anywhere to go. It was actually depressing and sad. Even as I write this, the adventurous part of me that ran my life for the last six weeks is trying to take over. I may have become addicted to driving, who knows. It is one of my favorite things to do in the whole world and suddenly I don’t have anywhere to drive. The only thing keeping me sane is that I do have a list of things to do before I move. I just hope I don’t run out of things too soon. I thought I’d give you some random stats to summarize the trip. Final distance: 12,663 miles. Shortest driving day: 0 miles-San Jose. Longest driving day: 1058.3 miles-Last day. How far listened in Bible: Genesis to 1 Corinthians. Listened to most (non-Bible): Josh Groban-Awake. Favorite animal saw in wild: black bear. Most prolific animal: Raven. Coolest animal saw most: Bald eagle-7 times. Hardest thing I did: Sea kayak 13 miles/9 injured. Hottest temp: 116-Phoenix. Coldest: 38-Lake Louise (night)/Pike’s Peak (day). Highest elevation: 14,110 ft-Pike’s Peak. Most north latitude: 51.5 degrees-between Canada’s Glacier NP and Lake Louise. Most expensive night: $104-Flagstaff. Worst moment: Losing my wallet in LA. Best moment: no idea what that would be, entering Zion, surfing, laughing with Jeremy. Best drive: coming out of King’s Canyon. First glacier/snow: Yosemite. Most expensive car: Mercedes McClaren SLR-$615,291. Thing I wish I could’ve taken home most: Monolith red stone/aged sequoia. Coolest rock formation: Shipwreck rock-New Mexico. First time I honestly wished the trip would end: the last Wednesday of trip. Cheapest gas: $2.659-Evansville, IN. Most expensive gas: $1.199/liter-South of Calgary, AB. Number of national parks: 17. Cost of whole trip: $3000. Worth: Priceless. Number of pictures kept: 1700. Number of states/territories: 23. Number of countries: 3. Number of days: 41. Sounds like a pilgrimage to me. Thanks for joining me through reading these updates. It has really meant a lot that people cared about what I was doing.

Oh Canada!

Friday morning I woke up not knowing how close to dying I might have come (besides the fact that driving is a dangerous endeavor). We started off the day simply enough. Jeremy’s a big anthropology buff and the Canadian Northwest was one of the first jump starts for modern anthropology with the totems and everything. It was very cool and the museum had TONs of items and artifacts from around the world. It reminded me of when in Indiana Jones, Belac (the bad guy in Lost Ark) tells Indy, “You see this watch. Practically worthless, BUT bury it in the sand for 1000 years and it becomes PRICELESS.” I really was looking at random sticks and horns and small carvings that held very little monetary value when they were originally used, but today they tell stories long forgotten. Anyway, then we made our surprisingly long way through all of Vancouver to Deep Cove where we had reserved our sea kayaks. They are sea kayaks because they are a little longer and they have pedals at the feet that control the rudder. Jeremy didn’t actually know about the pedals for the first 45 minutes of kayaking. He was doing it the very had way. I say VERY hard because kayaking is HARD! I am an athletic man who loves an adventure, but this was endurance in a way I wasn’t used to. I used to run cross-country but that is easy compared to sea kayaking. We had to keep stopping for the first couple of hours to adjust our pedals and find our comfort zone just moving in the space at all. It was raining for most of the day and the water temp was low 50s. We had wetsuits but they were so light that for a few days afterward we could feel the fiberglass still in our skin. Mine was actually so tight that it imprinted a rash on my shoulders and I ripped out the butt. Our goal was to get a third of the way up the fjord and turn around in 6 hours. We stopped by a small wooded island called Raccoon Island in the middle of the seaway. The rocks we docked on were completely covered in barnacles with most cracks holding dozens of small mussels. We climbed the small granite cliffs into the woods and enjoyed ourselves. No raccoons but I didn’t really want to come across one on such a small island. After we had our fill, we had to get down from the woods and back in our boats and I decided to take a different route down. Dun dun DUNNNNN!!!!

There was a really good looking tree that hung 10 feet over the “beach” down below so I tested it out and it was really strong. All I had to do was climb about 10 feet out and the tree would bend a little and I would fall 4 feet to the ground. I started climbing hand over hand out on the tree and everything felt great. As soon as I got to the point right before I could let go and jump off safely, there was a huge CRACK!! I remember having a tremendously tight grip and thinking my feet need to hit first. But because I was in mid-swing during the last reach, my feet were slightly in front of me and the ground directly below me was still not flat. My butt hit first, a fraction of a second later my elbow took a large blow, and a fraction of a second later my head hit really hard. I never blacked out or saw stars so I immediately pushed the tree off of me and stood up. I didn’t feel woozy but I knew that I had hit the back of my head hard on sharp granite. I turned around and saw the 20 foot section of tree on the rocks and Jeremy at the top. I asked him if he saw any blood. My left arm was pretty cut up but my hair prevented the sight of blood on my head. I eventually found where it was bleeding and another spot where I bruised the top of my neck. I walk the beach like I was going to do in the first place and found a spot for Jeremy to come down more easily. Nothing was broken and the blood was flowing very slowly so we made our way back to the kayaks. We saddled up and continued down the fjord for another hour and a half before turning around. The trip back was far less eventful but more teaching oriented. I learned what perseverance really is: It’s doing the little things with heart for a long time so that the goal can be achieved. All and all, we kayaked 13 miles in 6 hours with stops. We ate pizza that night and hit the sack hard.

Saturday morning I woke up a little sore but Ibuprofen is my friend. We paid nearly $5/gallon for gas, I hit the 150,000 mile mark on my car, and we saw Glaciers for the first time (for me just first time close up). Canada’s Glacier National Park was an excellent prelude to the Rockies portion of the trip. Awesome views of mountains (not the Smokies mind you) that are averaging 10,000 ft with coniferous forests reaching as high as they can. We never saw a visitor’s center so we just drove through and ended up at Lake Louise for the night. I understand why this lake is famous and why there is a 5-star hotel/castle in front of it. This was also right at the continental divide so I’m sure that helped in the formation of the vista we saw. Louise was amazing and for the first time, it was guinuely cold at night. We stayed in a bear-proof campground. I say bear-proof because there was an electrified fence around the grounds. Did I see a bear finally!?! NO. It was nice to have a wonderful sleeping bag that I could encompass myself in though.

Sunday morning I woke up excited to be in the Canadian Rockies. We went to Banff and decided the best way to see this awesome landscape was by Gondola. No, not the boat with the singing guy in red and white. An air tram that took us to the top of a nearby mountain. We each bought something distinctly Canadian in the gift shop. We ate a quaint place in this quaint little town, soaked in the high-altitude air, and drove on our way. We went through Calgary, which has almost a million people bytheway, and figured why not use the daylight to our advantage and get closer to the border. So we found a cheap campsite about 15 minutes from the good ole US of A. After some of the best Blizzards we’ve ever had, off to bed with us.

Monday morning I woke up for the last time in Canada for maybe a long time. Sad, I know. And for the first time since Jeremy joined me, the tent wasn’t wet in the morning. Jeremy and I packed up and played a nine hole disc golf course that just happen to be right next to the campsite we were staying at. I had brought a couple just in case I found one along the way. It’s good to know that almost everything I’ve brought has been used at least in some way. Except for the gorilla tape, I’ve used pretty much everything, and that is just because need hasn’t arisen. We went through the border ok and everything. The guy wanted to look in my trunk and agreed I didn’t have any more room to bring stuff back. We drove through one of the most beautiful places on earth, America’s Glacier National Park. It had everything CA’s Glacier and Banff had but on a more vista-rich scale. I’ve been looking at maps my whole life and I never thought that Montana would be so awesome. Well, at least that big square they labeled a park. My favorite part was wandering around/on top of the waterfalls. The rock was really cool and varied in color. Like I said, I’ve been looking at maps my whole life and I never realized how thin the Rockies were. I always pictured them being hundreds of miles wide never ending in majesty. Today we drove from plains, through the width of the Rockies, and now are in plains again. I would be willing to guess that the average width of the ridge is less than 100 miles wide. Jeremy and I decided to change our road trip in order to see more (I KNOW!!) so we are pushing the agenda a tad and will now also include Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. They are kinda on the way and Jeremy’s never been so we might as well. We kept driving until 1:30 am because we really wanted a motel and pretty much everything within 90 miles of Yellowstone was booked or over 100 bucks. We eventually found a “decent” deal and took it. I’m sure I’ll talk to some of you soon now that I have USA phone service once again.

The Rainy Northwest

Sunday morning I woke up at the KOA and headed out to Crater Lake. Now that is a cool place! I drove around all of it and felt like every place was worthy of another picture. There were a couple of pretty good hikes I could have taken but they just would have taken too long. I had to get to Portland and see my friend Kevin Thompson. He was letting me crash on his couch. When I got there Kevin wasn’t there and he hadn’t told any of his housemates that I was coming but they humored me for a bit. Kevin was off climbing with a friend he just met (Ben) and showed up shortly. I explained to Kevin about losing all my funds but we proceeded to go to his favorite place in the city. It was very chill lounge on the top 30th floor of a building downtown. They have happy hour Sunday nights so he and Ben got good food while I drank my water. They shared some so I didn’t go hungry. Then we drove around town for an hour and Kevin showed me Portland the way he saw it. Afterwards we made it back to Ben’s house to play a game called Settlers of Cattan. It’s a great game of strategy, luck, and diplomacy. I first learned how to play it at UVa and haven’t since. So Ben’s two housemates, Ben and I (Kevin didn’t like learning on the fly), and a friend Nicole went at it for a few hours. Nicole won (by a single hair it was so close!) and I was on the couch ready to sleep by 2:30am. Yikes! that’s late for someone still not too off the eastern time zone. Kevin’s house has a nice soft cat that enjoyed me. At one time it woke me up because it was just chillin’ on my face. I had to act slowly so as to not excite and rip off my nose.

Monday morning I woke up and Kevin and I drove out to the Columbia Gorge to see waterfalls. He has a convertible so the drive was windy and nice. Some of the waterfalls were a few dozen feet but the big one, Multnomah Falls, was probably between 200 and 300. It also had this cool second fall that made a pool at the bottom. Afterwards we went back, I said goodbye, and headed into Washington. I drove to Mt. St. Helens and as cool as it was, I couldn’t get the full experience because it was too cloudy to see much of the crater at all. They did have this impressive movie to show everything that has happened. Also it turns out it’s been going off for the last 2.5 years. There is a second lava dome forming and every now and then a small plume of ash goes up. Nope, not for me. After that, I was going to head to Mt. Ranier but it was SOO cloudy I decided to see more of Seattle instead. Seattle is a pretty big area. It reminded me alot of Boston in the way it was laid out except obviously not as established. I could see why Frazier made the move. In fact most of the city is pretty new. Seattle had the last profitable World’s Fair in America in 1962 when the Space Needle and other landmarks were built and since then the city has boomed. Jeremy’s Aunt Janet and Uncle Darryll volunteered to house me while I was in town so I made my way over to where they live. It just happens to be on the other side of the Puget Sound. I got there and Aunt Janet fed me and we talked about the trip and Olympic Park. I went to sleep after watching the final episode of Gargoyles. It was a very good show and I will miss it.

Tuesday morning I woke up and went to Olympic National Park. It is a very big park with an inefficient road system to see it all quickly. But maybe that’s the whole point. Basically it’s a 200 mile loop around it with roads that jet in at particular places. Aunt Janet had told me it was one of the few temperate rain forests in the world so needless to say I was excited. It did not dissappoint. I still stand by what I said about Redwood forest being magical and anthropamorphic but this was simply awe-inspiring. I just couldn’t stop taking pictures! Then I went to a Ruby Beach that was covered in very smooth stones that skipped quite wonderfully and had large rocks that were carved out by glaciers. After going around the park, I have now been to three of the four corners of the continetal US, all of which are quite awesome. I couldn’t see the mountiain peaks or Mt. Olympus because it was really wet in the morning and low ceiling all day. Once again, I go to a place that normally is dry and hot during this part of the year and it rains. I saw some hot springs, a really great waterfall, and then headed on home. There was a road to take me up the mountains but with the cloud cover I figured it better to get home earlier. I stopped by Port Angeles where I was taking the ferry the next morning because it was on the way. It’s a good thing I did too because they said I needed to get there two hours early! That means like 6:30 am. And I was staying an hour and a half away! Jeremy was originally going to join me in Vancouver but the circumstances made more since for him to join me crossing the border. Plus he will see his aunt and uncle at Thanksgiving. So I went back, ate with Aunt Janet and slept.

Wednesday morning I woke up at 4 am. Jeremy and I set off by 5 and made our way to Port Angeles in order to catch our early morning ferry. We got our spot in line and went to Subway for breakfast. Yes, that’s right, we found a Subway open at 7 am. At around 8:30 we drove onto the boat that would take us to Canada. On the way we saw the tail and glimpses of a small humpback whale! Once in British Columbia, we went through customs and drove a bit through Victoria. It was drizzling on and off the whole day so just walking around wasn’t as much fun. We went to the famous Empress Hotel and Parliment building. These were the free things close and they were pretty cool. It was neat to see the room that Parliment actually meets in. They said that members are not allowed to speak directly to each other and they have to go through the Speaker. Apparently things can get heated and in the past they actually used this sweet large mace to defend the Speaker with. After that, we went to Macaroni Grill for lunch! There were a few things that were pretty different and our experience was so so, but the food was tasty and mildly expensive. Some time during the meal we realized why the prices were more (besides the standard of living being higher in Victoria). They use CANADIAN dollars! The rate is close enough that the difference just didn’t occur to us automatically. On our way to our campsite we stopped by a gas station. I had to pee but I thought I’d ask them why their gas price said 113.9. Turns out that means $1.139/liter. It was so obvious once they said it just then, but metric just is so unnatural right now. If you’ve done the math already that equates to about $5 bucks a gallon! Good thing we filled up right before we got over here. We set up our campsite right past a sign that said “The Center of the Universe.” For the next 4-5 hours we slept as it progressively got colder. Then we made a rice dinner and went to bed for real. Also just a heads up: if you call I won’t answer because it costs $0.79/minute.

Thursday morning I woke up to the sound of rain and felt defeated. I don’t like packing up my tent stuff when it is wet and I really just wanted to wait out the storm. Jeremyy went to use the internet and after a bit, the rain let up and I packed up. We caught the ferry from Victoria to Vancouver and enjoyed a 747 style cruise to the mainland. No whales this time but they did have a place to plug in my computer and write most of this update. We drove through the city to the campsite we had picked out in North Vancouver. We knew it was going to be a cool town but this half a mil city was really neat. After we set up everything and ate a small late lunch I went to pay for the site only to have the lady say that that site is reserved. My bad for assuming an empty site equals an empty site. So we picked up the tent and moved everything a fantastic six feet to the next tiny site. Then we went to a place called Capilano Suspension Bridge. It was Vancouver’s first tourist attraction because some guy wanted to cross a gorge and built a rope bridge in 1889. The whole area was kinda cool rainforesty. We went on both the tours and saw everything the place had to offer. Also they had a treetops course which was a series of rope bridges going over 120 ft high. Afterwards we went to the Safeway (grocery) and loaded up for the week ahead. We came back, ate peanut butter and banana sandwiches, split a watermelon, and headed off to bed. Oh, and we got reservations to go sea kayaking up a fjord on Friday. William, just thought I’d let you know.

For all those of you who have been “reading” the Bible along with me, or more appropriately, through me, I have finished the Old Testament. It took me exactly one month and now I’ll do the New Testament with Jeremy. Jeremiah is a beast book with a lot of good and bad stuff. In chapter 9 God talks about “uncircumcised hearts” being a big deal. This is a shift in thinking for those OT folks because almost always up until now it seems like it’s all about the actions. Chapter 24 brings in the severity of false prophets on the nation of Isreal. What I don’t get is if you or I am a common person and can’t tell the difference between a “real” prophet and a false one, how can I be held accountable and therefore be condemned to death for my actions? I had a thought about the afterlife for these OT peeps. We live in a time where the eternal Kingdom of God is here on earth and therefore think in eternal terms. OT people didn’t have that. I don’t know what the afterlife looked like to them or if they even believed in it, but it seemed like the most important and lasting thing they had was reputation. Heaven was obviously a place for dieties to them, and that may be all. Our way of thinking about heaven is just so different. A lot of you know the verse in Chapter 29, “I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper…” The reason a lot of people know that line is because they use it on themselves and other people they like. I do not like it when very contextual sayings like this verse are applied to just anyone, especially for the sake of glossing over our middle-class American lives. God was talking specifically about someone when He just as easily (and more often it seems) reigns down fiery wrath upon people. Chapter 31 also brought in something new to the table: a new covenant where there is no “generational sin” and His law will be written on the hearts of His people. Now that sounds more like it! Also, it was during Jeremiah that I sensed God feeling less like a King and bully and more like a loving parent that must discipline His children. It’s amazing how many chances He gives people (not all people and so we think it unfair, but most). The exile was a good thing and having that a premise really helps understand why God acts as He does sometimes.

Ezekiel on the other hand made me a little angry and very sad. God made him hard so that he could go through all that he would endure in his life, so that’s good. His life was probably the worst out of any prophet or follower of God I’ve seen in the Bible thus far. The boy rarely complained and never disobeyed God no matter what crap He put Ezekiel through. The part that made me almost cry was when God killed his wife to illustrate a point about Israel. Then Ezekiel had to NOT MOURN! in any way outwardly. I felt so bad for him. He was hated his whole life by almost everyone, he did some of the weirdest and physically most difficult stuff of anyone God called upon, and he lost the woman of his heart. The only thing that could have made it worth it was he loved God more than anything in a way that gives new meaning to those words. Also, he got to see a blurred version of God on His throne at least 3 times. I’m not sure there was anyone God was more proud of than Ezekiel.

As far as the rest of the OT goes, Daniel’s still a great and weird ending book. Jonah has the worst ending of any book. Joel and Zachariah make the least sense. And Hosea also had it tough in the women department thanks to God. I recommend having a timeline or other visual aids when going through the minor prophets because they can feel random enough to lose connection and then meaning. Looking forward to the NT and Jesus just floors me with how radical Jesus was! God has no qualms with violence and vengence because He is simply THAT holy. Whereas Jesus…well…I’m not there yet so I won’t speculate. We’ll just have to see.

Northern Cali

Wednesday morning I woke up next to David Potter. Then he went off to work and I stayed in bed for a bit. After a while I showered, got better acquainted with his apartment complex, made spaghetti, watched some Gargoyles, and realized that I wasn’t going to drive at all that day. I was going to sit on a couch, play on the internet, and listen to music. And that’s exactly what I did until Dave got home. He has an air-port connected to his speakers so either of us could play our iTunes over them. We alternated sharing music over the speakers, he would randomly serenade me on his guitar, and then we went to dinner. On the way we made a pit stop at One Infinite Loop. That’s Apple for you all that care less. The place we went to was BJ’s Brewery. As a brewery does, they made their own beer. BUT!! they also make their own ROOT beer. I just had to try some and it was amazing. It quite possibly was the perfect equilibrium between sweet and bite. They had a great atmosphere, Dave got a mini Chicago-style deep dish bbq chicken pizza, and I ordered a giant stuffed potato with chicken, broccoli, and cheeses. When I say giant, I mean 20-24 oz. pre-stuffed. Mmmmmmm…. After a quick dinner we ran downtown to get seats for Harry Potter playing at the IMAX!! We had almost front right seats which would have been ok at any other theater, but this one was a dome. Very different and immersively difficult. You might have heard that the imaxes are playing the last 20 minutes of the movie in 3-D!! Almost, not all of them are, and we were in one that didn’t; they didn’t have the two projectors to simulcast the right and left eyes. Nevertheless, great movie and I will see it again in a less…awkward environment. Off to bed with us after discussing the movie.

Thursday morning I woke up and wished Dave bye. I packed up and headed slightly north. I saw Stanford, all of San Francisco, UCal at Berkeley, vineyards out the butt around Napa Valley, and then headed past Sacramento to my hotel that was kinda like the one from Psycho. Stanford was AWESOME!! If I had known it was what it is, I might have reconsidered UVa. I have NO doubt that if I didn’t need a particular program somewhere and I lived on the west coast, Stanford would be my choice. Berkeley, which is a better academic school, was far from impressive. I would be like visiting Cornell after going to UVa. SF was really stinkin’ cool. I would like to vacation there someday. Let’s just say that the driving was fun. I went up and down one street that was about 30 degrees of incline!!! It’s just not easy to tell you convincingly what it is like to drive down something I couldn’t walk down straight. I really thought my transmission was beginning to not like me by the time I left SF. I saw Fisherman’s Wharf, Alcatraz, Ghirardelli (the chocolate place) corner, lots of cable cars, rentable go-karts, all the bridges, and the whole time I was looking for the Full House house. Didn’t find it. Then I went north again and with William’s remote help I found a Cellar that hosted 5 wineries. I sniffed a few and picked two for my parents. Well I already told you the rest of the day.

Friday morning I woke up and was happy that it was Friday the 13th. Nothing bad would happen to me this day. Or so I thought. Right after I got out of the shower, I picked up my phone to see was time it was and dropped it into the toilet. No more phone. Then I started driving toward Lake Tahoe and was getting really good gas mileage. Then my car died, no more gas. So I walked a couple of miles to a station and filled up my can I brought (oh yeah, I depleted it in L.A.). As I was walking back, I heard a slight hissing noise and realized I must have filled up the can too much. Suddenly BOOM!! no more right thumb. I was close enough to the car to run back and get my first aid kit to stop the bleeding. Then I walked the two miles back to the station and asked if they could call 911 for me. Of course they did and an ambulance came right away. They took me to the hospital as quickly as they could but (seriously now) the driver yelled an expletive, hit something, and suddenly one of the front tires was flat. Because I have lots of experience in tires I volunteered to help. Now that I had plenty of gauze on, the only thing hindering me was my lack of oposability on my right hand. We were soon back on the road and I was cracking a joke about it being the 13th and suddenly fear gripped me. Demons work in mysterious ways too. It was at that point that one of the EMTs became possessed and tried to kill me. Luckily I’m pretty good at physical combat, so I was able to fend her off. Then she went for the driver and stabbed him in the neck. We crashed but she was still coming after me. I could tell her leg was broken so I kicked it. That pretty much did it and I ran away. I guy was driving by and saw the whole thing so he picked me up and took me to Lake Tahoe. Tahoe is the biggest high altitude lake in America. It’s almost a mile deep and would cover all of Cali 13 feet deep if spread out! I drove around the area and it was gorgeous. I’m camping near Emerald Bay so for dinner, I took my spaghetti and lemonade up to the lookout point and ate right there. (Left-handed of course ) I tried and tried to get a fiction fire going but it was no use. So I started one with one match instead and then read some of my Einstein book before sleeping. Hopefully the 14th wouldn’t be so evil.

Saturday morning I woke up really early because I had some serious ground to cover. I was on the road at 8. Let’s just say that it takes nearly 10 hours to get to Redwood, and then nearly 9 to get to Crater Lake, and then another 5 to get to Portland. I’m supposed to be at Kevin’s place in Portland Sunday evening at a reasonable hour. Well, with Kevin later is still reasonable, but I’d like to make it before 10 if possible. So I drove all day until 10 and found a KOA campsite in Oregon that was cool. It was nice to sleep on grass instead of rocky sand. I went through the Redwood Forest before sundown and it was magical. I have never felt like trees were alive until I entered that place. There was a moment when I saw two giants standing next to each other and it honestly felt like they were having a conversation. Then suddenly my eyes were opened to the society of the forest with the redwoods acting as the aristocracy. It is probably the closest thing to a rain forest I will wonder through for a long time/maybe ever. Sequoias are huge and pretty tall, but these are densely populated and VERY tall. The one in the picture is over 300 feet and the tallest is 371. Imagine instead of the big blue building downtown Lexington, there was a tree instead. That’s how tall these tree skyscrapers are. Also, with my many hours in the car, I am now into Jeremiah. I couldn’t stand Ecclesiastes. The Teacher was constantly contradicting himself and determined nothing. Even his final “this is the most important thing” statement he had refuted earlier. I really am surprised it’s in the Bible. Isaiah on the other hand MUST be included! Not only does it show the perspective of a prophet for the first time, but it also FINALLY gives us God’s position on many things. When He said, “I blot out your sins for my own sake, because they burden me,” that really started revelations in theology thus far. Now I understand why God would cause so much death and destruction for the sake of purging sin. Isaiah really gives us how much beyond humanity God is. As far as the whole Jesus prophecies, I remember thinking that Hezekiah and Josiah could also have been the fulfillment to many of those. Definitely not all: “Mighty God,” “born of a virgin,” and “bringing a kingdom of peace.” As far as God laying out some guild lines to live by that somehow get the spirit of the law, we haven’t seen really any until now. Isaiah 58 is one of the best chapters (Up there with Romans 8 and Philippians 4) in the whole Bible and all you have to do is read it to understand. The second half is kick-butt awesome. I hope I’m not busting anyone’s bubble here, but Isaiah couldn’t have been all written by the original Isaiah. The last couple of chapters are after the return of the exiles and that is way the heck down the time line. Just thought you’d like to know. I remember learning that there might actually be four different “Isaiahs.” Well, that’s it for California. It was a good nigh-fortnight. Good night to you all as well.