DStilled

Northern Cali

July 15, 2007 on 3:23 am | In Blog |

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.