Road Trip Part 6

Day 10:

So this was supposed to be a 10 day road trip so this would be the last day, except we didn't account for the fact that 10 days meant 11 nights, and since we only planned a 9 day trip in case we fell behind but then we didn't fall behind that meant we had 1 day and 2 nights to kill. So, last night we used one of Kyle's extended stay passes in Santa Barbara, and tonight we are staying with my Uncle Richard in Berkley, CA. which is just outside of San Francisco. My Uncle is actually working late tonight, so hes not here he just left the key under the mat and ribs for dinner and the password for the wifi. In other words, my uncle is freaking awesome. But anyway before we got here we drove on CA-1 which is one of the 10 most beautiful roads in the world or the country, or something like that. It lived up to it. The whole stretch we had the pacific ocean next to us and it was just beautiful, pictures to describe it on Facebook. And thats about it for today, about to eat some ribs, yum. Tomorrow we're going into San Francisco to see the city and then finally headed to Santa Cruz, it's gonna be cool to finally say we made it. Love you guys. Leave comments and stuff to make me feel like this is actually being read, tell me what you think, I'd love to hear it.

Road Trip Part 5

So for the first time on my road trip, I have internet 2 nights in a row. That means for a change I don't have to write 4 nights at once and it's actually pretty nice. So carrying on,

Day 9:

So we woke up this morning and headed into Los Angelos, the drive took about an hour, not bad at all compared to what we've been doing :) First we went and saw the Staples Center, which is where the Los Angelos Lakers play, it was really cool even though I don't really like the Lakers. Anyway, then we went to Hollywood and to see the Hollywood sign, which we got some pretty cool pictures of. After that we took the Walk of Fame which is that stretch of Hollywood with the stars all the way down the sidewalk with famous peoples' names in them. Then we got to that Chinese restaurant that has all the actors' hand prints and signatures in front, it's hard to explain but there will be pictures on Facebook. Anyway we ate at Jack in the Box which was awesome, I wish they had them in the Raleigh area. From there we drove down route 1 (gorgeous) to Santa Barbara. For those of you who don't know, route 1 is supposed to be like one of the top 10 most beautiful roads in the country, the entire thing is going along the pacific ocean. Anyway so then we reached Santa Barbara where we're staying tonight with one of Kyle's free extended stay passes. We dropped our stuff in the room and we went to the beach! It was way different. Instead of millions of seashells there were millions of rocks that had been smoothened out by the ocean, some of them were perfect for skipping and we all skipped rocks, we taught Kyle how. Also there was basically a mountain next to the beach, where the sand dunes would usually be in NC. The water was the biggest difference, instead of that greenish color the water was completely blue, it was beautiful. Anyway since then we've just been relaxing in the hotel and thats where I am right now writing this blog. Love you guys!

Road Trip Part 4

Day 7:

So I'll relieve you guys of the suspense. I got up early in the morning and left the other two in the tent to go down to the rangers office and tell them what happened and all that good stuff. Soo I get there and the lady looked me up saw I had a reservation, and said she'd send the park ranger to go kick the people out of my campsite. I drove back to the place in the woods where we camped and helped pack everything up before the ranger got there cuz the lady asked where I had slept and she said I was lucky I didn't get a ticket. So we get it all packed up and we sit at the car waiting, then we get to watch with smiles on our faces as this bum looking guy from new mexico with super long hair gets woken up and booted out of our campsite. He was all like "dude, it was late, I just wanted a place to sleep, I figured I'd pay in the morning." I was thinking "I wonder if he noticed all the "Campgrounds FULL" signs everywhere. Anyway so he drives off, the guys are like alright we'll set up camp, you go check in. So I go to check in and I'm in line behind none other than the bum looking guy from new mexico who stole our place to sleep. We're in line for the same lady who I went and complained to that morning. The guy goes up and explains himself and she sees me behind him, makes the connection, and winks at me. She proceeded to send him on this huge guilt trip about how the people he stole the site from slept on rocks in the woods and got a ticket from the ranger for not being in a campsite. It was hilarious. the guy said something like "well at least it'll make a good story for them" and I piped up and said "yeah, it will" and he turned around and said "it wasn't you was it?" and I was like "yeahhh. that's me" and the look on his face was priceless. it was such an awkward situation for him. Anyway so we got a free night camping in the grand canyons because they charged him for our campsite for that night and gave me my money back. Wow I've typed like a book and its still like 9am :). The good news is the rest of it will be pretty short. We went to an overlook and saw our first real view of the grand canyon and our jaws all dropped. we ran around frantically taking pictures and we weren't even at the good part yet. Then we all made sandwiches, we didn't have spreading knives. Joel used his pocket knife and Kyle and I spread it with our fingers, it was pretty funny. Then we hiked down into the canyon!. We went about a mile and a half down and then the same thing back up again. At the farthest point that we hiked down to we stood out over this edge and it was literally the most awe-inspiring view I've ever seen in my life. This is another post where I'm just gonna stop because pictures are the only way to describe it, and those don't do it justice. This didn't take more than a few hours but it took a ton out of us in terms of energy so we just chilled the rest of the day and relaxed. We went down to the showers and found out it was 2 bucks for an 8 minute shower, it was ridiculous. I got caught still soapy when the shower cut off on me after 8 minutes and they had to bring me another 2 dollars :). Good times. We camped another night and woke up to Day 8.

Day 8:

Today, so it's fresh in my memory. Some of this stuff feels like it happened forever ago because so much has happened in between, I feel like I've been on the road for way more than a week. It sounds cliche but these really are memories that I'll have for the rest of my life, some of the stuff I've seen has just blown me away, and lots of fun times with Kyle and Joel too. God's creation is just incredible. Some places like the Grand Canyon I knew were going to be spectacular and then some places just like on the road, or at a gas station God showed me something like a sunset or a mountain range that wasn't there and then it just showed up when we rounded a corner, and He's blown me away over and over and over again. I've felt tiny countless times on this road trip. Anyway, that was a tangent so back to today. We woke up this morning and packed up camp, ready to be done packing and unpacking the tent and be done sleeping on rocky floors and just be done camping, it had been our third night in a row and we were all so looking forward to sleeping where I'm typing this post now. Which, by the way, is some random lady whos a friend of Kyle's mom and Kyle had never even met her. God provided us a place to stay tonight for sure. Anyway so not a whole lot of eventfulness occurred during the drive today, but we did cross the California state line and take pictures with the Welcome to California sign. We have officially driven from NC to CA. We also made it to Barstow, which is where I-40 ends. It stretches all the way from Wilmington to Barstow, so we made it all the way down 40, which was pretty cool. We ate lunch at I-Hop in Barstow. And that brings us to the present, we made it to Ontario, California. At this random lady's house who none of us had met before we got here and I'm using her wireless internet to write this blog and upload a bunch of pictures. 2 more days, we're seeing LA tomorrow and Hollywood and the Staples Center (where the LA Lakers play) and etc etc and then we're gonna check out the pacific ocean and probably stay at Kyle's other free extended stay pass in Santa Barbara, and then go stay with my Uncle Richard in Berkeley, CA (right outside of San Francisco) and see San Fran and then finally to Santa Cruz for 10 weeks. Let you know how all that goes when I get to it. Keep up the prayers, God is watching out for us big time and I know that has a lot to do with all of you guys bugging him about it all the time :) Love you guys!

Road Trip Part 3

Alrighty, been a few days since I've been able to jump on here and update you guys. It's now day 8, which means I have 4 days to fill you guys in on. Let's see what I can do!

Day 5:

Hmm. Day 5 it's been a while and a TON has happened between then and now. However, some very memorable things happened on day 5. Of note, we drove like 8 hours or so from Loveland, CO to Cortez, CO which was where our campsite was, near mesa verde. So, on the way was one of the interesting moments. On the way down a mountain somewhere in Colorado we see this stop on the side of the highway and we're like sure why not. It's this tourist thing called "Treasure Falls" and it's a huge waterfall! You can see it from the stop by the road in the distance but you can hike up and get really close. Of course, I look at Kyle and say "Hey Kyle, you wanna climb a mountain?" and of course, Kyle is like "sure, let me go get my shoes on." So the path says "Trail Closed." Kyle and I decide we're going to go find out why. We end up going all the way up the closed path, it was closed because it wasn't well maintained and slightly dangerous. Then we continued on up the mountain, after the path ended, it was completely exhausting and probably pretty dangerous, it was almost straight vertical at points and we had to grab onto rocks to make our way up. Eventually we reached the top of the mountain and it was one of the most breathtaking views ever, the road we had just been driving on was tiny and the cars were like dots and right across from us was a big snow-topped mountain. Anyway the second interesting thing we did was try to cook, we tried to do mac and cheese over an open fire at the camp site that we made it to. I'm just going to say it didn't end well and leave it at that, we ended up eating Wendy's. Epic Fail. We went to bed and onto day 6.

Day 6:

Mesa Verde. Heard of it? I hadn't. In fact, we had looked for the nearest place to camp to the four corners (four states at once) and it was the KOA that we chose. So then Kyle's mom says you guys need to go to mesa verde! and I'm like hey thats right like 10 minutes away from where we reserved a campsite. God obviously wanted me to see this. I still don't really know why God wanted me to see it but it was pretty fantastic. They were ancient indian ruins! They were built and inhabited around 1200 A.D. and they were complete villages carved into the sides of the mountains. Pictures are about all I can do to describe this one. Then in the same day we drove to the grand canyon. That night was kinda insane. Grand Canyon National Park is HUGE, and it was dark and we got lost in there trying to find the campsite. Then we were low on gas and had to leave the park to get gas and get our bearings then go back in and try again. While we were outside the park we realized we hadn't eaten yet. Food and Gas were way jacked up prices because there was nothing else within 50 miles. We payed 3.60 a gallon for gas, and I payed almost 9 dollars for a double quarter pounder combo at mcdonalds. Then we go in, and finally find out campsite. But it wasn't ours. Well, it was, but someone else had taken it. It was late and everything was closed and we tried to call the park but no luck, and we were exhausted so we set up camp in the woods between two campsites and went to sleep. (this is one of those moments when you're reading a good book and the chapter ends and you have to start the next chapter because they left you a cliffhanger)

Road Trip Part 2

Day 3

Alright continuing on in my adventures, day 3, the longest drive of the trip. I think our motto on this drive was "It's all downhill from here" because after this beast of a 12 hour drive none of our other drives will be more than like 9 hours. We woke up around 7:30 and hit the road from Oklahoma City at 8. I left a note for the people cleaning our hotel in Oklahoma City thanking them so much for cleaning up after us, and said that I would be praying for them and wrote John 3:16 on there, I wanted to leave a Knowing God Personally booklet but somehow made it out the door for a 10 day road trip without any of those booklets, so I'm trusting God to use that. We left in hopes of reaching Colorado for dinner. A goal that in the end, we did achieve. But many things occurred before that point. Lots of video games and jamming out to music and reading and watching movies for one thing. This was the first day we really did get tired of being in a car. If you don't know, Oklahoma and Kansas (both of which we drove through) are nothing but flat plains the entire way, nothing to see the entire time you are driving, so that coupled with the fact that it was our longest drive made it a longggg day. Oh and I'm ADD so now while I'm trying to recall things about day 3 I'm going to remember some things I left out of my day 2 post and right them on here. We crossed over the Mississippi River into Arkansas, which was pretty sweet, and at some gas station in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma we saw one of the prettiest sunsets I've ever seen. God blew me away because of all the amazing places I'm going during these 10 days, the last place I expected him to reveal his glory to me was at that gas station in Oklahoma. Anyway, now that my ADD moment is over, back to day 3. Obviously not much happened that day since I'm having such a hard time remembering anything exciting that happened. We did stop at Kyle's friends house in Hays, Kansas. He did work crew as well last summer at Frontier Ranch in Colorado and this was one of his friends from work crew. Her name was Whitney. Then we got to Denver, Colorado to have dinner at my Cousins' house because my Aunt and Uncles' kitchen stove caught on fire and was currently unusable. We helped lay some stones for my Cousin, she was making a stone pathway in front of her house, I have pictures of that too. We earned our keep for having a meal and a place to stay. I got to meet my second cousin Ellie, named after my mom. She was adorable. Then we traveled another hour from Denver to Loveland to stay the night with my Aunt and Uncle. We stayed in the little screened in area in her backyard which was really cool and rustic, again pictures to illustrate this will be on facebook.

Day 4

Okay so while Day 3 was probably the worst day of the trip so far, day 4 was probably the best. It took forever to get to Colorado but once we got here it was so worth it. First of all, we finally got to sleep in. Day 4 was our first day that we didn't have to get up at like 7 or 8 and hit the road for like 9-12 hours, we had no rush. So, we slept until 10 o clock, and with the time zone difference we had gotten tired and went to bed around 10 the night before so we had like a solid 12 hours of sleep, it felt incredible. Then, we had breakfast, showered, made lunch, and drove to the Rocky Mountain National Park. We basically spent all day exploring the Rocky Mountains. We also experienced a blizzard in the middle of may. We drove up into the mountains and we were on our way to this place inside the park called bear lake when it started snowing. It was super windy too, blowing the snow right at us at what must have been at least 30 mph. So basically, it was a thunder storm but we were so high up that it became a snow storm. I have pictures of this experience too, it was completely crazy and unexpected, and unplanned for. At least we wore semi-warm clothing because we planned for it to be chilly in the high altitude, but we definitely did not plan for snow clothing, or gloves, or hats. Anyway we explored the mountains some more, saw some elk, had some good times, bought some Rocky Mountain National Park T-shirts, and headed back to Loveland, with even like an hour and a half to just chill before dinner. I was so glad for a day not on the road, we all needed it. We had no idea how much we were going to need it when we planned it either, so that was God. His creation has been blowing me away this entire trip, but the mountains have such a way of making you feel small and realizing just how big and powerful and artistic He is. I love the mountains. Then we grabbed dinner, another free home cooked meal :) at my Aunts' friends' house. She had a beautiful view of the mountains from her back deck, unfortunately I didn't bring my camera to their house for dinner. It was really relaxing and we had good conversation and told them all about our trip and our majors and life plans and all the usual old people questions :) haha. Then I did their dishes for them :). Again, earning my keep. Finally, I've made it up into the present with this epic story. Now, I'm back at my Aunt and Uncles' house, finally getting online to update all of you guys, getting ready to sleep in that rustic screened in area again, doing some laundry for the rest of our trip, and then leaving in the morning for Mesa Verde, which I can't wait for. Thank you all for caring enough to read all about my adventures, and for continuing to pray for me and for safe travel and an awesome summer, it's definitely off to a great start. Love you guys! More to come from the last 6 days of our road trip, but maybe not until I get to Santa Cruz.

Road Trip Part 1

Alright so I finally have found the time to make this thing, and I'm four days into the trip, so now it's time to try and recall everything thats happened in the past 4 days, and that's a lot. So let's start with Day 1:

So day 1 we head out of my house in Apex around 7am, or at least that was the plan, we probably ended up heading out around 7:30-8. Anyway, pretty uneventful drive up until the smoky mountains, thats where we hit a thunder storm. It was of course, my turn to drive during said thunder storm. But even more of an adventure than that was Joel who was in the back seat at the time, he realized that since we had our straps from the car top carrier wrapped around the inside of the car that they were starting to become drenched and leaking in the back of the car, so he was going to work with a roll of paper towels and water coming in from the straps on both the right and left sides of the car. So then we get through that and end up in Knoxville, where I met a few good friends for lunch. A.J. Pawel and John Barr. This was ironic because I had one friend from high school who was going to college in Knoxville, and one friend from college who was back at home in Knoxville, both UT fans and both rather hilarious and southern, they got along great. Becky, if you are reading this picture the Peyton Manning guy from the super bowl party and John Barr having lunch, you will laugh. Anyway it was great to see both of them and moving on we didn't really stop again until Nashville, where I got to see my friend Michael Scott from work crew last summer. For those of you who don't know, which is most of you, Michael was one of my roommates, and worked with me in the pits (doing dishes) and he was a special needs guy. He is 21 but has the heart and mind of a child, he loves everyone around him no matter what and is completely innocent, I love Michael, and so did Joel and Kyle (the guys who are road tripping with me). So next stop Franklin, TN where Kyle's Aunt and Uncle lived, where we'd be staying that night. They lived on a farm, surrounded by a ton of other farms, and it was just really peaceful and beautiful out there and lots of fresh air, great relaxing start to the trip. Kyle's Aunt made us all a great home cooked country meal to cap off a great first day.

Day 2:

Wow, I know you've all read a lot now and that was just day one, now picture actually experiencing all that haha and that was only the beginning. So day 2 I wake up and go on a tour of Franklin with Kyle's Uncle. On this tour I found out that that was the richest county in America, everyone owned acre upon acre of beautiful lush farm land, and most of it was owned by country stars. He took me to see Kicks Brooks house, from Brooks and Dunn. He took me to see Alan Jackson's house. He took me to see Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's house. He took me to see Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman's house. It was amazing, especially for someone who loves country music. I even have pictures of the Texas Longhorns on Kicks Brooks farm. Then we went back for breakfast, again a great home cooked meal. We proceeded to hit the road for Memphis to hangout, and then Oklahoma City to see the city and sleep, all in the same day. Memphis however, never happened. Right before we got to Jackson, TN. which is like 1/3 of the way between Franklin and Memphis, I-40 came to a stop, traffic jam. Then closed down to one lane. I guess they were doing some work we got briefly detoured and sent back on 40. However, this traffic jam was probably just as good as Memphis, why you might ask? Because we made the most of it. When traffic stopped, we got out and did a chinese fire drill, on 1-40. Yeah, we did a chinese fire drill on the giant highway that spans across America. When we did it the mini van behind us was laughing and gave us the thumbs up. A few minutes later we're chatting it up and all of a sudden the older couple, parents, from the mini van behind us comes running around our car. We had to do a double take. Not to be outdone, these parents had followed our lead and done their own chinese fire drill on 1-40 right around our car. We burst out in applause and hysterical laughter. But thats not the end of our traffic jam adventures. When they condensed traffic to one lane, we got out of the car and used the now empty right lane to take a picture laying down in the middle of I-40, which is an epic picture. Anyway then when we stopped for Wendy's at dinner that night I prayed over our food and the manager came and brought us 3 large fries, one for each of us, for free, and said it was because not many people pray in public and she likes to see that and thought it was admirable. So God provided us large french fries, it was pretty sweet. Then we stayed in an extended stay in Oklahoma City, which Kyle got a free ticket to through his work. Worth noting was that when we got there there was a fire drill going on, and a fire truck outside, which was a little scary. Just a drill though, then we went to sleep.