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.
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