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!
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