Bare "Bear" Bishop

2010-12-15T11:30:00.003-06:00

Hey Everyone, I know I have not been posting regularly lately. I am going to try to narrow down my online presence and focus on just a few locations to house all of my online content. Please check out my wedding photography website: www.AndrewAndSamPhotography.com

A Landscape and some other stuff

2010-10-14T11:29:00.003-05:00

Landscape a (Whenever I get around to it) Project - #9 GoldenGate Bridge

2010-09-16T16:21:00.003-05:00

"GoldenGate Bridge"

20" x 10"

Andrew Bishop

Landscape a (Whenever I get around to it) Project - #8 California Coastline, Northern California

2010-09-15T16:43:00.002-05:00

"California Coastline"

10" x 20"

Andrew Bishop

Landscape a day Project - #7 Bridal Veil Falls, British Colombia

2010-08-14T20:51:00.002-05:00

"Bridal Veil Falls, British Colombia"

20" x 10"

Andrew Bishop

Taken in a small, little visited park on the side of the road in BC.

Landscape a day Project - #6 Kansas

2010-08-04T11:42:00.002-05:00

"Kansas"

10" x 20"

Andrew Bishop

Taken from the window of my truck while driving through Kansas.

Landscape a Day Project - #5 Valdez Shoreline

2010-08-03T15:35:00.001-05:00

"Valdez Shoreline"

10" x 20"

Andrew Bishop

This image was shot on a trip that I made to Alaska with my father.

Landscape a Day Project - #4 Big Bend Ranch House

2010-08-02T16:54:00.002-05:00

"Big Bend Ranch House"

10" x 20"

Andrew Bishop

I found this ranch house while hiking through the desert in Big Bend National Park in southwestern Texas.

Landscape a Day Project - #3 Big Bend

2010-07-27T19:07:00.001-05:00

"Big Bend"

Andrew Bishop

10" x 20"

this image was taken from the top of a massive hill in Big Bend National Park. This is the first landscape I ever took while hiking in the buff.

Landscape a Day Project - #2 Mt Mckinley Southern Face

2010-07-26T12:29:00.002-05:00

"Mt Mckinley Southern Face"

Andrew Bishop

10" x 20"

A view of the southern face of Mt Mckinley. I shot this image on my road trip with my dad. I have a 60 image panorama that I will stitch together just as soon as I get access to a supercomputer.

Landscape a Day Project - #1 Amistad

2010-07-25T15:13:00.001-05:00

"Lake on Fire"

Andrew Bishop

10" x 20"

This image was shot on the Lake Amistad Reservoir on the border between west Texas and Mexico.

After a long Hiatus

2010-07-24T18:54:00.004-05:00

As you have almost certainly noticed, I took a little break from blogging for the last couple of months that I was in the Jungles of Costa Rica. Life circumstances became quite overwhelming, and my blog, sadly, got placed on a back burner. My life did not stop, though, and I have quite a lot to catch you up on. Thus I present to you:

The Last Few Months of Andrew's Life, Montage!

Andrew clears a pasture! Andrew's neighbor poisons the pasture. Andrew gets a ton of new farmyard animals. Several of those farmyard animals produce more farmyard animals. Andrew is overwhelmed by the cuteness of the baby chicks in his yard. Andrew goes to Panama with Yancy Reach. Andrew translates for Panamanian immigration officials. Andrew helps an African War refugee avoid jail. Andrew visits the best fair of his life, with 19 city blocks of awesome! Andrew Meets some Swedes and then hikes with Yancy 18.6 miles up and down a volcano at midnight with only one working flashlight. Andrew and Yancy see a giant jungle cat. Andrew and Yancy pray for angels to protect them from said jungle cat. Two Canadians, a Britt, and an American come cussing up the mountain. The Jungle cat magically transforms into a sheep. Andrew and Yancy sleep in a seemingly abandoned building at the top of the mountain, and are greeted by a Panamanian in the morning. Andrew and Yancy go to the best beach in the world and meet an awesome girl. Yancy misses his flight home. Andrew and Yancy are met by the same girl who joins them on a trip to the Nicoya Peninsula. Yancy finally gets home, Andrew and the girl go do missions work on the farm. The girl gets angry and leaves. Andrew is depressed and decides to give fancy water catchment systems to his neighbors with the help of Grace Church! Andrew comes home and does nothing productive for two months, except of course starting the most awesome photography company ever with his friend Samantha Nandez

http://www.AndrewandSamPhotography.com

http://www.facebook.com/SamanthaNandezPhotography

http://samanthanandez.blogspot.com/

Andrew dates a really awesome girl for a couple of weeks. She is a lesbian and freaks out after dating Andrew for just a little while, but they are cool now, just not together. Andrew does not get some jobs he applied for. Andrew scores 1460 out of 1600 on the GRE! Andrew looks in his bank account and finds nothing. Andrew gets scared and starts hunting for ways to make money fast and legally. Andrew considers becoming homeless. Andrew writes this blog post.

I hope you enjoyed the last several months of my life as much as I did! Besides hunting for ways to make a quick buck, I am currently processing images from my travels and trying to put together a body of work. for the next month and a half, I hope to upload one finished landscape a day for your viewing pleasure. All of these landscapes are for sale, so shoot me an email if one strikes your fancy!

Bare Bishop

A Bump on the Rump

2010-04-18T09:55:00.000-05:00

Just in case you ever though of buying cattle, Don’t. They very quickly become a pain in the neck when they start jumping fences to get into your front yard, but they are especially bad when you have to transport them along a half mile jungle trail to get them home from the north pasture. The problem is that cattle have this curious character flaw that compels them to take any possible side trail that they can find, regardless of whether or not that trail leads straight into deep jungle and swamp. It seems like the only important characteristic that I cow uses in selecting which trail to walk down, is whether or not you want them to walk down that trail. The only way I was finally able to get my cattle home was to bribe them with salt, which meant that for the entire half mile hike, I had the constant companion of a hungry bull head butting me in an attempt to get my bowl of salt.

2010-04-18T09:50:00.000-05:00

There are few jobs that I hate more in life than hauling lumber, especially freshly cut, heavy, wet, tropical lumber. For that reason, I guess today is my lucky day.

For my whole life I have been ashamed of my inability to play team sports. I have tried to compensate for this important gap in my life as a man by being good at other things such as spear throwing, shooting, running, hiking, and other manly outdoor sports, but try as I might, I cannot move past the shame that I feel every time someone is watching a football game and I don’t know what is going on. I have been so ashamed by my lack of knowledge, that I have been unwilling to risk the humiliation involved in trying to actually learn a sport at my advanced age. At least, that was the case until I came to Costa Rica.

For the past month I have been playing soccer regularly with my neighbors. I have gotten better to the point that I am no longer ashamed, and I have even scored a few goals. It is extremely difficult to play in the slippery mud, so I invested in a cheap pair of soccer cleats, which improved my playing tremendously. There is only one catch. The cleats have moved me out of the world of slipping and falling every 5 minutes, into the world of too much traction and sprained ankles.

Yesterday, I was trying to steal the ball from a particularly agile opponent named Daniel, when my foot planted the wrong way, and with a loud “Pop!” I was on the ground, holding my ankle and trying not to cuss. It was a very respectable sprain, one that merited me limping off the field for all of ten minutes, before returning to play stationary defense in front of the goal.

I managed to walk the half mile home that evening, but I woke about 10 times during the night because of the pain, and then this morning I found myself almost unable to walk. Pain killers and working with the joint have helped to improve the situation so that I can now walk around the house and yard (which is good considering that I am here by myself while Juan is with his family), but luckily I am not well enough to haul the lumber that we are cutting for the corral. I guess today really is my lucky day!

2010-04-14T09:47:00.000-05:00

As a child, I wanted to believe that if I was a Christian and served God, my life would be happy all the time. I thought that life was about making yourself as happy as possible and protecting yourself from as much pain as you could. I no longer believe that. Now I see God and life on earth as something to be cherished and appreciated, but not as something that will always be happy. Part of growing is learning to cherish even the sad parts of life. One line from Stranger in a Strange Land says that the Martians would spend several thousand years Grokking (knowing and understanding) Earth and Humans, and then, once they had properly Grokked and Cherished and hated Earth, they would destroy it. I don’t necessarily agree with the Martian attitude toward Cherishing, but I do think that it paints a powerful picture.

Juan is going through one of those painful times in life at this moment. We just received word from the police that his grandfather has passed away in San Jose. The death was not unexpected (should death ever be unexpected?), but nevertheless, it is painful to have someone die. The typle evangelical attitude toward death is that, in theory at least, we should be happy and rejoice at funerals, and those times should be used to preach the Gospel. I definitely agree with some of the theory behind this attitude. A funeral is a great way to preach the Gospel, and we should both rejoice in the life of our loved ones, and in the new life that a believer now has for eternity. I don’t, however, believe in trying to make family members of the deceased feel happy at funerals.

I tend to agree more with the Jewish approach toward death, which involves a short time of symbolic death (mourning, uncomforted and unbothered by the need to be a part of the living world), followed by an extended and gradual period of being comforted and gradually reentering the world of the living. When our loved ones die, we die with them, and I believe that it is important to recognize that.

Please pray for Juan and his family. Even though you will not read this till long after the death of his Grandfather, I do not believe that G-d is any more bound by the time of our prayers than he is by the walls of our church.

Beware of Alligator

2010-04-10T09:46:00.000-05:00

One of the first rules of being a teenage boy is that Manliness is next to G-dliness. I grew up beneath the iron fisted tyranny of this law, and I was not alone. It is practically impossible for a teenage boy to walk past a mirror without stopping to repeat this mantra while doing his best impersonation of a Michelangelo sculpture. Even in the animal kingdom I can see this law being observed on a regular basis in the form of the 17 young bulls that are constantly butting heads in attempt to establish their dominance over our small heard.

My teenage neighbors are no exception to this law. It is hard for me to recall a single afternoon spent with 14 year old Alfredo that did not involve some form of bloody knuckles, pushups, arm wrestling, boxing, racing, or some other type of competition. Thus, I was not terribly surprised the other day when Alfredo invited me for a friendly swim. I believe his exact words were, “Vamos a cruzar el rio para ver quien llegara primero.” Which can be roughly translated as, “Lets go swim across the river to see who can get to the other side first.”

After many comments about alligators smelling blood in the water, we had stripped off the majority of our clothes and were swimming with all our strength to see who would be the first to cross the hundred yards of swift currents and deadly wildlife. A small convoy of canoes trailed close behind us in the case of an emergency.

I swam with all the strength I could muster, trying hard to regulate my breathing and push my body through the water with the best possible technique. I managed to maintain a short lead over Alfredo for most of the crossing, but as we got within 20 yards of the finish, I saw a miracle take place. Suddenly Alfredo was swimming faster, and his head was high out of the water! At first I was shocked, until the finger tips of my left hand brushed the sand bar beneath me. Our swim had turned into a foot race. Amidst cries of cheater, and splashes of water, I raced with Alfredo to the muddy banks of the shallow river.

As I collapsed into the canoe, I was satisfied, knowing that I had once again proven that I was manlier than a 14 year old boy. Oh, sweet victory.

2010-04-07T09:42:00.000-05:00

It is hard for me to write out here in Delta. It feels like I am always busy, but nothing ever happens here. There is a weird time distortion that takes place on the river. Nobody is in a hurry, and time passes slowly. The most exciting events in my recent life have been the planting of a small garden, baking, and repairing a damaged board in the kitchen floor. I have been studying for the GRE, and I am mildly excited about the prospect of graduate school. I have also been thinking about doing freelance photography, and I am more excited about that. The thing that has me the most excited is, as usual, relational. I cannot wait to see certain people back home.

I finished Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinland, a couple of days ago. I was most impressed by the character of Jubal Harshaw, a cranky old man who is said to be the only human who can grok (understand) without speaking Martian. This character is even more interesting to me than ****Mr. Universe**** in The Watchmen.

In a discussion toward the end of the book, Jubal defines love as “a state of being in which ones own wellbeing is directly tied to the wellbeing of another.” While I do not accept this definition as final, nor would I completely accept any definition of love that came from a human, I do consider it to be one of the better attempts to define an indefinable word that I have come across. After reading this, I spent a while considering all of my relationships and trying to determine who I really loved according to this definition. I was surprised at how neatly the results coincided with the people that I already believed that I love. The most valuable insight that I gained from this was the realization that my mother loves me, my dad, and my siblings (and strangers) more than anyone else that I have ever seen. Her well being is so intimately tied up in our own that it is impossible for any of us to suffer without her suffering, or be happy without her being happy (she has somehow learned to be happy and suffer at the same time, which is an impressive feat).

I was amazed to think about how deeply I am known by my mom, and how little that is in comparison to how I am known by G-d. I want to know, and I want to be known. I believe that this is fundamental to how and why G-d made me.

2010-04-04T09:38:00.000-05:00

“Dreams are a way for your mind to process potential reactions to various scenarios (or fears), so that when the scenario actually takes place, you will know how, or how not, to react.”

About a week ago, I had a dream that my father had decided to become an orthodox Jew. I found the idea extremely upsetting for some reason. I particularly remember being upset when I realized that my mom would have to buy two new complete sets of dishes and cookware, one for dairy products, and one for meat.

A few days later, I had a dream that I was on a family vacation at a tropical beach. My brother in Law was there. He had everything so orchestrated and planned out, that it left no time for me to actually hang out with him and enjoy his company. Every attempt I made to get him to deviate from his plan and actually hang out with me was met with cheerfully obstinate refusal.

The third dream that I had was different from the first two. The first two dreams seemed to be my mind processing extreme versions of fears that I have with respect to some of my closest relationships.

In my third dream, I was dating a girl that I care about greatly. This dream was not about dealing with fear. This dream was about finally gaining a new understanding of my friend. For so long, I have held this friend on a very high pedestal. When I think of this girl, I think of beauty and romance. I have always thought of her as having a pure life, at least a form of a pure life. In my mind, she is on a never-ending quest for beauty, a quest that in my opinion can only have one end (or one beginning).

Through this dream, I felt peace in our relationship. Rather than thinking of her as this inhuman work of art, I was finally able to look at her and honestly say, “I know that you are just a person, but you are an extraordinary person.” This realization has brought me some peace that I did not know that I lacked. She is just a person, like you and like me. She is an extraordinary person. I appreciate her.

Looks Like Rain

2010-04-01T09:02:00.000-05:00

It was cold this morning. It has been cold and windy here since the floods came. In a lot of ways, the floods in Delta are like snow in Alabama. One morning you just wake up and your yard is unexpectedly full of thousands of gallons of water. Everything is much prettier during the flood, and we all get a vacation from work. Instead of trying to work in all of this water, we do fun things like hunt, visit with neighbors, and hike through a foot and a half of water. The main difference is that the floods aren’t crystalline, and last a lot longer than snow in Alabama.

Joshua, our resident Canadian, really wanted to finish his canoe quickly so that he can travel to San Juan on the 15th, and hopefully make it all the way to the Rama, a Nicaraguan indigenous group, where he hopes to spend the rest of the time working. To finish his canoe, he needs a sander so that he can smooth the wood and fiberglass before adding paint. Our neighbor has agreed to loan us his sander if we can just come and get it.

The problem is that between our house and the neighbor’s house there is a 1000 meter path that crosses one really deep and fast moving creek, and about 5 smaller but still fast and powerful creeks. Almost the entire trail between here and there is completely covered in water. There is really no good way to describe the adventure that ensued, so I will try and let pictures do my talking.

Oh don't worry, Andrew can do it

2010-03-29T08:58:00.002-05:00

Axiomatic – taken as given; possessing self-evident truth

Only a few minutes before, I put down the book I was using to prepare for the GRE (a test needed to apply to many graduate study programs). I was pleased with the amount of vocabulary that I knew or partially understood. Using the rain as an excuse to not weed the flower beds anymore, a got out my copy of Stranger in a Strange Land and began to read. After only a few pages, I heard voices in the comedor. That is when the Chaos started.

The students, and teacher, had arrived for the missionary training school, along with Joel, the man in charge of the farm, and his family. For the next 48 hours, I was running constantly, finding building supplies for the neighbors, carrying bags for Joel, serving food, running errands for Ana, shoveling manure, trying to take a bath (we ran out of water before I could rinse), and generally trying to help everyone with everything all at once. The icing on the cake was when I was asked at 9:30 at night (past bedtime) to preach the next morning.

I did not prepare at all that night, knowing how important sleep is. The next morning, I cleaned up, borrowed a shirt, and began praying and listening for the word of G-d. He led me to Matthew, where I taught out of the Sermon on the Mount. The main thrust of the message is a part of the scriptures where Jesus says that a bad tree cannot produce good fruit, and a good tree cannot produce bad fruit. Jesus also says that in the end many will cry out to G-d, and he will say “I do not know you”, and that if we truly believe in him, we will do G-d’s will.

After teaching in Media Vuelta, I was able to spend a bit of time visiting with Brandi, a friend who used to work with Palmas de Mamre, and who is now living in Media Vuelta, and married to Andre, another friend of ours and native Costa Rican. After visiting with them, we finally turned our boat toward Delta and began our journey “home”.

How to Farm Underwater

The teacher for this week at the missionary training school is a Professor of mechanical engineering who moved to the U.S. from India 43 years ago. Dr. Job Ebenezer focuses his work on developing appropriate technologies for the poor around the world. These technologies include vertical gardens which we will be trying at Delta because the will not be affected by the floods, as well as bicycle powered mechanical devices. He chose to work with bicycles because unlike other forms of renewable energy, they are cheap, readily available in poor areas, can be moved to power many different devices, and can also serve as transportation.

To find out more about Dr. Job and his work, you can visit his website at www.technologyforthepoor.com . If that link does not work, I will find one that does when I get home.

Pass the Red Sludge

2010-03-27T08:57:00.001-05:00

“I’m hungry too. Will you hand me that bowl?”

We sit in our 1970s Land Rover, eating day old stir-fry out of metal bowls. To our right is a small, green, concrete house. To our left is a steep dirt embankment, draped in vines and roots, and lightly feathered with small green ferns. I am amused that, despite present circumstances, our first reaction is to eat lunch, knowing that somehow God will work it out.

A few seconds before, we were happily bumping down a gravel road in Costa Rica, making our way to our farm, when suddenly our engine just sputtered to a halt. To a sane person, this would be a problem, but we are not sane people. At Palmas de Mamre, we are so used to things not working, especially that annoying yellow Land Rover, that it is no longer natural for us to panic when things go wrong. Instead, we start praying, and then start thinking, and G-d always seems to present a solution.

In this case, the solution came in the form of a friend that Ana had not seen in a long time, so long in fact that she could not remember who he was at first. This friend of Ana’s came driving down the road right about the time that we finished our food. On top of the random appearance of a long forgotten friend, the gentleman’s son just happened to be a mechanic who worked on Land Rovers. In just a few minutes, they had us driving down the road again. A few minutes later we broke down again, and this time the son showed up with a full set of tools, and while the father gave us a 3 hour ride, the son dismantled and cleaned the gas tank of our Land Rover, pouring a thick red paste of mud and rust from the bottom of the tank.

Is G-d not spectacular in the ways that he chooses to work?

To all of my wonderful readers!

2010-02-06T10:50:00.002-06:00

I apologize for the long delays. As you know, I am currently in Costa Rica, and my internet access is limited. At the moment I am at an internet cafe, and because I have no jump drive, I cannot transfer blog posts from my computer to the computer that I am using. Please do not think that I hve stopped posting for ever. I am still writing, and when I finally get back to what we often refer to as civilization, I will regale you with extensive tales of my varied and sundry adventures on the frontera. Upcoming post topics include stupid cows, sprained ankles, transriver crossings, and my exciting run in with a jungle cat. I hope to share with you again as soon as possible!

Andrew

Last Game of the Year

2010-01-19T20:29:00.000-06:00

Sheets of rain soak the ground in our small jungle clearing. Our bare feet churn the field into a stream of mud and grass as every drop of rain swells the ranks of the Caño Bravo River on its steady march toward the sea. Bruises and mud are my war paint. My lungs burn as I streak down the field. An opening forms in the enemy ranks, and my brother in arms takes the shot. His aim is usually excellent, but his feet are wet and the target is small. The ball goes left and the enemy rushes in for an interception. I run. I run as hard as I can. I run a little bit harder. My opponent is closer and more skilled, but I want it more. I slide. My body cuts a path through the mud and, for the first time ever, my aim is good. I drill the ball the last 5 meters into the goal. I score. I score the first soccer goal of my life in a rain soaked field in Costa Rica, against people who speak no English. I score in a goal that is two feet wide.

Anticipation

2010-01-19T20:28:00.000-06:00

It feels like Christmas and home are just around the corner. I have been pretty homesick this trip. I just feel like I am missing out on all of my relationships. There are a lot of great things about Delta, and I love my friends here (especially Juan, Herol, and Joel), but it will be nice to spend some time with my close friends and family.

I don’t really know how to describe all that I am feeling. I want to do this water catchment project, but I am also ready to be home for good. I hope that I am able to take full advantage of my time here to serve Christ, and I hope that he gives me a good attitude for the rest of my time in Costa Rica.

Brita

2010-01-17T20:26:00.000-06:00

I am about to revise my letter to Ana. I have been talking with the pastor next door, as well as some of my neighbors, and I am starting to get a better sense of the needs that people have on the river. I am going to try to talk with Ana about shifting my mission a bit.

The zone that I live in is called Delta, and it is one of the poorest places in Costa Rica (which is admittedly one of the richest countries in Central America). The area is so difficult that, during the annual floods, the Red Cross brings sacks of food to each family on the river to help sustain them. The families here have no clean drinking water, no electricity (except for a couple of families with generators), and the majority have less than a fifth grade education. The people here know how to live in this environment, and it is not a struggle for them to survive, but there is a lot that could be done to improve their standard of living as well.

As I was sitting in the boat riding back from Barra, Pastor Carlos Catilla asked me if I knew of any groups that did work with proving systems for making clean drinking water (wells do not work here because of the shallow swampy terrain and contaminated ground water). I told him that there were many groups like that, and that I even had a little bit of training in that area. I started to tell him about rainwater catchment systems, which would be the cheapest, easiest, and most reliable way for them to harvest clean drinking water in a rainy region like Delta. He asked me if there was something I could do to raise the support to have rainwater catchment systems installed on the 16 homes in this zone of the river.

I have become really excited about the potential of this project. I need to talk to Ana, and I need to look up some numbers, but I think that we can provide the families around here with clean drinking water for a relatively low cost. In a high rain area like Costa Rica, you do not have to have very many feet of gutters to harvest enough rain for a good sized family. I need to price the gutters, spigots, and a special filter that my sustainability teacher taught us how to make. If the price is low enough, we can provide each family with a set of gutters, a filter, and a spigot, and most of the families here will be able to provide their own water tank.

Please pray for this. For this to happen it has to be the will of God. If it is his will, then the problem of finding finances to do this project, and getting Ana’s permission are in his hands.

Oral Hygiene

2010-01-15T20:24:00.000-06:00

Periodically medical and dental teams will come to the town of Barra (1.5 hours by boat) and provide free medical care to the Costa Ricans living on the river. My neighbors came by a few days ago and told me about a group of Christian gringos that were holding a free dental clinic in Barra. The neighboring pastor told me to be ready to go at 6, and he would pick me up in his boat.

At 7:30 we got underway, and by nine we were in Barra. I felt so awkward, standing in line with my Costa Rican neighbors, trying to figure out how I was going to ask the gringos to give me free dental care. I figured they would probably think I was a tourist, or would not have time for me because I could pay a hefty sum of money and get my teeth cleaned in the states. Man was I wrong.

The group was incredibly friendly. They were a team sent out by Christian Dental Fellowship, an organization that sends teams of dental students all over Latin America and Africa, with the goal of inspiring them to find ways to use their dentistry as a ministry to build the kingdom.

They made me feel like a prince, everyone coming by to introduce themselves and hear my story. They even invited me to eat lunch with them. When it was all said and done, I had a set of clean teeth, a bunch of new missionary connections, and a bit of perspective on what these missionary groups look like to my friends and neighbors here on the river.

Feelin Good

2010-01-13T20:23:00.000-06:00

I have been more at peace ever since I wrote that letter to Ana. I have been sick for a while, but after I wrote that letter, my stomach started to feel a lot better. I think I was stressed out, and my stress was causing a lot of my sickness.

It is so much more peaceful at the farm alone.

Juan is in San Jose visiting his grandfather who has a broken hip, cancer, and some other ailments that I cannot remember. His grandfather said that he did not want to see anyone except for Juan. Juan is a strong spiritual influence within his family, and I am praying that his grandfather will come to know Christ during this visit, and also for his health.

Joshua left for San Juan twice yesterday. He forgot his passport on his first attempt and had to return to the farm and then find someone to carry him back to the Nicaraguan guard post where he can catch the public boat.

Since they have been gone, I have accomplished a lot. I have scrubbed the soot from all of our pots, cleaned the kitchen, bought a new cylinder of gas, washed my sheets, played soccer, started building a new set of stairs for the dock, ate dinner with the neighbors, went spear fishing for Sabalo in the river with no success, and had some very good spiritual conversations with one of the neighbors named Joel. Joel is very smart, and knows a lot of theology, but does not consider himself to be a Christian.

I have been rereading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller for the last couple of days. I love to reread books. I have read The Lord of the Rings three times, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn five times, and The Hobbit 17 times. Of all of Donald Miller’s books, I think that this one ties with Blue Like Jazz as his best. It is impossible for me to read this without wanting to change my life and make it more meaningful.

I was thinking about some of the different themes that he talks about in his quest to make his life into a better story. One of the things that he talks about is a failed relationship. He talks about his one most serious attempt at a relationship, and how it fell apart even as they were considering marriage. I started thinking about the things that make a relationship good and the things that make a relationship fail. I thought about what Donald Miller learned from his failed relationship.

He had always placed romantic love on a pedestal, secretly believing that it was a magic key to fulfillment and a good life. He believed that a wife could take away your loneliness and replace it with contentment. He believed that a wife equaled a good life story.

Donald Miller no longer believes this, and neither do I. As I sat here on the porch, thinking about what makes a relationship good, and what a marriage should be, I began to think that what I want in a marriage is like Miller says in his book, “Neither needed the other to make everything okay. They were simply content to have good company through life’s conflicts.” I don’t want my wife to complete me, because she is just a person and cannot possibly complete me. What I want is someone who wants to share a life story with me. I want someone who appreciates the things that I care about, and who cares about things that I appreciate. I want someone who feels a compatible desire in their life to Love and serve G-d in the way that he is calling us. I want someone who is peaceful, not quarrelsome, and who is content with any station in life.

Dear Ana

2010-01-11T20:14:00.000-06:00

I was feeling discouraged before I came home from Costa Rica for Christmas. While discouraged, I wrote this letter to the lady in charge of the mission. I wanted to share it with all of you because I thought it would help you see some of the challenges of ministry.

Dear Ana,

I Love you and I am proud of you. You work harder than almost anyone that I know, and you do it out of a true heart to serve the L-rd. Your dedication and self sacrifice is an inspiration to me and many other people. I consider you to be family and it is a joy to me whenever I get to see you. I admire the hard work that you have poured into the missions here in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. The missions work of Ramon, Gonzalos, and Leesa all stand as a legacy of the work that the Lord is doing through you. I pray that your spiritual family will continue to grow and fill with children and grandchildren. I know that you have had a huge impact on how I view ministry. Your example has helped to teach me that ministry should be done by faith, believing that the L-rd will work out the impossible things because it is more to his glory to work out the impossible. Your example has also taught me that there are true followers of Christ in the world, not motivated by selfish desire or conceit. I have met many other ministers and missionaries that I did not feel where pure in their motivation, but I have never had to wonder about that with you.

I want to speak with you because Delta is not what I was expecting, and I am having a very hard time here. I am used to expecting the unexpected, but this is a different type of thing. For most of the last month I have been depressed to be here. I have become accustomed to a rapid pace of ministry, spending time almost daily with my students in Alabama, becoming deeply involved in their lives, acting as a spiritual and life mentor for them as well as for several of my friends. It is a hard change for me to go from that to doing very little in the Delta. Yes there are work projects, and I participate in them, but that is neither my gifting nor why I came to Costa Rica. Opportunities for ministry here seem few and far between. I don’t feel like I have been doing much discipleship with Juan (he really does not seem to need very much), and the only church services and Bible studies that we have done are on Sundays in Jobo. These are good, but because of the cultural and language differences as well as the distance, I cannot reach and impact these people the way I want to. As far as the other schools, they are for the most part without teachers.

It is not that I do not see that there are opportunities to minister here, clearly there are, but the ministry is different than what I feel called to, and the opportunities are fewer than I expected based off of our previous conversations. I believe that people like Joshua who have a passion for preaching and evangelism are much better suited for this mission field, whereas my gifts are more aligned with mercy, compassion, and love, which is better suited to the reconciliation and discipleship ministries that I naturally gravitate toward. I just don’t feel like I am accomplishing much out here, which is frustrating because I know what I could be doing back home.

I feel like, when you offered me the opportunity to come work out here last January, I got excited about the idea of international missions and the glamour associated with this lifestyle among the church community and made a commitment without truly waiting to hear from G-d whether it was his will or not for me to come. Ever since I made that commitment I have not felt peace about it, and I have definitely not found peace here. I think this lack of peace may be manifesting itself in the stomach problems I have had for the last couple of weeks.

I am willing (but not excited) to complete my commitment as a Christian should, but I wanted to communicate all of this to you so you would know how I felt. I do not think I will be here for more than my commitment, although I am glad to serve the mission whenever I can on a more short term basis. I am praying to the L-rd for guidance over whether I should be here or not because just as I did not hear a clear yes before I agreed to come, I have also not heard a clear no, I just have a lack of peace. I am having a hard time hearing from the L-rd here, which may be a sign of some spiritual warfare taking place.

On a side note, for the last couple of weeks I have felt sick to my stomach. The sickness is not nausea, and only rarely do I have diarrhea. My most common symptoms are mild stomach cramps and general stomach discomfort that comes and goes throughout the day and night, but which is especially bad after eating, while sleeping, while sitting on benches, and while laying down or standing up. I occasionally get stronger cramps and have to run to the bathroom. Like I said, I have no nausea. I have tried to cut out fried foods, and coffee with no change. I also took Albendazol thinking that it was worms, but the Albendazol had no effect.

The only thing I could think of would be an ulcer from stress, or a very mild case of amoebic dysentery. Please let me know what you think the problem is and possible treatments.

Thank you for reading this long letter. I love you and hope to see you before I fly out on the 17th, or when I return on the 5th (I think my return flight is on the 5th but I am not positive). I hope you enjoyed your time in the states! I am excited to see my family and close friends and students (it is very hard for me to be away from them). Take care of yourself and Merry Christmas!

Andrew Bishop

Missionary Salary

2010-01-09T20:02:00.000-06:00

I have lost heart. Every time I try to figure out how to make this ship work it gets more expensive. I cannot spend $10,000 or more right now. I just don’t have that kind of money to put into an adventure that may fail. If this is something that G-d wants me to do, he will need to provide the funds. I will continue to pray but I don’t want to think about my ship anymore if it is not going to happen.

I started learning how to play soccer yesterday. My neighbors are good teachers. They do not laugh at me or get mad when I accidentally break the rules. I think I am going to buy a soccer ball so that I can practice.

Anita and Joshua and several others have told me that my being here is not a waste and that I should take advantage of it as a time to grow in the L-rd. I just don’t know. It is hard to think about what I could be doing back home. I just don’t know.

A Turn for the Worst

2010-01-07T20:00:00.000-06:00

Every moment it seems like another thousand challenges rise up to meet me, each carrying a little dollar sign in their back. I just realized that the price Juan estimated for me did not include rigging, safety equipment, travel expenses, or any other piece of equipment that we need for the boat. I hate to see my dreams drifting away. This project is too much for me. I cannot do it on my own. God will have to come through in a big way if I am going to succeed at this.

A Long Awaited Post

2010-01-05T19:54:00.000-06:00

I made a mistake. I asked God to either make this adventure into a good story, and one characteristic of a good story is that it requires sacrifice. As I sat on the porch of a neighbors pulperia, tasting the forest meat that we hunted earlier that day, I asked Juan what he thought it would cost to buy the materials for our ship. He thought about it for a while.

“Costara, mas o menos, tres millones de colones.”

“Tres millones!? Pero yo no tengo este cantidad de moneda!”

“Cuesta mucho hacer un bote asi. Un galon de pintura cuesta como venticinco mil.”

Translation:

“It will cost, more or less, $6,000.”

“$6,000?! But I don’t have that kind of money!”

“It costs a lot to make a boat like this. One gallon of paint costs like $50.”

I went home that night disheartened. $6,000 is a lot of money to spend on a boat that may or may not actually work. If I could be completely assured that I would succeed, I could justify the $6,000 easily, but it is harder to risk that kind of money on a pipe dream. As I fell asleep I resolved not to think about the ship anymore unless I magically came across some source of funding.

My resolution lasted about 12 hours. After I finished mowing the lawn with a weed eater this morning, I started thinking about my promise again. Is my word valueless? Is keeping a promise to a friend not worth the risk of loss and failure? What about Juan? Is it not worth $6,000 for him to have an adventure and finally get to see the United States? What about me?

I imagined myself at the end of my life, thinking over all the memories that I love and all the relationships that I cherish. As I lay there on my death bed, will I say, “I sure am glad that I saved that $6,000 to go toward a nicer camera and a better apartment?” Or will I look back and say, “Remember when my friend Juan and I built a ship and sailed to the United States together? Remember when I did something crazy to keep a promise to my friend Amanda? Remember what it was like as Juan and I pulled up to the share in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and all of my friends were there to meet us? Remember Amanda’s face when we pulled around the bend and the town of Valdez swung into view?”

I have to spend some time thinking about this. I want to commit to this adventure, and I think that is what I am supposed to do, but before I can go for this completely I need to talk to my wise counsel. I need to seek the advice of my elders.

Good stories involve risk.

Dear Dad

2009-12-25T07:00:00.000-06:00

I wonder sometimes how much of my personality and character come from you and mom. I think about the influence that you have had on my life, and the values that you have instilled in all of your children, but especially the ones that you have instilled in me. I do not think that I could have been blessed with a better set of parents. You and mom have modeled a good life for me.

You have taught me to value my relationship with God above all else, and to value my relationships with people after that. Each day as you study and apply the scripture, you set an example that I want to follow. Your critical analysis has taught me not to take things at face value, but to consider everything that I see, hear, or read in the light of reason, experience, and the things that I know to be true. You have also taught me that just because someone is wrong, it does not mean that it is my duty to correct them, a lesson that I am still learning. You have taught me the value of discipline and taking care of your body through careful eating and exercise.

Your accomplishments make me want to do great things. I am so proud every time that I tell people about your ultra marathons, the time you ran 100 miles, the time you ran down a rabbit, and the list goes on. I want to be like you. I want to know everything and to have done everything like you. I want to sail like you, and maintain my own home like you. I want to appreciate the outdoors as much as you do. I want to travel and learn for my entire life like you have done.

Thank you for teaching me to hunt and to shoot. Thank you for teaching me to travel. Thank you for teaching me to read everything and ask lots of questions (and follow up questions). Thank you for teaching me to have a good sense of humor (well, I don’t know how good it is ^_~ ). Thank you for teaching me to run, and helping me understand math and science. Thank you for trying to teach me about birds and plants. Thank you for giving me my first knife at the age of 5 (I miss that knife). Thank you for teaching me to make my own decisions and be responsible for those decisions. Thank you for teaching me that physical comfort is not the most important thing.

You have raised me from a child to a man, and that means so much to me. The best gift you ever gave me was telling me that I was a man, and that whatever decision I made would be a good one. The second best gift you ever gave me was your combat knife (that is my favorite possession).

I have too many fond memories of you to list them here (I guess that is a good thing), but I will mention a few of my favorites. I remember getting my first knife from you. I remember catching my first fish in yellow stone with you. I remember shooting my first deer at Mr. Wilsons with you (heart shot from a shooting house). I remember when we would go hunting off of the ground, and we would take turns sleeping. I remember running with you to get ready for my first season of Cross Country. I remember hunting for sharks teeth in Galveston with you. I remember when you took me to Costa Rica for the first time. I remember guiding the canoe at Tuscoba with you. I remember most of our hunting trips. I remember when I first started coming into your office in campus as a little kid, and then as a university student. I remember hiking barefoot across the Alaskan tundra with you. These are just a few of my favorites.

Basically what I am trying to say with this letter is that you are the best Dad ever and I really love you. Thank you for helping make me who I am today. Thank you for being the best Dad that anyone could hope for.

What Fools These Mortals Be

2009-12-22T16:47:00.000-06:00

As I am sure you have gathered from reading my blog, I am a little bit crazy. I make a habit of referring to myself as a schemer on a regular basis. About every two or three weeks I have some crazy new idea which almost never comes to pass, but which nevertheless manages to get me excited. This week my idea is to build a ship.

Now I know that sounds ridiculous. How am I going to build a ship with no experience and little money while sitting on a farm in Costa Rica? Before you write me off completely, let me tell you a little bit of my story.

Three years ago I told a friend of mine that after she graduated, I would build a boat and that we would sail together to Alaska. I built her a toy boat, and a bamboo raft, but I never kept my word to my friend. As I was sitting on the front porch of our farm house, looking at the canoe that my fellow missionary Joshua had made, I began to think about my friend back home. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could finally keep part of my promise by giving her a canoe that I had made? But how could I get a heavy wooden canoe back to Alabama?

I started thinking about myself paddling back to Alabama in a canoe. No, I would definitely need something bigger, and preferably something with sails. I thought about a larger outrigger canoe with sails, but then I imagined myself being carried out to sea in a tiny little craft, waves crashing over my head, no land in sight. I would definitely need something bigger than a canoe if I wanted to cross the Caribbean. It was then that I had the idea to build a ship. I wanted something small enough to be managed by one or two people, but large enough to travel safely in the sea. Almost immediately I started drawing up plans for my small sail boat. It would be about 30 ft. long, 10 ft wide in the middle, with living quarters below deck and triangle sails above.

I am not so unrealistic that I believe that I am going to succeed at building a seaworthy vessel, but every day I become more hopeful as my designs are refined. The biggest challenge that I face at the moment is determining if this is just a silly idea that I have for my own gratification, or if this adventure actually has a purpose. Is keeping a silly, half-joking promise to a friend sufficient justification for building a ship and having a great adventure, or is it just an excuse. Does keeping my promise mean anything to anyone other than me?

L-rd please rescue me from my brothers in Christ!

2009-12-19T16:45:00.000-06:00

Please Father, protect me from the extreme right wing of dogmatic Christianity that preaches that there is something spiritually wrong with me because I do not feel extreme conviction at the idea of drinking alcohol. Please deliver me from my brothers in Christ, who stand and point at me (with 3 fingers pointing right back at themselves) to condemn me for having friendships with sinners, for not being as conservative as they are, for not condemning anyone who partakes of alcohol or cigarettes or who listens to non-religious music and dances, for not wanting to loudly and dogmatically evangelize anything with two legs and a pulse. L-rd please give me your peace and fill me with your love to the point that it cannot help but overflow into the lives of these people. I earnestly want your help in this L-rd. I am in a desert, begging for a sip of the water of life that will allow me to love my brother instead of being disgusted by the words of his lips.

I do not want to slander my brother or hate him or condemn him as I am being condemned by him. I want to show him the same love that you have given me for those who do not believe in you. It is so much harder for me to have love for a fellow Christian who behaves in this way than it is for me to love a non-believer who is only acting according to the flesh by which he is bound. Please soften my heart L-rd and forgive me for hating my brother and judging him according to my prejudices. It is easy to see why non-believers so often hate Christians, but I ask that you would forgive me of that attitude and change me so that I cannot see why anyone would hate another person who is not blaspheming your name. Please forgive me for being equally guilty of the same actions that I am condemning.

Always the Cynic

Two years ago, my friend and mentor (and now brother in law) Ben was giving a talk to a group of Campus Life staff at one of our “three story evangelism” training seminars. I will never forget what he said.

“When I first heard about ‘three story evangelism’, I was not completely sure if I bought into it or not. It was not until I saw Andrew Bishop, who is extremely critical and cynical of everything, whole heartedly embrace ‘three story’ that I knew for sure that this is good stuff.”

Fifth Story

I have just finished reading Donald Miller’s latest book, and I am about to start reading it again. I talks about stories in a way that is real, but that still inspires me to make my own life into a better story.

Reading this book has really helped me to take a look at my life and start evaluating the stories that I am living. I have realized that most of the stories that I am living are really not great stories so much as great adventures. They are mostly fun and interesting and challenging, and I believe that they help me to grow, but they are also mostly self serving. Most of my life is done because of a desire to gratify my own curiosity, rather than a desire to serve others. There is, however, one exception. My time with Campus Life is the best story that I have lived. It is the best thing that I have done with my life, and it is something that I greatly miss. I want to live more great stories like that, rather than devoting my whole life to personal adventures.

Higher Pastures

2009-12-16T15:52:00.003-06:00

The farm in Delta (the name of the region), is located on the banks of a river which floods every year. Like much of the Amazon basin, the land is actually highest at the riverbanks, sloping gently down into swamps and lagoons as you move farther from the river. Parts of our farm are high enough that they only flood by a few inches, while other parts can be submerged up to waist or even chest height.

Our cows need a place to rest at night where they can be dry, and because of this need, we are currently in the process of building a mound of earth which will act as a base for our future corral. We began the process by hauling old and rotting lumber into a large rectangle that is roughly 8 meters by 10 meters. Using two shovels and a wheel barrow we have spent the last few days hauling earth from different parts of the farm in order to raise the level of the ground by as much as two feet in places. When we finish, we will start construction of the corral that we need and eventually we will build a roof as well.

I feel like so little of my time actually goes to working on spiritual matters. On Sunday we lead a church service, and we do spend some time with neighbors, but it is a difficult transition for me to go from spending 20 hours a week working with students through Campus Life to spending about 5 hours a week leading a church service. It is such a different pace here.

I would love to be in the schools leading bible studies, but we have certain jobs that we must get done quickly before the floods arrive, and to travel to the schools and talk to the teachers in Jobo and Zapotal is an entire days worth of work, and costs about $20 worth of gasoline. We are going to try to talk to the teachers this Sunday, but even if we can get permission to start, we wont have time to visit all the schools until we have finished the corral, and Juan has finished the boat that he was contracted to build for the neighbors.

I have been praying and I ask that you also will pray for opportunities to share the gospel and talk with people about the word of God throughout the week. Also please pray as I am making decisions about whether to start teaching (English, and maybe math and reading) in a local school that currently has no teacher (they may not even want me to teach).

One neat thing did happen this week. One of our neighbors has a 15 year old sun named Alfredo. Alfredo loves to be around gringos, and the other day we invited him to eat with us. Before eating, we asked him to pray over the meal. He claimed that he did not know how, but after we explained to him that praying simply means talking to God, and gave him some ideas about things to pray about, he lead me and Juan in a wonderful blessing over our meal.

Neighborcide

2009-11-30T18:40:00.002-06:00

“Did anyone ring the doorbell while I was gone?”
“I thought someone did at one point, but when I went to check nobody was there.”
“I am just asking because the neighbors were held up at gun point just a few minutes ago.”

I do not think I could stand to live in a city like San Jose for more than a year or two. The streets of San Jose are packed with people, the air smells of diesel fuel, and every street crossing is a gamble with your life. Sometimes it is hard for me to see why anyone would want to live in a place like this. On the other hand, as I browsed the aisles of the farmers market in San Jose, I began to better understand the culture of the city, as well as the access to resources and jobs that would make a city attractive to many people.

As I spend more time in the Delta, I am slowly beginning to learn the needs of the mission, and how I can fit into those needs. As much as I love hunting and fishing, gardening, making dugout canoes (more on that later), and building desks and beds, the real reason that I am here has to do with people. The school in Delta has 14 students and no teacher. Because there is no teacher, the students do not come to school and we cannot begin a bible study there.

Please pray for me, because Juan and I are strongly considering talking to the board of education in Delta to see if we can begin teaching English, math, and reading to the students there. This could be a great opportunity to get more involved in the community, to open doors for sharing the gospel, and to serve people as we are called to do by Christ. Juan and I are hoping to talk with the school teachers this week so that we can quickly begin Bible studies in the schools in Jobo Costa Rica, Jobo Nicaragua, Zapotal, and the Delta school.

Interesting things I have done to this point:
Built a desk and shelves
Started construction of a dugout canoe
Started learning how to drive and repair a motor boat
Attended an all Spanish church planting through story telling conference
Stepped on a rust nail
Bathed with a bucket
Hunted multiple creatures that I wont list
Fished a Central American river
Had fresh delicious churros in the farmers market
Shelled fresh grown coffee beans
Visited a Spanish church where 50 strangers sang happy birthday to me

Pedicide

2009-11-25T18:39:00.001-06:00

Please pray for me. Yesterday I remembered just how important prayer is. The day started well. Juan, Anita and I spent the morning collecting bananas and cutting bad banana trees in a big field surrounded by swamp. After a morning of work, it was time for a little fun.

We set out with Juan’s rifle to do a bit of hunting. Between shooting a coin off of a tree, and bagging two animals with two shots, I really impressed everyone with my shooting ability. The pride that this caused was very dangerous.

I went with Juan that afternoon to examine a broken boat motor, and after that, he wanted to show off my shooting ability to a friend, so we got in the boat and went hunting. As you can probably imagine, a moving boat in a river is not the best position to shoot from, especially when your target is high in a tree and is barely larger than a squirrel (no, we were not hunting monkeys).

I spent 5 shots and managed to hit my target once or twice, but it did not fall from the tree. We decided to disembark and try again from the ground. We walked a short distance and then, POW! The gun went off in my hand. As we were hiking on the island, my hand must have pushed the safety button to the fire position because a branch managed to snag the trigger of the rifle and set it off. Luckily it was pointed at the ground, but this frightened me greatly because the bullet hit the ground only a couple of feet from the foot of a boy named Kenny who was hunting with us.

I have learned a lesson about pride, but also about prayer. If things had gone differently and the rifle had been pointed at Kenny rather than at the ground, I don’t like to think about what could have happened.

On a slightly happier note.

We went to Jobo on Sunday. Jobo is a small town on the San Juan River that is located half in Costa Rica, and half in Nicaragua. There we met in a school house to hold a Sunday church service. Anita preached, and Juan and I lead children’s bible study and memory verse. It was a great learning experience, and a great opportunity to share part of God’s word with the people of Jobo and especially the children, who outnumbered the adults 19 to 3.

What's the Point?

2009-11-20T18:37:00.002-06:00

I was reading a book by the overweight, self-absorbed, obnoxious guy that always manages to speak directly to me even though we have not met. The book that I was reading was about him and some guys trying to make another book of his into a movie, but really it was about his attempt to make his life into a more compelling story.

After reading a section of this guy’s book that was copied almost verbatim from his first book, I began to think about the story of my life. In this story there is a well developed character, but there does not seem to be a key problem for the character to overcome. Sure this character has many interesting experiences and adventures, but what is the point? What moves the story along? What is the great mission that unifies the life of the protagonist?

I will think more about this as I sit and listen to the rain beating down on the tin roof of our house in the Delta. At the moment there is not much else to do. During the day, Juan Ruiz has to work on work on a boat that he is building to supplement his almost non-existent financial support, and Anita and I are left to cook, and prepare bible lessons for the kids. Anita is staying at the Delta with me and Juan for a few days to teach me how to cook, how to sing Spanish children’s songs, and how to lead the bible studies.

Since arriving at the delta yesterday, I have organized my room, begun construction of a brand new set of shelves, fished, killed a chicken, learned to cook rice, and learned the first bible lesson, complete with memory verse and songs. Who knows what we will do tomorrow.

I do know that I already miss my family, and that I am very much looking forward to Christmas. Maybe I have traveled to much?

How Many Roads

2009-11-15T18:34:00.001-06:00

I woke up at 4:45 this morning. That is too early. It is still dark and cold outside, and if it was not for the bitter coffee that my brother Daniel made for me, I would most definitely be falling asleep right now. Atlanta is not as peaceful in the morning as the airport in Anchorage. People here seem a little bit more agitated than the people in Alaska. Maybe this is just a result of my own feelings of agitation.

Last night something finally hit me and I started to feel nervous about traveling to Costa Rica. I remember being a student in the missionary training school down here. I remember always feeling like I had done something wrong. That is how I feel now. For no rational reason, I feel like I have done something wrong and Ana will be mad at me. Maybe this is the result of being under her authority again for the first time in years, or maybe I feel this way because of the stress of leaving my parents again.

“I am tired of traveling. I just want to be home.”

My dad tells me that I am lucky, and that most people never get the opportunity to get tired of traveling.

The Long Road Home

2009-11-07T21:42:00.000-06:00

As my journey comes to an end, I am starting to feel home calling to me. It is like a siren's song growing louder and stronger by the mile, pulling me back to the inevitable embrace of the people I love and the town that never seemed to small for me. I am not going back to a place diminished by what I have seen, but illuminated by it.

There is something about returning home that I cannot really describe. Seeing the strange give way to the familiar, feeling the damp air in my lungs, smelling the earthy, dirty smell of the Black Warrior River. An orchestra of insects serenades me like a military band welcoming back heroes of war from a long campaign in distant lands. I feel like a child again as I pull into the driveway, comforted again by the routine of coming home, a routine that is only reinforced by the slight deviations that accompany each individual trip.

I have come home early and in secret. My brother is in the living room distracting my parents with his digital video camera. I stalk quietly onto the porch, and then after a moments pause, I burst through the front door and yell "Surprise!"

...

My story is not a new one. Millions of people have made billions of journeys throughout the ages, some for pleasure, most for necessity, and all an act of discovery. The experiences that I have had and the wisdom that I have gained is not uncommon to man, and yet, in spite of their universal nature, the things that I have learned are simultaneously unique to me.

I see that truth as fundamental to the beauty of this side of life. We are all the same, and yet we are all really and truly unique. If this were not so, what would be the point in experiencing anything?

Every snow flake is made of the same substance with the same chemical properties and basic structure, and yet every snow flake is different from every other snow flake. Are we not amazingly more complex than a bit of frozen water?

I praise Him for I am fearfully and wonderfully made!

A Long Walk

2009-11-04T22:11:00.000-06:00

Mesa Verde was much more than I had imagined as a child. The culture and history of the people who lived here was enough to keep me wandering through museums and cliff dwellings for hours, until my whole body ached and I simply did not have the energy to see another Kiva, or read another informational plaque.

I left Mesa Verde excited to have seen something that I had always wanted to see. I made my way east from the National park all the way to the borders of Great Sand Dunes National Park, South of Colorado Springs. Camping for the night in a large sandy field of desert scrub, I was presented with more stars than I have seen at any other location on my travels.

The next morning I began the short drive into GSDNP, a drive punctuated by sighting of elk and prong horned antelope. The dunes themselves were amazing. In spite of the bitter cold wind and light rain, I made my way a quarter of a mile out into the foothills of sand. It was difficult hiking across the loose ground, my face constantly being stung by blowing particles of silica. Eventually I was forced to turn back, but my timing turned out to be good because I was rewarded with two sights on my way out of the park. The first was a menonite dad with his four happy daughters, the youngest of which was holding his hand as he skipped with her to make her happy. The second sight was a group of four really big bodied, large racked mule deer.

I becoming anxious about the end of my trip, so I will sum up my remaining adventures in one paragraph. I made my way north, where I went rock climbing in the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs and stopped to give a homeless lady a bag of groceries as well as a bible that she asked for. From there I visited Denver, where my truck was assaulted by wind to the point that as I slept it felt like my vehicle was being physically pushed by people outside. I made a brief visit to Boulder, where I met up with my friend and former boss, Laura, who showed me around campus, took me out to eat, and then allowed me to stay the night on her very comfortable couch. The next morning I had a fun photoshoot with a 19 year old argentine foster mom. That afternoon I set out on a two day, 22 hour, 1200 mile drive east and south through Kansas, Missouri (where I saw two horse and buggies riding down the highway), Arkansas (where a friendly guy gave me 5 quarts of oil for my truck even though I told him that I had plenty), mississippi, and finally sweet home Alabama.

Why Did The Coyote Cross The Road?

2009-11-02T21:29:00.000-06:00

I feel like the L-rd has decided to bless me above and beyond the norm today, beginning with the two coyotes that I saw running full tilt across the highway. As I descended from the 8,000 feet of elevation at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, the terrain slowly shifted from forest back to desert.

I do not claim to be an expert on the Navajo, also called the Dineh (or Dine, or Dinae), but for most of my childhood I have been led to believe that they did not believe in the private ownership of land, and that they cared greatly about nature. For this reason, I find it slightly ironic that just outside of the town of Page, where I stopped to get my oil changed, I saw my first Navajo power plant, as well as Antelope Canyon, the first of many natural wonders that they charge to visit because it is on “private property”.

I am a little sad about Antelope Canyon because I have always wanted to visit it, but I did not have the time or the money to see it this trip (at least that is what I am telling myself). Instead, I got back on the road heading for Mesa Verde. I spent a large chunk of the trip talking on the phone to my mom and dad and my friends Mary Katherine. I stopped briefly at a pull off on the side of the road where a lady built a stone house in the 1930s using natural boulders as part of the architecture. I drove right past the Four Corners National Monument, because once again, the Navajo Nation charges an admission fee.

Finally, around evening, I arrived at Mesa Verde. I have wanted to visit this place ever since I was a young child and learned about it in my history books. The cliff palace in Mesa Verde National Park is a pueblo village dating back to 1200 B.C. which is built entirely in the under clung side of a cliff (like a huge, shallow cave). The Mesa is both huge and beautiful, covered in dead trees and low red and yellow colored scrub brush. The road to the cliff dwellings snakes more than 23 miles from the park entrance to the terminal loop that passes the majority of the dwellings.

I made it just in time to see the cliff palace before sunset. It was breath taking to see the ancient architecture, still in a good state of repair after all these years, due to the shelter of the cliff. I spoke to Morine, a fellow traveler who convinced me to return in the morning to take the tour. She had spent the entire day at Mesa Verde and she insured me that the tour was worth it. I guess we will find out tomorrow!

As I made my way back to the rest stop where I will spend the night, I was surprised to hear celtic music on the radio. It was Thistle and Shamrock with Fiona Ritchie, one of my favorite radio shows, and one that never fails to make me want to move to Scotland or Ireland to marry a red headed, green eyed princess.

Maybe next summer….

Return to Eden

2009-10-31T21:25:00.000-05:00

If you ever visit the Grand Canyon, consider the North Rim as a more beautiful and secluded alternative to the overly touristy South Rim. I feel so much happier when I am in wooded forests. I feel like I can appreciate G-d and hear him better in the wilderness. This is definitely how I felt on the North Rim, as I sat on a rocky out cropping more than 100 feet high beside the North Kaibab Trail. There are few hikers late in the day, and the valley below me is covered in dense firs. It looks like a northern California forest, rather than the Arizona desert of the South Rim.

The L-rd has been speaking to me through the Psalms for a while now. I was reading about kind David, watching his tongue around his enemies. I began to think about watching my own tongue, and how I had failed to watch myself when I was fussing at my drunken friend about the semantics behind her concept of spirituality. In spite of my complete lack of compassion and love in that instant, G-d still touched my friend, and she spoke honestly for the first time about her beliefs.

As I sat on a rock reflecting on this, I felt like the L-rd was telling me that his good works were not at all dependant upon my good works. I have no control over him or power to stop his good works through my own bad deeds. He is to far above me for that.

As if to further manifest his Love for me in spite of my failures, as I drove out of the park that evening, I passed massive herds of mule deer, grazing in the grassy meadows, bounded by firs and yellow leafed aspens. I even had the honor of seeing a doe nursing twin fawns.

I camped in a beautiful clearing that night, surrounded by open forest. My tiny campfire crackled with the mixture of cool burning fir, and hot burning, popping aspen branches. I sat their and smoked my own hand rolled version of a cigar (pipe tobacco and rolling papers), enjoying the solitude of the forest before I finally crawled into my truck for a very cold night’s sleep.

Good Riddance

2009-10-29T21:20:00.000-05:00

Honestly, I am not sad to see my Vegas experience end. I will miss my friends and it was really good to hang out with someone that I knew for a little while, but I am just not cut out for the life of debauchery that is best suited for the Sin City. I am not into strip clubs or sex shops, I am not a heavy drinker, I do not enjoy crowds, I am too poor for shows, and I do not understand the appeal of gambling (even though I did come out ahead on the slot machines).

To be honest, I spent a lot of my trip frustrated. My friends are nice, but they have a very different set of beliefs than I do. This is not usually a problem, but when I catch one of them shoplifting and then have to spend an hour and a half trying to reason/argue with her while she is drunk until I finally force her to return the stolen item, suddenly our difference in beliefs becomes a problem. I love these individuals, but I am not about to go to jail for being an accomplice to shoplifting.

Another challenge of Vegas is the hours that people keep. I like to go to sleep by 10 each night and wake up around 8 or 9 in the morning. Vegas likes to keep you up until 4:30 and then get you up 3:30 hours later. This is okay for one day, but then it starts to take its toll, and I become irritable and unpleasant to be around.

All in all, I am glad that I can say that I went to Las Vegas and saw what it is like, but I don’t think I will be going back any time soon. I especially do not want to be anything like the gentle man in the elevator who said that he did not like living in Vegas because half his pay check went to bills, and the other half went to casinos.

PS: One of my friends borrowed my camera

The Road To Vegas

2009-10-27T21:16:00.000-05:00

It is hard to believe that I have traveled so many highways in my journey around the U.S. and yet, I am only just now driving on the infamous Route 66. I find it appropriate that I am traveling on Route 66(6) toward Sin City. The funny thing is that I always thought the road to hell would be a little more enticing, but Route 66 is nothing but boring black top and low speed limits, occasionally bordered by abandoned restaurants and auto-body shops.

The Hoover Dam is a marvel of not-so-modern engineering. Containing hundreds of thousands (or is it millions?) of tons of concrete, and holding back what was at the time, the largest man made lake in the world, the Hoover Dam was somehow built ahead of schedule and under budget. In fact, revenue from the Dam has more than paid back the entire cost of construction.

Driving across the dam I am surprised as much by the hundreds of tourists, as I am by the sheer magnitude of what is beneath me. The Dam is huge and beautiful. I would like to tell you more, but it costs $8 just to enter the visitors center, never mind the cost of actually touring the dam.

It is only a short ride from the Hoover Dam to Las Vegas where I have a $9 hotel room awaiting my arrival. I am excited because I have friends traveling up from Tucson to visit for a few days.

Grand Canyon: Day 3

2009-10-25T21:11:00.000-05:00

Needless to say, I was relieved when I awoke for the fifteenth time to see that the sun was finally rising and I could see well enough to use the bathroom and start breakfast. While I ate, I saw Carol walking around, and I called her over.

“Why don’t you take some trail mix and water, and leave the bag with me. I will catch up to you in about thirty minutes and we can hike together some more.”

“Andrew, I know how much you wanted to hike fast after talking to those guys yesterday. You don’t have to wait up for me. I don’t want to hold you back.”

“Nahh, its fine. As long as I am out by noon, I will be happy.”

After our short exchange, we set off. It seemed like every person that we passed, including a park ranger, we would stop so that Carol could tell the story and then try to give me credit as though it was hard for me to hike slower and carry an extra eight pounds of gear.

She was irritated that Ed had not been able to make it to Indian Garden because of a shift change, and that ranger Ken had been very unfriendly and unhelpful, but she seemed to be in overall better spirits than the day before.

She was finally able to eat more food, and was encouraged by how far we had come, and as we slowly made our way to the top, I could sense her getting more and more happy. She was also becoming more open, telling me much more of her life story which was fascinating, though sad at times. I have learned over the last few years that there are very few people in life who have not faced some sort of serious trials and hardships in their life, and Carol was not the exception to that rule.

The trail gets very steep, and passes through several short stone archways as you get very near the top. The trail also becomes much more crowded. I began to see many of the people that I had seen at Phantom Ranch passing us by. I saw the group that I met on the bus ride a two days before. I also saw my neighbors from Phantom ranch, when I was within a quarter mile of the top.

My excitement was building and I started to push Carol harder, until finally the end was just one switchback away. My adrenaline was really pumping as I crossed the last couple of feet and was finally surrounded by tired hikers and tourists gawking at the canyon that I had just descended and ascended. I was in a great mood as I said my good byes and headed to my truck.

I felt so good for the rest of the day that I went to the Laundromat in the campground and did all of my laundry, cleaned and completely reorganized my truck, and got a shower which was supposed to last 8 minutes, but due to some blessing from G-d, did not turn off till I eventually got bored, quite a feat when you have not had a shower in a week, and turned it off of my own volition.

Grand Canyon: Day 2, Part 2

2009-10-23T21:08:00.001-05:00

After hearing Carol’s story, I realized that she did not just need my help for a little way, she really needed my help for the entire hike. I had prayed to G-d for someone to hike with, and he had provided me with an opportunity to serve.

I borrowed a pen and paper from Carol, and while she sat and rested, I ran the half mile to catch up with Marian.

“Do you need us to get a ranger!?” she yelled as I approached.
“No!” I shouted back, “But she is going to need my help the rest of the way, so I wanted to get your and your dad’s email addresses because I think you are very interesting people.”

I got her to scribble down the addresses, and began to head back down the trail as her dad called from around the bend for her to catch up. That was the last I saw of Marian and her father.

I spent the rest of the morning hiking with Carol, stopping every hundred yards for her to let her heart calm down. We talked about all kinds of things that morning. She told me stories about her daughters, and her ex-husband. She told me about her eccentric friend Ken, who lived in Ashville, NC and owned a motorcycle, sail plane, and a goat. She told me about her desire to go to Africa, which she did, and about how she had just signed up for the Peace Corps after being laid off from her job.

Before we new it, it was 11:00 and we had made it to Indian Gardens, a beautiful micro-forest where the NPS located a pump house which actually pumps water up hill to the rim lodges. Indian Garden is a much busier location than Phantom Ranch, so I spent several hours just sitting in the shade by the water fountain, talking to different hikers as they came through.

I started to get really excited as I talked to a spread out group from Intel. There were 28 of them doing their second rim to rim day hike in the last week. They started out on the South Rim, and hiked across to the North Rim a few days before, and after some resting and a little partying, they were crossing back to their vehicles on the South Rim.

Each of the hikers wore fancy synthetic cloths, a green wrist band, and some tags to identify them. They also carried radios and an assortment of snacks in their lightweight Camelbacks, miniature backpacks with built in drinking bladders. Most of them had hiked the Grand Canyon before, and were trying to meet personal goals as far as hiking time, which ranged from barely over five hours to about fourteen hours to make the rim to rim crossing.

I wanted to hike out at that point, but I was not willing to leave Carol behind, and I already had a permit to camp for the night, so I made do by enjoying the creek for a while, finishing Searching for G-d Knows What, and hiking out to Plateau Point where another hiker found a small rattlesnake. Indian Gardens was a very friendly place, and I was able to talk to a lot of cool people including Christine, a 40 year old geographer from Colorado/Wyoming.

Finally it was time to sleep, so I made my way to my campsite for the worst night of sleep I have had in weeks. There was a very cold wind blowing all night. For those of you who don’t know, wind passes right through fleece and almost completely negates its effectiveness as insulation, which is probably why there is such a huge market for “wind-stopper fleece”. In addition to the unexpected cold and wind, mice crawled all over my sleeping bag throughout the night. At least, I assume they were mice. They could have been tarantulas…

To Be Continued…

Grand Canyon: Day 2, Part 1

2009-10-21T19:40:00.000-05:00

I woke up early the next morning. My little fleece mummy bag was more than warm enough, and I slept well after making a pillow out of my shirt. I am not a breakfast person, but I somehow managed to force down four delicious packs of strawberry oatmeal before setting out on the trail around 6:30.

Before I even made it out of Phantom Ranch, I found my first bit of company on the trail. Two does and two fauns blocked my path for about ten minutes as they casually grazed just ten paces away from where I stood. There is something extremely peaceful about mornings at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The weather is warm, but not hot. The people camping next to me barely stirred as they slept off last night’s revelries. I could really feel the presence of the L-rd in that quiet place.

Shortly after crossing the Colorado River on Bright Angel trail, I encountered another pair of Hikers, a father and daughter hiking the Grand Canyon together. The father is a surgeon, originally from the Middle East, but now living outside Washington D.C., and the daughter, Marian, is a fifth year senior, studying physiology in Los Angeles. It was the daughter’s first serious hike, but as we walked she asked my advice about other hikes in different national parks that I would recommend. She talked about forcing her friends to do more of this kind of thing, and also about a triathlon that she wanted to compete in with her friends.

For the next mile and a half we walked together, discussing travel, bikes, jobs, and anything else that came up. Her father had a lot of good advice about not wasting time.

“If you don’t know what to do, just try something. Then you will know if you want to do that or not.”
“Time is the most precious thing that we have.”
“Life is like a one hundred dollar bill. If I gave you a hundred dollars, you would spend the first ten carelessly, but you would be very careful about how you spent the last ten. You should spend the entire one hundred as carefully as you spend the last ten.”

I was really enjoying my new hiking companions, not to mention Marian was very beautiful, but it seems that G-d had a different hiking companion in mind for me. After about a mile and a half, we met up with Carol, a lady that I had met in the campground earlier. Carol looked like she really needed some help, so after talking to her for a moment, I offered to help her carry her bag for a little way. Carol is in her sixties, and was having a very hard time forcing herself to eat and drink so the going was slow.

After a short time, I told Marian and her father to go on, that I would catch up with them later. Me and Carol continued to hike for quite some time while she told me her story.

“I read all of the literature before I came out here. Everything that I read said that normal people can make the hike down the Grand Canyon and back. I figured, I am in good shape, why couldn’t I do that? So I spent some time talking to different people who were doing the hike, some overweight, some very old, and I thought, surely if they can do it, I can do it, so I set out with my backpack, some snacks and water, a jacket, and my hat.

“Twelve hours later, I was finally in sight of the bridge crossing the Colorado River, but I absolutely could not go on! I sat there, in sight of the bridge, for a long time until a couple came by. Their names were Angie and Jake, and they gave me some water. Then Jake helped me to walk, while Angie force fed me trail mix. Finally I arrived at Phantom Ranch where the rangers put me in a bunk house.

“I slept all of Saturday and Sunday, occasionally trying to eat a few bites of whatever they were serving in the canteen. Ranger Mandy asked me what I had been able to eat, and I told her I was able to eat the eggs they served at breakfast, so she scrambled me a bunch of delicious eggs, then later, ranger Ed gave me a bag full of snacks and Gatorade, and told me that if I could stand and talk, I could hike out.

“Ed told me to start very early in the morning and to hike as far as Indian Garden where he would give me a place to sleep, and a camp stove so I could have a hot meal. He told me not to worry about the hike, that he would pass me on the way up, and that there would be 180 other hikers out that day who would help me. And here I am”

To Be Continued…

Grand Canyon: Day 1, Part 2

2009-10-19T19:39:00.002-05:00

If the South Kaibab Trail is a desert, Phantom Ranch is paradise. The Ranch is located in a long valley, shaded by trees and covered in lush grass and cattails. The campsite is kept green by a series of shallow irrigation ditches, and the main channel of the creek is full of small dams and pools for hikers to “swim” in. There is also an impressive array of wildlife for such a small area including a grey fox, mule deer, skunks, rats, scorpions, ravens, and fish.

The strangest thing about hiking the Grand Canyon so far has been the huge amounts of “forced relaxation”. The climate is such that you have to take a long break in the middle of the day, from 10:00 till 4:00, to avoid heat exhaustion. I am used to having more down time when I hike, but 6 hours was downright boring!

I spent much of that time reading in the creek. I got most of the way through Searching For G-d Knows What, a book by Donald Miller that is vaguely about evangelism and the message of scriptures.

If I met Donald Miller in person, I don’t think we would get along. I think that he would strike me as lazy, politically inflammatory, and kinda stupid. On the other hand, I love how Donald Miller writes, and I think that most of his work is very good in that it makes people think and it brings spirituality into real life. Even though I doubt we would get along, I highly recommend all of Miller’s books that I have read, including Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, and Searching For G-d Knows What.

When I was not reading that book, I was reading Psalms. I have been working my way through Psalms since I left the JH Ranch, and reviewing my Wilderness First Responder handbook.

Man’s Search for Meaning

I have been wrestling with my future for the entirety of my road trip. Every place I go seems to reveal something new that I want to pursue. It is amazing to me that G-d can give me so many different interests!

Through my experience with the druggie in Vancouver G-d showed me an entire world of poor and homeless people who have no one to listen to them and actually care what they have to say (as incoherent as it often is). I really want to love them.

Reading Donald Miller’s work reminded me of the kinds of missions work that I feel passionate about. I want to help people in areas with severe need, such as the sex slaves of S.E. Asia, the AIDs patients and orphans of Africa and South America, and really any kind of pressing need anywhere.

Passing through Eugene, OR made me realize how much I want to go back to school and get a PhD.

Traveling through the National Parks, and talking to ranger Ed and ranger Mandy have really showed me how much I need to work in nature and have a flexible job. Talking with them has me considering seasonal work with the NPS (National Park Service). There are actually many people who work for the NPS seasonally and draw unemployment in the off season (a practice that I find unethical). I have always been under the impression that it was extremely difficult to get NPS jobs, but talking with Ed and Mandy has me very encouraged. I would love to work for part of the year and do missions work for the remainder.

A Mule and a Shot Block

One thing that you quickly learn while hiking the Grand Canyon is that most people are extremely friendly. For example, the people camping next to me invited me over to hand out and enjoy a drink with them, for no reason other than that I was backpacking alone.

They were really interesting people, if a bit sketchy. They came from all over the U.S. but currently they all live in Flagstaff, AZ. The guy who sat directly next to me is a cab driver, and spent most of the evening drunkenly telling me about hunting, cooking elk meat, and how I should not travel to third world countries because of the land mines.

I was amused to learn that, not only had they brought down a ton of food and alcohol, but they purchased a block of ice at the ranch so that they could make their own shot block, a sort of ice slide for your alcoholic beverage of choice. Even though I am a very moderate drinker and have not been drunk, I still find drunken people to be entertaining, especially when they are located a mile deep in a crack in the earth.

I sat and talked with these guys until 7:30 when a short interpretive program, lead by ranger Mandy, got my attention. It was mostly a question and answer session, which was surprisingly interesting, but the best part was the scorpion hunt at the end. Apparently, all of the scorpions at Phantom Ranch glow green under a black light. It was fun to see all of the little eight legers running around just before I went to sleep on the ground with no tent.

Grand Canyon: Day 1, Part 1

2009-10-17T19:26:00.001-05:00

I woke up every one or two hours during the night, partially because of the cold, and partially because of my excitement and fear of oversleeping. Nearby, a large herd of Elk bugled all through the night. I was relieved when my alarm finally went off in the wee hours of the morning.

It took me all of five minutes to break camp in the national forest and get on the road to the backcountry permitting office. It was freezing cold at the bus stop outside of the office, but I decided against carrying the extra weight of a jacket, knowing that it would be warm in the canyon. As I waited for the bus to Yaki Point, the head of the South Kaibab trail, I struck up a conversation with a group from Seattle that had driven down to hike the canyon. There were four of them, all in their thirties. One of the guys, with a dark curly Mohawk and olive complexion, was especially friendly. We talked about traveling all the way to the trail head, where I left him, his wife, and their friends to start down the trail.

Honestly, the South Kaibab Trail was fairly uneventful. From the rim, I descended dozens of steep switchbacks, losing a thousand feet of elevation in just minutes. The Grand Canyon is rather unusual in that it is really a canyon within a canyon. Rather than being the steep continual descent that I had sometimes imagined, the trail actually levels out for significant portions of the hike.

After descending the initial rim, I hiked along the Tonto plateau for several miles, slowly going lower as the air around me began to get hotter. From the plateau on, there is virtually no shade, so I hiked very fast to avoid the midday heat, a feat which is virtually impossible because the climate gets continually warmer as you descend, with the temperature at the Colorado River being about 20-30 degrees hotter than the temperature at the south rim.

After only two hours of hiking, I began the final steep descent from a lower plateau, down the side of the inner canyon, to the mighty Colorado River. At the edge of the Colorado, the trail disappears into a cave, about 40 feet deep. The other side of the cave ends at a shear drop off, where Blacks Bridge, a ridged suspension bridge, carries you the couple hundred feet over the Colorado.

The trail was long and hot, but surprisingly not difficult, and I found as I finally saw the campground, less than three hours after I began the hike, that I was not especially tired. I passed many people who were also heading down, some of whom seemed to be struggling, and some of whom were fine, and I somehow managed to be the first camper at the camp ground, having started nearly an hour later than some of the other hikers that I passed.

To Be Continued…

2009-10-15T19:17:00.002-05:00

It is hard to believe that I am finally here! Tomorrow morning around 6:00 I will begin my descent into the Grand Canyon, the hike that has been the center point around which my entire trip has revolved. It is an intense feeling. I saw the Canyon for the first time today, and it is definitely a big hole. I am kinda scared to think about carrying all of the junk in my pack from the bottom to the top of this thing. My one consolation is that the majority of my weight is food and water, which will get lighter as my hike nears the final day (and hardest climb).

In order of difficulty, the steepest hikes that I have ever done are:

1. Baxter Creek Trail in the Great Smokey Mountains (4,000 ft. gain over 6 miles, 3 day trip).
2. Mt. Rainier National Park (3,500 ft gain over 5 miles).
3. Payne’s Lake near Etna California (~3,000 ft. over 6 miles)
4. Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park (1,500 ft over 2.5 miles).
5. Ostrander Lake in Yosemite National Park (cant remember but it was steep).

I will be interested to see how the Grand Canyon fits into this rubric, considering that the mileage will be split up over a few days, but the heat will be a new factor.

Mana

2009-10-13T23:20:00.004-05:00

Does this mean I am anorexic?

Typically when someone hikes 12 miles on just a can of spaghetti, it is a sign of an eating disorder, but I think I am in the clear because it was not by choice.

I began my morning with a brisk 3 mile hike through the Hoodoos of Bryce Canyon, ornately carved pillars of stone, created by erosion, which decorate the walls of the Amphitheatre, as this part of the canyon is known. After hiking to the bottom of the canyon and back up, I was on my way to Zion national park.

Now Zion is a beautiful park, and one of its claims to fame is that it is the 2^nd most popular spot for big wall climbing in the US, after Yosemite National Park. I could easily see why as I stood at the edge of the canyon overlook, another 2 mile hike round trip.

From the canyon rim, I took a long scenic drive to the visitors center which involved passing through a mile of tunnel, and descending half a dozen steep switch backs. Upon arriving at the visitors’ center, I found an elderly lady who had fallen backwards in her wheel chair. Because of her neuropathy and pain meds I was unable to clear her spine, so I just stood their while others helped keep her comfortable until the EMTs arrived.

From there I hopped onto a free shuttle and made my way to the river walk, a 2 mile round trip hike through a narrow canyon which housed a rare, desert swamp. The water seeping from the sandstone walls of the canyon combined with the water from the Virgin River helped to form this rare ecosystem which included cattails, algae, frogs, and wild grapes. At the end of the hike, the canyon continues into an area known as the narrows, where you can hike up the river for quite a ways. I stopped after 100 yards.

From the canyon, I took a bus ride to Angels’ Landing, a 5 mile hike which ascends almost 1500 feet from the valley floor to the peak of Angels’ Landing. This is one of the greatest hikes that I have ever done, as I am sure you can see from the pictures. For someone who is scared of heights, climbing those chains was quite a challenge.

When I finally arrived at the top of the stone tower, I was struck by the beauty that surrounded me. G-d created all of this and he also saw fit to make me. I started to think about my worries about fund raising, which have still not gone away, but then my thoughts shifted. I started to think about all of the awesome experiences that the L-rd has given me. I thought about all the people he has placed in my life, and all of the opportunities that he has given me. Why would G-d bless his child so much and then not provide for him? He wouldn’t is the answer.

On my way back to the visitors’ center, I made one last stop for a quick 1 mile hike to Emerald Pond. After that I finally made it back to the visitors’ center, where I devoured two well deserved cups of shells and cheese, and a small can of baked beans. My mileage for the day totaled 12 miles when you subtract out the times that I rounded up the distance of a given hike.

2009-10-05T18:53:00.000-05:00

It was a long drive from Arches to Bryce Canyon. I must have stopped a dozen times to photograph some new rock formation or scenic vista. It is hard to travel through such a diverse and beautiful landscape when you are a photographer and a wilderness enthusiast. Every bend in the road presents you with some new opportunity to explore or climb or photograph.

I was honestly relieved when I arrived at Bryce Canyon National Park. I had been traveling all day and I was exhausted. I was also beginning to become a little stressed about fund raising for my mission to Costa Rica which begins in November. I absolutely hate fund raising. It is not so much an issue of receiving money from people. That does not bother me. It is really an issue of not liking to ask and ask repeatedly for people to give you money when they already have other financial responsibilities. This just really stresses me out for some reason.

Luckily the L-rd saw it fit to give me a little rest and relaxation at Bryce Canyon in the form of star gazing. After a wonderful video/ interpretive program on the constellations and Native American mythology, we were invited to go behind the visitors’ center to see the stars through a number of very large telescopes.

Unfortunately, the sky was cloudy, and we were only able to see a couple of constellations, but we were able to see one thing of great interest. We got such a close up view of Jupiter that we could see 4 of its moons as well as the dark bands that encircle it.

Later that night, or really the next morning, I awoke in the back of my truck to see a beautiful night sky filled with stars, which are especially bright in Bryce Canyon. Apparently, the plateau surrounding the canyon is supposed to offer the best view of the stars of all of the National Parks, with the exception of Death Valley.

The heavens declare his glory!

Try Our New Exfoliant

2009-10-03T18:38:00.000-05:00

“Mother Nature is Awesome!”

I almost threw up a little bit at that point.

It is disgusting to me how a 50 year old man can be standing at a view point in one of the most beautiful places in North America and think it appropriate to thank “Mother Nature” rather than the L-rd who shaped this landscape. The word says that “the firmament shows his handiwork”. This magnificent creation was not sculpted by chance, nor was it created by Mother Nature, a gentler, socially acceptable substitute for G-d. There is nothing gentle about the way this landscape was formed.

Any time a sculptor works to create something beautiful, the process is violent. Our national parks are no exception. They were shaped by floods, rivers, tectonic plates colliding, volcanic eruptions, earth quakes, glaciers, repeated freezing and thawing, acidic rain, the list does not stop. When you see the grandeur of Balancing Rock, you must remember Chip of the Old Block (the balancing rock 100 feet away that toppled in the 70s). When you see Landscape Arch, you must remember that in 1991, 180 tons of stone fell from the west side of the arch. That is how these features are created, and that is how they will be destroyed. It is sometimes a slow process, but it is almost never a gentle process.

I wonder if that is part of the reason why life can be really hard and messy sometimes. Are all of the challenges and difficulties that we face constantly just a part of G-d chipping away at the stone to shape us into something beautiful?

I really do believe that is the case. How beautiful would Arches National Park be if there were no violent forces to shape the stone there? Would it be worth visiting, or would it just be a large mound of rough, unshaped stone?

PS: Before anyone jumps on me, I am aware that Mother Nature is a part of many Native American religions, and is the counterpart of father sky. I am not putting down mothers, or Native American religions even though I do not believe in those religions. I am talking about the way that middle-class, Caucasian Americans use the term basically to mean a series of random occurrences which shaped the world.

The Not So Promised Land

2009-10-01T20:58:00.001-05:00

For some reason, I had always pictured Utah as a big desert, and it is, but it is not at all the empty, arid, ugly place that I had thought. I can see why the Mormons feel like this place is a place of refuge, even going so far as to name one of the national parks here Zion. Utah is the kind of infinitely varied and beautifully sculpted desert that makes desert life actually seem appealing.

Salt Lake City is like a moderately well watered garden, with confusing streets and plenty of room to stretch out in. The city spreads out like a blanket to cover the entire valley, the arms of the city reaching far up into the surrounding canyons like roots of a tree, searching for water and nutrients.

There is a feeling about the area, as if everyone is pretending to be happy. Businessmen walk about town in nice suits while soccer moms wearing too much makeup drive SUVs to their small suburban mansions. Parents occasionally yell at their children in the supermarket because their child is “making a scene”. The feeling of false happiness is not all that different from Alabama really, except that Alabamians pretend to be polite, not happy.

The family that I stayed with in SL city was absolutely wonderful. The father runs a successful online business, while the mother, when she is not helping with the business, paints some of the most beautiful landscapes that I have ever seen. My friend took me to the basement and showed me his father’s collection, which includes an AR-15, M-1 Garand which he uses to hunt elk, M-1 Carbine, and a fully restored WWII era model 1911 Colt .45. Like I said, these people were right up my alley.

One of my favorite things about staying with this family is that they are believers. They have what appears to be a very real faith that they walk out in their day to day lives. I am really impressed by people who live in communities that are not supportive of their faith. I can only imagine that living in the Mormon capitol of the world would do a lot to strengthen a person’s walk with the L-rd through trials.

I was only able to stay with the family for two days before heading south and east toward Arches National Park. In my short stay I felt very rested and rejuvenated. I hope that they are blessed by the L-rd for their hospitality to a traveler.

Big Coffee Maker in the Ground

2009-09-29T20:32:00.004-05:00

It was a long, cold drive back to Artists point. I do not know the exact temperature, but last night felt like the coldest night that I have experienced this entire trip (my feet were frozen in my 15 degree sleeping bag). I arrived at the point at 7:30, tightly bundled up in a fleece jacket, down vest, flannel lined pants, and wool hat. There were a handful of photographers already on location with everything from point and shoot cameras to the Nikon D3 (retail value = a used car).

As I made me way from my truck to the point, I was struck with a brilliant idea!

Instant Coffee! I had purchased a box with several small packets of instant coffee in Missoula, so I gathered my camp stove, along with the coffee and mug and made my way to the point.

For the next half hour, I was the envy of every photographer at the point. Some people made friendly comments while others gave me jealous sideways glances as I stood happily watching the sun pour over the ridge and down into the valley to illuminate Lower Falls.

There are few ideas that I find more romantic than sipping coffee in the cool of the morning in a beautiful wilderness. This little pick me up, helped make my entire day more positive. I spent the next several hours stopping at every thermal feature I could find to catch the morning light illuminating the steam that poured from the ground. Because Yellowstone is basically the caldera of a giant super volcano, it is known for having the majority of all the thermal features in the entire world. By noon, I had made my way to Old Faithful, possibly the most famous thermal feature in the entire park.

The eruption of Old Faithful is quite a sight. Imagine a giant ant hill, with steam pouring from the opening. Next imagine that steam building in pressure underground until finally it erupts 60 feet into the air, like a volcano of water, spewing its stinky steam across an area half the size of a football field.

From Old Faithful, I made my way back south to Grand Teton national park where I had some beautiful encounters with moose before finally ending the night in the town of Jacksons Hole, Montana.

The Super Volcano

2009-09-19T11:14:00.000-05:00

I have heard many different people say that the Grand Tetons National Park is their favorite over Yellowstone National Park, but for the life of me, I cannot understand why!

Don’t get me wrong. I love the Grand Tetons. They are some of the prettier mountains that I have seen, and I have seen more than my fair share of mountains on this trip. I also got some really awesome and rare moose shots in the Grand Tetons (rare because of the conditions of the shot).

The thing is, Yellowstone has so many different things to do and see, and all of them are interesting (with the possible exception of the natural bridge, which is a very long hike to a very small and unassuming arch).

Immediately upon my arrival in Yellowstone, I was faced with a heard of elk cooling off in the shade of one of the many employee barracks at Mammoth Hot Springs, one of the most beautiful set of hot springs in the park.

As I journeyed East and then South along the grand loop road, it was like a journey back in time. Each place that I stopped at was a memory from my childhood, when my parents took us on a western road trip. I remembered the creek where I caught 5 brook trout, and my first look at a bison, and the sulphur smell of the Geo-thermal features.

I took time to stop at one overlook for nearly an hour, watching and waiting for the wolves that had been showing up in this area recently. I never did see the wolves, but I saw quite a few hawks and elk.

I was so touched by the view of lower falls, from Artist’s Point, that I made a decision to drive back to the point the next morning, for what I thought would be better lighting. That night, as I camped off the side of the road in a national forest, I was visited by 6 motorcycles that pulled into my clearing, revved their engines for a couple of minutes, and then drove off.

PS: why people hate photographers

Bob's Burgers

2009-09-17T10:54:00.000-05:00

I made my way east from Missoula, crossing rolling glacial hills, fields of golden grass, and low, stony mountains, stopping briefly in Butte, a small mining town that stretches from the highway up the side of a large hill, “the richest hill on earth” as it is known, where prospectors struck gold in what is now the main street. For having the name, “the richest hill on earth”, the town certainly did not look like an overly prosperous place to live. Houses and shops were small and rundown, every fourth lot sat empty, and men wore wife beaters and drove rusty Camaros and old Chevrolet Pickups. It was almost exactly what I would expect a mining town to look like, except of course that a mining town should have more trees, and be very dark and cloudy all of the time.

I am always pleasantly surprised when I find a town that catches my eye. Bozeman is one of those towns. I think it is the downtown that attracted my attention. In my exhaustingly repetitive search for a place to sleep, I accidentally drove one exit past the Wal-Mart, and had to circle back through downtown Bozeman to get to my free version of the holiday inn.

I was shocked by the feeling of vitality that I got as I drove through downtown. People were still out and about at 9:30, stores and restaurants were still open, children and adult lined the streets alongside the college age, and young professional crowd. Bozeman feels like a town with some culture.

I drove all the way to Wal-Mart before deciding to turn around and get a little bit of the Bozeman experience. As I walked up and down the streets, feeling underdressed in my jeans and brown plaid shirt; I was approached by a man speaking truth out of the scriptures. His words were not long, his opinion not shared.

He simply stated: “seek yea first the kingdom of God,” along with a word of exhortation.

A few minutes later, a lady approached me to ask if I knew the location of the bus stop. I did not. After she had walked off, I got a feeling like I should make an effort to help her out rather than sitting on my lazy butt. I asked a passerby about the location of the bus station, and then found the lady and gave her a ride.

I ended up spending the next hour or so enjoying a glass of PBR with Carmen, while we talked about our life stories and our respective travels. Carmen is a former army medic, and EMT. She spent years working two jobs to support her teenage daughter, until she was no longer physically able to work because of the combination of no rest, and gulf war syndrome.

Now that her daughter has graduated, she travels around the country visiting friends in various places. I am always amazed by the stories of people that I meet, as well as by the words of encouragement that they so often share with me. As we talked about things that we felt like were valuable, I mentioned my own skepticism about the value of my photography, a skepticism that she did not share at all.

She told me that God gave me this gift for a reason, and that the images that I capture may not impact most people, but they impact some. She said that if a person looked at one of the images that I capture and stopped for just a second to think about G-d’s creation or our relationship to eternity, that would be something of value.

Coming Soon…

2009-09-15T10:28:00.004-05:00

…To a maternity ward near you.

It is unusual to take maternity pictures when a mother is only 20 weeks pregnant, but then again, what do I ever do that is not unusual?

Kimberley Heger, a model in Kalispell, Montana, gave me the honors of doing her, and my, first maternity shoot. I have always thought that being a mother was one of the most wonderful and beautiful things that a woman could do, so it was a treat to be able to capture the beauty of maternity with my camera. Kimberly and I were both quite pleased with the results.

Night Light

My photographic adventure did not end in Kalispell. Just one long drive down a winding, scenic road from Kalispell is the thriving town of Missoula. Missoula is a real gem of a city, and one that I could see myself living in at some point in the future. The town of 50,000 people is home to the University of Montana, and supports a thriving downtown area, complete with bars, coffee shops, art galleries, alley ways, and on the evening that I happened to visit, a live band.

I stopped in Missoula to do a photo shoot with a student from the university there. The project that we were working on was light painting in an alleyway in the downtown area. Because of the technique, in which the camera shutter is left open for several seconds while a flashlight is used to “paint” light onto the subject, we had to shoot in a very dark area, which meant an alley at nighttime.

It is usually a bad idea to be hanging in dark alleyways at night, but Missoula seemed to be a fairly upstanding city, in that, rather than being attacked by drug dealers, we were harassed by a drunk blonde guy who wanted to hug my model, and a gaggle of drunken college girls, one of whom is actually trying to become a model.

All Forward Paddle

It is funny how people often mistreat each other, thinking that they will never see such and such person again. The truth is that our world is very small. This was illustrated to me as I walked through the parking lot of a Walmart in Missoula.

“Hey! I know that guy!”

I look up, and to my great surprise, up walks Michael, a guy that I river guided with at the JH Ranch in 2007.

So what is the moral of the story?

Be nice to everyone you meet, and not just because God told you to!

Photographing the Invisible Woman

2009-09-11T23:27:00.000-05:00

You know how people always say that such and such thing will put hair on your chest? Well I honestly think, as I stand naked in a $3.50, 8 minute long shower, that traveling has put hair on mine. That seems like an unusual thing to observe, however, I have dealt with the shame of being bare chested for all of my life until a couple of days ago. No self respecting guy wants to be the dude with no hair on his chest.

Maybe the hair is a result of the cold weather that accompanied my passage through Banff. I have traveled throughout most of the country without the rain that I desperately wanted, and yet, here I am on the edge of an emerald like, running for cover like a mad man as a wall of water comes streaming after me.

In spite of killing some spectacular views, the rain was not entirely unwelcome. It gave me a wonderful opportunity to wash my car! Yes, I know that you are not supposed to wash your car during a storm, but believe me, anything is an improvement over the dust wagon that I was driving before the rain.

One of the major drawbacks of the rain was that it compelled me to head to Calgary a day earlier than I had to, which was a big mistake. Calgary is another city that belongs on my black list. The roads are designed so that everything is a major thoroughfare, and it is virtually impossible to turn around once you have started down the wrong road. This was not a good combination with a GPS that does not function in Canada.

I wasted two days in Calgary, shopping, buying groceries, getting my hair cut, and eating a delicious country fried steak dinner at Denny’s (who knew that Canada could fry a steak?!?). At the end of my two days I was rewarded with the inability to find the model that I was supposed to meet for a cosplay shoot (a photo shoot themed after comics and cartoons), and a non-functioning contact number for that same model.

Calgary had won, and I beat a hasty retreat!

Trans-Canadian Railroad

2009-09-09T13:45:00.000-05:00

After a short trip to Kamloops, I ended up back in Vancouver two days later. I was scheduled to do a doll themed photo shoot with a model named Erica. The shoot was not extremely successful. The tiny, retro kitchen in her apartment was not the ideal place for what we were trying to achieve, though we did get some good images in the parking garage behind her apartment.

The true success of the night was making a new friend. After the shoot was over, Erica and I spent the next several hours talking about music and horror movies while we split a bottle of wine (alcohol is expensive in Canada!). We even managed to get yelled at by her crazy landlady for being to noisy. It is interesting to me that I always seem to get along the best with liberal atheists. I wonder why that is?

From Vancouver, I made my way back through Kamloops toward Banff National Park in Alberta. It was a very long drive, but also very scenic. My stomach has changed a lot over the course of the trip, so when I stopped to eat at the best Wendy’s that I have ever visited (the staff were incredibly nice, I had my food before I had my receipt, and they even brought an after dinner mint to my table) my stomach was not quite up to the task.

Luckily my digestive problems worked out to my advantage, because the rest stop that I used turned out to be the site where the trans-Canadian railway was linked. It is kinda funny the things that you stumble across in search of a bathroom.

“Your not here to buy crack are you man? Because crack is what killed my mother”

2009-09-07T13:41:00.004-05:00

For the past half hour, the subject of crack had been a recurring theme in our conversation.

“I am not here to buy crack, or any other drugs like I said earlier, I am just trying to find Pat’s Pub.” He looked at me suspiciously.
“Then what are you doing on West Hastings?”
“I am trying to call me friend, because this is where she said the pub was.”
“Your trying to call your sister? Just give me $20 and I’ll show you where Pat’s Pub is. I was born in this city. I am 100% healthy.” He says through his broken jaw, “My squad member died but that is besides the point.”

All in all, I spent about an hour talking to Darren Igneous, the druggie who jumped into my car as I was parked on the side of the road. After I managed to convince him that I had no money, that I was not here to buy crack or pain killers, and that I was his friend, I was finally able to get him out of my car.

It seems like having a druggie jump into my vehicle should have been a worse experience. I was definitely agitated at first, but after a while, I began to feel peace. My experience definitely began to change when I started to actually care about Darren, and began to treat him like a friend and fellow person rather than as a crazy druggie who wanted my money. Darren even allowed me to pray for his jaw before he left.

This has really opened my eyes to the needs of the poor. Not the physical needs so much, I have always known and cared about those, but about the emotional and spiritual needs. Everyone needs to know that they are loved. Everyone needs to be listened to and cared about. It is part of what makes us human.

I never thought about how big of a need there is for people to love on the homeless, but now I am beginning to hope that the L-rd will give me opportunities to do so in the future.

Even though I did not get to see a Rockabilly show with my friend Nevada, I felt like I gained a lot that night, including an interesting story and a new outlook on the poor.

PS: here is a photo that I took with my friend earlier that day.

Let's Do The Time Warp Again!

2009-09-01T20:42:00.000-05:00

“Lift your face up!”
I look up to see a transsexual walking toward me with a friend.
“I know you don’t I?”
I smile, “I don’t think so since this is my first time in Vancouver.”
“Well I’d Like Too!” she laughs, and almost hits me with her stick as she walks past.
“Don’t hit him with your stick.” Her friend chimes in, “I have a whip for that.”

They laugh as the walk off down the street.

This is not my first unusual experience in Canada, and I imagine that it will not be the last. If I can find the place, I will be heading to a Rockabilly concert tonight with some friends that I met in Vancouver. I am interested to see how that turns out.

I am also surprised a little bit by British Columbia in general. I have always had very positive experiences with everyone that I have met from Canada, and yet the first person that I talked to as I crossed the border was very unfriendly.

“mumble mumble today”
“I’m doing well, how about you?”
“That’s not what I asked. Where are you from?”
“Alabama”
“Go park your truck and see the lady inside”

Jamaica is the only country that has ever given me more trouble with their international customs. I hope that this is not a trend for Canada.

Rainy, Sue, and Aunt Leana

2009-08-31T20:18:00.004-05:00

It seems like the L-rd has seen fit to fill my life with people of extraordinary proportions. The majority of my female friends are either 5’1” or 6’ tall. Kait definitely falls into the latter category, along with her sister Michelle. I met Kaitlin in 2007 when I was river guiding for the JH Ranch. She was one of my favorite campers, and one of the only ones that I stayed in contact with over the past two years.

We spent most of a day playing with ferrets, eating spaghetti, playing Halo 2, and touring downtown Portland. As I have said, I am not a city person, but walking around town is always more fun when you have a giant walking next to you, especially if that giant happens to be wearing a hot pink shirt and some sweet sunglasses.

I only stayed in Portland for two nights before I began my trek back north, around the Olympic Peninsula.

There are a few places that stand out to me as the prettiest places I have ever been. Among them are Denali and Valdez Alaska, the coast of northern California, the alpine lakes of Yosemite and northern California, and now the Olympic Peninsula. Because of the incredible amount of rainfall and cloud cover, the Peninsula is one of the greenest places I have ever been. The trees are tall, dark, and covered in moss, which, incidentally, is covered in more moss.

The coast is even more incredible than the forest. The sky is always overcast and full of hazy fog so that the sun is just a soft white spot, hovering in the pure white sky over the soft, foamy waves. The beach starts as imposing evergreen forest, marked at its boundary by the bleached skeletal remains of fallen trees, which fade into smooth, flat stones and finally dark sand.

It was the beauty of this shore that made me decide, for the second time on my entire trip, to actually pay money for a place to stay. As I pulled into the campsite, I was met by a trio of ladies coming from the Senior Olympics in San Francisco, but these were not your typical seniors. Because of the limited number of sites available, we decided to share a site, which ended up costing me $2. After they were done feeding me bratwursts and lentil soup, we sat around and talked about out travels.

These ladies have been all over the country, often traveling in their RV to a central location, and then touring around on their motorcycles. Aunt Leane told me stories about meeting biker gangs on the road, while Rainey talked about doing the triple jump, and pole-vaulting. Aunt Leane also took the time to show me Jupiter and its three satellites, which you can see clearly through her Bushnell 10x50 binoculars.

It was such a blessing to have these ladies treat me like “Cousin Andrew” for an evening. I love how often the L-rd shows me kindness through people.

Sorry for the Long Delay

2009-08-29T19:56:00.003-05:00

Every once in a while you just have to splurge. At least, that is what I told myself to justify the venti Mocha Frappeccino that I ordered at the original Starbucks in Seattle, WA. I was really surprised that there was not even a plaque inside to denote the special store at the corner of First Avenue and Pike Street.

Pike’s market is one of the most famous areas in Seattle, and for good reason. With the exception of the lone Starbucks, Pike’s market has no national retailers. Instead, the market is made up of local and small vendors selling all sorts of touristy goods, pastries, cloths, and my personal favorite, fish! For the low, low price of $29.99 a lb. you can buy the best smoked salmon that I have ever tasted.

I would not normally spend the money to go to a downtown market place and buy overpriced coffee, but this was a special scenario. Friends of mine from the JH Ranch were in Seattle for one evening, so I made as point to meet up with them and explore. A city is just not the same when you are alone. I much prefer having friends around so that I can take their picture while they have fresh, whole salmon thrown across a store into their waiting arms.

Some things are just better with people. It is this motto that led me to my next adventure, a three hour drive at night back to Portland, Oregon to buy a set of studio strobes and visit one of my friends.

G-d's Sewer

2009-08-25T20:31:00.002-05:00

When I was a child, I was deathly afraid of the dark. My active imagination told me that every shadow, every blanket, every cracked closet door was something that did not like me. I had two strategies to cope with this fear. The first strategy was to have my little sister escort me up the dark hallway to my room. The second was to turn on every light, one by one, all the way to my room, and then to return to the first light and turn it off, followed by the second, until I could finally turn off the light in my own room and go to sleep.

It is funny how G-d does not allow his children to live in fear. He helps us to overcome it. He helped me to overcome my fear of the Screaming Eagle, a contraption at the ranch that has you lying in a hang gliding harness, suspended 80 feet in the air, until you work up the bravery to pull a string and release yourself on the longest swing of your life. He helped me to overcome my fear of jumping 45 feet off of Scott River Bridge. He helped me overcome my fear of camping alone with no tent in bear country.

That being said, it was not much of a surprise that today I found myself in the single darkest place that I have ever been in my life, forcing myself to turn off my flashlight.

Mt. St. Helens is a famous volcano in the state of Washington, noted primarily because of its unexpected eruption in recent history. One interesting characteristic of volcanoes is that they produce lava tubes, huge underground tunnels that act as an underground highway for flowing lava.

It is in one of these lava tubes, known as Ape Cave, that I faced my fear of the dark. The tube is 1.5 miles long, varying in size from about the width and height of a subway tunnel to only a few feet in diameter in places. As I climbed down the steep stairway that marked the entrance to the tunnel, I was overwhelmed by the darkness all around me. I stood there, alone, in a single shaft of light, with darkness surrounding me on all sides. My puny little flashlight could only penetrate the darkness a few feet ahead.

What if my flashlight and headlamp both quit working? What if I get hurt climbing over loose boulders? What if I panic? Irrational fears almost made me turn back, but before I could, I saw an elderly couple walking up from the easier and of the tunnel. I spoke to them for only a couple of minutes, but it was just enough to get my pride working. I did not want them to know that I was afraid, so I decided to start walking.

Within a few minutes my fear was gone. There I was, completely alone, with more than a mile of subterranean unknown before me, and I was not afraid.

I am so glad that the L-rd brought that elderly couple along. He designed me, and he knew that my pride was the secret to getting me to do stupid and irrational things. He also knows that forcing me to do stupid and irrational things has made a huge difference in my ability to discipline myself and do what needs to be done in life. Even in something as trivial as Spelunking, the L-rd is training me and preparing me for the purpose to which he has called me.

To Get Her Prescription Filled

2009-08-24T20:31:00.001-05:00

Again I find myself at the top of Mount Tabor, watching the sun set and contemplating my day. Portland feels like a spiritual desert to me. Mount Tabor is the only place in this town where I feel a real sense of peace. It is easy to become discouraged in this environment, but the L-rd is my oasis and he keeps giving me water to refresh me. I got a call from a friend today. She called to tell me about the failing health of her grandfather, but she ended up sharing with me about something that Go-d spoke to her in her quiet time.

Throughout the scriptures, the L-rd calls people into the desert before he does something huge in their lives. The L-rd told her that I am in that time now, and that he has so much to show me while I am alone with him.

I would say that Portland is nothing at all like I expected, but honestly, I don’t know what I expected. The city definitely has a hippy vibe, but it is every bit as urban as any other city that I have been too. Scattered throughout the neighborhoods are pubs, coffee shops, and whole foods stores.

What amazes me the most about cities is the number of homeless people that I see everywhere that I go. Some cities hide them better than others do, but they are always there. I sat for an hour in Laurelhurst Park listening to a 7th day Adventist talk to me very fluently about the scriptures while doing a poor job of remembering whether or not he was homeless.

Another time, later in the day, I gave a homeless woman at an intersection some money. She proceeded to thank me profusely.

“I need $17 for painkillers for my back, and that brings me up to $5! Thank you!”

It’s Not What You Think It Is

2009-08-21T12:18:00.000-05:00

I sit at the top of Mount Tabor, watching the sun set over the valley, Portland bathed in shadows below me. There are only a few wispy clouds to give texture to the sky. This is not a dramatic Van Gough sunset; this is a warm and peaceful Murillo sunset.

On the hillside to my left, a man in a black and white polo holds his girlfriend, her black, curly hair falling across his chest as she reclines comfortably into his arms. Below them, a slightly older couple sits side by side on a white blanket, staring at the reflections of the sky off of the Mount Tabor reservoir.

It is not what I think it is.

Donald Miller writes in Blue Like Jazz about a conversation that he had with a friend on the roof of his home. His friend spoke about marriage as though it was the best part of life, but then he goes on to tell Don that it does not satisfy. G-d did not make man to be alone, but he also did not make man to be satisfied by anything else other than himself.

It is a hard thing for me to understand when I look around and see joyful lovers sharing a bond that I lack. As I sit on the mountainside, I think of my close friends who just announced their engagement. I think about what this sunset together would mean to them. I think about the joy and intimacy that they will share as husband and wife.

Then suddenly, God brings a different picture to my mind. He shows me a woman in her thirties, a woman that has faithfully been seeking him, and protecting her heart, but who does not yet have the companion that she prays for. I think about the anger and frustration that she had to work through when her plans and G-d’s plans were not the same.

I don’t know what God has in store for me, but I know that he has plans to prosper me and not to harm me.

I Blew It Again

2009-08-20T12:15:00.000-05:00

As I drove down I-5 today, G-d began to bring different parts of my trip to mind. I started to think about what I had learned, and what opportunities G-d had given me to minister As I thought over the trip, I really began to get a sense of what the L-rd has been doing in my life through this journey. I began to see how I was growing, and what the Lord was teaching me. I thought about what I had learned at the ranch. I thought about the homeless man named Kevin that rode with me the other day. I thought about all that the Lord was showing me about relationships and people. I thought about the prayers that I shared with a friend recently, and the relationships that have come out of this journey.

Then I began to think about other things. I thought about the girl named Mandi, who spoke to me about trusting in the L-rd, counting on his promises to meet our needs, and how it was not irresponsible to follow G-d, even when it meant not making money. I thought about how I failed to listen like I should, because I was allowing myself to be distracted by thoughts of someone else that I wanted to speak to. I feel like I have lost part of the message that the L-rd was trying to give me, because I chose for that moment to delight myself in a girl rather than in G-d. I prayed today that he would give me that message again.

I also thought about another time when I failed on this trip. I remembered a woman in Modesto, CA who asked me if she could sing me a song for some money. I gave her some money, but I told her that I needed to be somewhere, so she did not have to worry about singing for me. I began to walk off, and she noticed that I had a lighter, so she asked me if I needed a cigarette. I told her that I only smoked a pipe and then I thanked her and left.

That may sound fairly innocuous, but the truth is that I took away that woman’s dignity. I should have taken the cigarette even though I would not smoke it. By not allowing her to somehow earn the money that I gave her, I made he into a person to be pitied. I wronged her.

It is funny to think that it was wrong for me to give that lady money when she wanted to earn it, but at the same time, G-d requires us to accept his grace without attempting to earn it. People who try to earn G-d’s grace are referred to in the scriptures as “White Washed Sepulchers.”

I do not want to be someone who tries to earn G-d’s grace, but I also do not want to be someone who misses opportunities to minister to other people.

Please Stop Me…

2009-08-19T22:20:00.000-05:00

…If I ever try to move to Ashland, Oregon.

If there is one place where my flesh would have a blast, it is Ashland, Oregon. This city feels a little smaller than Tuscaloosa, and is completely surrounded by wilderness, and yet the downtown area has such an urban, artsy feel. The streets are lined with art shops, photo galleries, and outdoor stores. Beautiful people with athletic bodies and eclectic style are a dime a dozen in Ashland. In the heart of the small city is a huge park that is packed with people performing, making art, and enjoying nature in a setting that feels very much like a large metropolitan park.

Ashland has almost everything that would delight my flesh but not my soul, and for that very reason, I hope that I never live here.

Good News

I feel a little bit sad about leaving the ranch, but I just received news that makes my heart soar. I just found out that two people that I am very close to are getting married. I am so happy for them, and I could not imagine two people that are better suited for each other. I love them both so dearly, and I am about to go pray blessings over their marriage.

This ranks among the happiest days in my life, because I know how much they love each other and how much they both love the L-rd. It gives me hope that fairy tales can come true and that G-d has someone perfect planned for me.

Samson

2009-08-17T21:49:00.000-05:00

Times change and people grow. This is a fact of life that I am very grateful for. I never imagined that I would return to the ranch, but what really amazes me is that I feel closer to the summer staff this year, even though I have only known them for a week, than I did to the staff of ’07 that I spent an entire summer with.

I think that the big change has been me. I have relaxed and become more relational in my old age, but on top of that, my encounter with Steven and the L-rd’s faithfulness to answer prayer has really changed the way that I relate to the people around me. I am now better equipped to love the summer staff and to receive their love.

In spite of the change in my heart, my week at the ranch was still not without its drama. The problem is women, or more specifically, my incredible attraction to women. G-d has placed a desire in my heart for companion ship, but my attempts to satisfy that desire are always futile.

It was an attempt to satisfy that desire that lead to my drama. The ranch is full of G-dly women, and by the end of my first night at the ranch, one of those women had already caught my eye. Selfishly, I decided to pursue this girl, rather than allowing her to honor her commitment to focus entirely on G-d this summer. It only took a few short days for our brief romance to degenerate into emotional turmoil, as I stole her attention from God and her friends, out of a selfish ambition to satisfy my own loneliness. I don’t know what I would have done if it had not been for the L-rd’s provision.

As I worked with various G-dly men at the ranch, the same theme kept coming up without any prompting from me. Delight yourself in the L-rd and he will give you the desires of your heart. Man after man shared these scriptures with me, until I could no longer deny that this is what the L-rd was speaking to me.

Just as my heart was changing and my desire was shifting toward the L-rd, the woman that I had pursued really began to feel that we were not good for each other and that we were dragging each other away from the L-rd. After an emotional but honest talk, we decided to part ways so that we could once again focus on G-d.

Kryptonite

2009-08-16T21:08:00.003-05:00

“I sense that you sometimes have feelings that are not your own. That you feel what other people around you are feeling.”

Steven, a middle aged man with a brain to large for his skull, smiles at me on the little patio outside of the JH Ranch lodge. He has an unusually refined ability to hear from the L-rd, and now he begins to share with me some of the things that the Lord is trying to tell me.

“What can we do for you today?”

He smiles at me and then at his wife who sits in the third chair of our little triangle.

“I want to hear whatever truth the Lord has to share with me” I say with extremely well masked skepticism. I am not one to blindly believe in anyone who claims to have words from the Lord.

We begin to talk, and I soon admit that I have come to see him because of a prejudice that I have against the wealthy people, or more specifically, the culture of wealth. Whenever I meet someone from the money culture, I immediately judge them by assuming that they will judge me and that they won’t like me.

“People will often live up to your expectations,” Steven says, “so if you expect them to judge you, they will. Instead try to look for the good in everyone, and you will usually be able to find it. In fact, I believe that you have a gift for finding the good in people and that you will begin to reveal things to people about themselves that they never knew before”

We prayed for deliverance from my prejudice and, just as I was about to leave, I asked them if there was anything else that the Lord wanted to tell me. That is when they told me about my sensitivity to other peoples feelings.

I have always had a strong ability to tell how people are feeling and what they are thinking about, a characteristic that I inherited from my mother, but I had never considered that some of the feelings that I feel could be coming from other people. According to Pamela, Steven’s wife, G-d allows some people to feel the physical or emotional pain of others so that they can then intercede on behalf of that person through prayer.

I would love to hear different people’s beliefs about that, specifically any beliefs that can be backed up by scriptures.

Wish Upon a Shooting Star

2009-08-11T19:27:00.000-05:00

I took a cold bath in the Klamath River this morning. It is refreshing to be in a body of water that I know and trust. After my bath, I started my drive back up river towards Happy Camp, keeping an eye out as I went for the yellow SOTAR rafts that the JH Ranch uses. My vigilance was rewarded when, just above the class three rapid that we know as Rattlesnake, I saw Tyler Kempf a fourth year river guide who was around when I was on the river. I yelled to him, and in shocked voice he told me to meet them at Wingate. I did meet them at Wingate, but not before I took pictures of him and the other guides guiding Rattlesnake with varying degrees of success.

I had planned on heading straight to Ashland, Oregon, but Tyler convinced me to stop by the ranch, and I am glad that I did. It has been incredible to see so many old friends, but the best part by far was the trampoline. The JH Ranch is a place steeped in tradition, and one of those traditions is for random staff to congregate on the trampoline in a horse pasture, directly in front of the director’s house. We all lay there, covered in blankets, staring up at the night sky in search of satellites and shooting stars. The Ranch has the best stars of any place that I have ever been.

For the sake of not ratting out my friends, I won’t say who all was on the trampoline with me, but I will say that I felt really at home as I lay there spooning for warmth between two of my male friends. Gradually as the night wore on, people started to migrate away until it was just there were just four of us, a couple on one end of the trampoline, and a really cool girl and myself on the other side. Before, anyone gets any ideas, I was a gentleman and this is the Ranch, where people are exceptionally well behaved.

It was so nice to cuddle up next to someone under the stars and have a real conversation with them about things that actually matter. We talked about dreams, and the future, and travel, and how important it is to know and love people.

Pot in a Pot

2009-08-10T19:24:00.002-05:00

Happy Camp is an exceedingly poor name for this town. The only kind of Happiness that you find in Happy Camp is the drug induced high of meth or marijuana. The town is settled in one of the prettiest places that I have ever been, the Klamath River Valley. The economy here used to be fueled by logging, but now I don’t know what people do, besides the occasional construction job. Happy Camp was, and probably still is, one of the crystal meth capitols of the United States.

As I drove through town today, I was greeted by a kid walking down the street carrying a small marijuana sprout in a decorative flower pot. This is an upgrade from the usual people that I see around this town, people with no teeth and jittery, malfunctioning motor skills.

I came here for two reasons. The first and lesser reason was that I used to have a crush on a meth head that lived here named Felisha, but the second and real reason that I came to this small town in the middle of Northern California is that this is the place where I used to guide rafting trips for the JH Ranch.

As soon as I got to town, I went to Parry’s grocery store to inquire about Felisha, who now has a child and has not been seen much around town for the last 6 months. Having failed in that goal, I went to search Curly Jack Campground to see if any JH Ranch river guides were still in the area.

I found their camp deserted, so I went to check the usual haunts to see if they were out having adventures. I did not find them at Ukinam, the bi-furcated waterfall dumping into a basin off of a beautiful mountain creek, nor did I find them at Clear Creek. Clear Creek is a large creek at the end of several miles of trail that lead off of an 8 mile, rock strewn dirt road that winds its way up the side of a mountain. The water freezing cold water winds its way through narrow alley ways of stone that form fantastic 15 and 20 foot jumps. I spent a couple of hours sunbathing at the creek before returning to camp at the Wingate pull out where most of our rafting trips ended.

Pay it Forward

2009-08-08T19:20:00.001-05:00

“Pay it forward, Man!”
“Don’t pay me back, but pay someone else back.”
“It is called paying it forward.”

There are no hippies like a Humboldt hippy. Walking down the streets of this sleepy town of 15,000 is like taking a step back in time. Everyone here smokes pot, which is not surprising considering that Humboldt County is the marijuana capitol of the United States, and most of the people walking around have beards and long hair or dreadlocks. I have not been to any other place where I wanted to take pictures more badly, or felt like I was less welcome to take pictures. Pedestrians here have the right of way, and there is a legal cap on the number of large corporations that can be located within the Arcata city limits.

I have been told that people here rebel by not smoking pot, and being well dressed and well groomed.

I love Arcata. I love the rain, and the orientation toward local everything, and I really love the burrito bus, where you can get massive, juicy breakfast burritos for about $6.50. I am staying with my friend Meredith and her boyfriend Nathan. Meredith works at a video store, and Nathan does accounting for Planned Parenthood. They rent an awesome apartment above a dentists office, complete with thick green carpet, stainless steel appliances from the 70s, and a massive wood burning stove in the middle of the room.

It is hard for me to image that they would ever use the wood burning stove, because the temperature here pretty much always stays between 70 and 40, with the main variance being in the amount of rainfall that they get at different parts of the year.

Staying with Meredith has been a vacation for me. I slept and read for most of yesterday afternoon, which was good considering that it was my first real break in a month. At night we sit around and play Wii bowling while eating sushi and enjoying a drink. During the day, when we are not resting, we wander around to the different stores, co-ops, glass shops, thrift stores, restaurants, etc.

Bagpipes Anyone?

2009-08-06T12:17:00.000-05:00

Steep hillsides, covered in dark green red woods roll over the edge of jagged cliffs into an ocean of perfectly blue water. The coastline of northern California is like no other place that I have ever been. It rivals Alaska for beauty. The side of Highway 1 is cluttered with pullouts providing incredible views, and access to small, empty beaches. The beaches are like small alcoves, carved into the cliff face, and dotted with, tidal pools, caves, kelp, and small pebbles, only slightly to large to be considered sand. The occasional seal can be heard barking on the rocks further out to sea. Many places along the road permit open range cattle grazing, a n activity that lead to my first ever experience in the United States of seeing a cow walking along a paved road.

The coastline seems to stretch on forever, draped with the winding snake of highway 1. Finally, the highway passes through Fort Bragg, a beautiful little art town, before it turns slightly inland and joins highway 101 at Leggett, the home of the world famous drive through redwood. 101 then proceeds north for another hundred miles before finally passing through Eureka and arriving at Arcata, possibly one of the most beautiful towns I have seen in my life.

There and Back Again

2009-08-05T12:12:00.002-05:00

I will definitely give San Francisco an A for style. I am not a huge city person, as you have probably gathered from previous posts, so I generally do not have much to say that is positive about a place as large as San Francisco. The thing is, in spite of the bumper to bumper traffic, the choking pollution, and the roaring noise of the street, San Francisco still somehow managed to stay on my list of places that I enjoyed.

I think that a large part of the reason why I like San Francisco is that people here make an effort to make their city look nice. The air is polluted, but the streets are clean, the houses are packed onto the street like sardines, but they are all attractive, with bright paint and detailed masonry. There is a beautiful park on the north shore of the city. The park is a large circle with a crescent shaped lake on one side which is mirrored by a crescent shaped building on the opposing side. At the center of the park is a massive dome, like a gazebo for giants, with two great arms extending to the north and the south. These arms are a series of 80 ft (maybe?) columns supporting stone arches reminiscent of the aqueducts of Rome.

The crescent shaped building houses the Exploratorium, a single massive room filled with displays and interactive exhibits that allow visitors, mostly children, to learn about all kinds of things including sound, light, kinetics, genetics, and geology.

Only a short drive west from the park is the legendary Golden Gate Bridge. There are really no words to describe the bridge except massive and imposing. It took me close to an hour to walk across the bridge, long enough for the weather to change from sunny to billowing fog, and definitely long enough for me to be glad that I had thought to bring a jacket. I did not remember how cold the north really is, even in summer.

Tan Butt

2009-08-02T19:30:00.000-05:00

It is amazing to finally see trees again. I knew that I missed them, but I had no idea how much. Southern California is basically a big desert. The cities in that part of the country feel like they were built just because there was nothing better to do with all that empty land. When you reach Bakersfield the scenery finally begins to change from scrub brush to a never ending orchard. The orchard extends far into the north and gradually shifts into beautiful rolling hills of grass and low trees. Finally, as you make the ascent into the mountains surrounding Yosemite the pasture land turns into a forest of massive evergreens.

It is in this evergreen forest that I have determined to take up a new hobby, naked hiking. There are several reasons for this new hobby of mine, not the least of which is my white butt. When you are naked, you become much more aware of your environment, which is a good thing if you are a photographer. Naked hiking also makes you much more cautious about other people, which can in turn make you more likely to notice wildlife. Finally, I already did it in Big Bend and I would hate to break my streak (pun intended).

Alone in the Dark

Ostrand Lake is the first truly solo hike that I have ever been on. The hike is a slightly strenuous 6.2 mile hike to a beautiful mountain lake. I arrived early and selected a camp site that was on the opposite side of the lake from the handful of other people in the area. After making camp, I took a quick dip in the clear waters, and then stretched out nude on some smooth rocks, with nothing but some ants and a pleasant breeze to keep me company.

That evening, after enjoying a can of beef stew cooked over hot coals, I got out my bible and began to pray and read. I had a question that needed answering, and a request that I wanted to make of G-d. Is it wrong to beg G-d for something that you know is not right? This is what I needed to know as I lay there doing exactly what I was wondering about. I spent nearly an hour pleading with G-d, wondering why he designed me to have such strong desires that I could not fulfill at this time. Wondering why he built me so that I longed for exactly the kind of person that I cannot be with.

The only true comfort that I had was a passage in scripture that kept coming to mind where G-d promises that he has plans to bless me and not to hurt me.

“L-rd, I really need you to do something for me. I need you to change circumstances so that I can be with the one that I long for, or I need you to provide me with someone better.”

I feel selfish, like I am doing something wrong, when I pray like that. I don’t believe that it is wrong to beg of G-d when begging is all that you can do. David seemed to beg God for things on a regular basis.

What do you think?

Bird on Fire

2009-08-01T19:21:00.002-05:00

It took six and a half hours to drive to phoenix, not counting the frequent stops on the side of the road to take cat naps. I am the world’s worst night driver and I will fall asleep at the wheel if I am not careful. I know girl who fell asleep at the wheel and killed someone, so I am very cautious. I spent the night at a Wal-Mart, and by noon the next morning, I was hanging out with Andi talking about photo shoot ideas.

In addition to being quite possibly the prettiest girl that I have ever seen with my own eyes, Andi is also an incredible model and artist. We spent a long time looking at her paintings, drawings, charcoals, images that she had taken, and images that she modeled for. By the end, I was feeling very inadequate. Her work was all very good, and, while I have a lot of work that I am proud of, most of my portfolio is in Tuscaloosa on my external hard drive, so I had little to show her. On top of that, the last minute nature of the shoot, and the fact that I was running on 6 hours of sleep (I need 10) meant that my creative energy was shot.

There I was, with the model of my dreams, and I could barely put together a shoot. I had a wonderful time hanging out with her and her friends, and we ended up doing a set with Caroline, a single mom who looked like Gwen Stefani and wants to open up a bakery, and Caroline’s daughter Addison. I was really pleased with how many of the images came out in spite of the challenging lighting, but I can’t help but feel like I missed out on a lot of potential for shoots that I could have done with Andi.

I will try to convince her to shoot some more with me when I pass back by Phoenix after my hike in the Grand Canyon.

If A Tree Walks In The Forest

2009-07-28T17:50:00.001-05:00

July 26th and 27th

As I sit in the front seat of my truck in a Wal-Mart parking lot, I think back over the last few days, and how different the rest of my journey is going to be. I am in San Diego, which looks a lot more like desert than TV would lead you to believe. The people I have met and interacted with on the street have all been friendly. There is a comic book convention going on in the downtown conference center, so the streets are packed with people wearing costumes of all types, ranging from an overweight Jedi to a busty Mrs. America with a bad wedgy.

I have been hanging out with my friend Andrew, who is undergoing SEAL training in Coronado, his friend and fellow trainee Joe from Michigan, and some Croatian girls that they met. Joe and Andrew are both extremely hospitable, and I have not paid for anything the entire time that I have been with them. Last night we went out with their croatian friends to a place downtown. It was nice to be able to have a drink in public with my friend Andrew now that I don't work in youth ministry. I hope that today they will take me to see the obstacle course that they have to run as part of their training.

Disruptive Camouflage

Some animals attempt to hide themselves by using patterns to break up their outline so that they blend into their environment, while other animals try to physically look like their environment. The tree dancers at the San Diego Zoo fall into the second category.

I saw them as I was leaving the zoo. Two girls, wearing stilts on their hands and feet and completely covered from head to toe in fake vines and green paint, made their way to a small dance space at the entrance of the zoo. They moved like giant, graceful insects, bending and cavorting as they danced around each other. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, and their dance felt organic as they bent and gyrated like ballerinas (which I assume they were). At the end of the dance, they slowly moved through the crowd, stopping at every tree to hide or dance some more, until they finally went behind a fence.

One Down, Four to Go

Life is full of change. You learn to change, or you don’t, but either way change still happens. I have just finished the first leg of my journey, the road west through the desert. I have experienced what it is like to be alone, and yet I haven’t. I have been lonely, but God really has come through in keeping feelings of loneliness at bay. He has been my constant companion, and when he knows that I need a real friend to talk to, he has always provided. I felt more alone working at the JH Ranch with people who did not understand me than I have in the middle of the desert with no one in sight. I don’t know why that is.

It is time for me to move into greener pastures (slightly). It is time for me to head north, away from the abysmal desert, into the cold, rainy north. That is not the only change that is about to take place. In a day or two, I will be back in Tucson, Arizona to pick up my friend Cati.

After I left Tucson, and before I met up with Andrew in San Diego, I gave Cati a call to tell her how much more fun it was to be with people in a city that I hated than to be alone in a city that I liked. She responded by telling me how sick she is of Tucson, how she is unemployed, her lease is up in a couple of days, and she wants to leave. We made a decision, and she is now coming to join me on the road while she figures out where she wants to be. It will be great for me to have someone to hang out with, and I think she just wants to be around someone that she considers a “good” person.

This is probably one of the poorer decisions that I have made, but that remains to be seen. Please pray for me and for Cati both as we make this trip. She is not a believer, and I feel like living close to someone who has very different beliefs can definitely be a catalyst for spiritual growth or it can bring you down. If it starts to bring me down, then we will have to part ways, but please pray that it is a catalyst for growth instead.

*** The Next Day ***

It Is Not Good For Man To Be Alone

I was not kidding when I talked about change. Plans have changed, and Cati got cold feet at the last minute. I can't say that I blame her. It is not an easy thing to sell your belongings, say by to your friends, and just go. She felt like it was just to complicated to try to be ready to go in a day.

I am amazed by what a change in disposition this has brought over me. I feel like I have just been broken up with by someone that I am not even dating. It is just a weird feeling to plan on having a companion for the trip, to even go through the process of making room for their stuff, and then to find out just before you go to pick them up that they cannot go with you.

I think that this happened to make me realize how lonely I really am. I don't feel lonely when there is nobody around, but I can't stand to be alone around people. It is funny how God does things to teach us and to call us back to him.

Speaking of calls, I got a strange one today. I actually got a call from SeaSide Lady (to be fair, the call was proceeded by a couple of emails)! We talked a bit and she told me a tragic, at least to me it was tragic, story about how Andi lost my contact info and they had no way to get in touch with me. The story then took a turn for the better as the lady carefully and meticulously scoured the internet for my blog, then found my contact info and was able to get in touch with me.

I am about to give Andi a call, but odds are good that I will be heading back to Phoenix tonight to do some photo shoots tomorrow!

I’m Glad They All Can’t Be California Girls

2009-07-27T16:41:00.003-05:00

It is funny how perspectives can change. One minute I hate Tucson, the next minute I still hate Tucson and I don’t want to leave my friends here.

Things started to turn around my second morning in town. I stopped by Taco Bell for some nachos and a burrito, where I was approached by an elderly lady.

“Young man, I don’t mean to disturb you while you are eating, but do you have a minute? You see, my son parked his car here last night when his battery died. We came back today to get the battery out so we could replace it, and he can’t get it to come out. Do you think you can help us?”

I did not think that I would be able to help, but I agreed to come take a look anyway. I met her son outside and we took a look at the battery. After a few minutes of fiddling around with my socket wrench, the lady’s son figured out what needed to be done and got the battery out of the car without any more fuss. Honestly, he did not need my help at all. That is why I was really surprised when the lady was so grateful. I told her that I had not done anything, and she responded by telling me that she knew I was an angel, and that I had really helped. She even offered to let me use her driveway if I needed a place to stay.

After I finished my food, I spent several hours exploring the Sonora Desert Museum, A 40 acre park with exhibit after exhibit of everything from desert cave life to javalinas and mountain lions. Each enclosure was large and well made, and all of the animals were native species, well adapted to the desert environment. It was exactly what a zoo should be. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in animals.

The best part of my Tucson experience was meeting Cati and Tina. Cati was interested in doing some modeling, so we connected and started working on some projects. I spent the next to days hanging out with them, doing photo shoots, and exploring Tucson counter culture. I met all sorts of interesting people, mostly tattoo sporting, liberal, anarchists. We went to abandoned buildings and desert mountainsides. We went swimming at 4:30 in the morning. We played video games and watched scrubs. It was the most fun that I have had on my road trip this far, and it all happened in my least favorite city. It was a reminder that as awesome as creation is, as beautiful as the sunset is, as huge as the mountains are, the greatest thing that I can have on this side of life is relationships, first with God, and then with the people that he puts in my path.

I Come From The Water

2009-07-21T18:15:00.001-05:00

Tucson is a lot like dirt. The houses are brown. The trees are brown. The people are brown. Tucson feels like a city that God created from the dust and then forgot to clean up.

"Excuse me sir"
"Excuse me sir"
"Excuse me Sir!"
"What?"
"I am passing through town on a road trip, and I wanted to know if this Walmart allows overnighting in your parking lot."
"We don't allow RVs."
"What about my truck?"
"Is it a recreational vehicle?"
"No, it is just a pickup truck with a little camper shell on the back."
He stares for a moment, "No" and then he turns and walks off.

I stopped to pick up a piece of litter that was blowing down the street. It turned out to be personal ads for gay men.

I got a $60 ticket from the University of Arizona for "parking against the flow of traffic" on a deserted street.

The three redeeming qualities of Tucson are:
1. The Center for Creative Photography
2. The Sonoma desert museum
3. It is too hot for the girls to wear long sleeves

1000 Years of Solitude

2009-07-21T14:53:00.002-05:00

I have never been to such a lonely place in all of my travels. I have been parked at Sotol Vista in Big Bend National Park for more than an hour and only one car has passed. The last 70 miles of road that I passed has been nothing but empty countryside, with only a border patrol station and at two visitors centers to break up the view.

All day I have traveled through desert, stopping at canyons and gulches that I passed to take a few pictures. The terrain has gone from low trees, to dead dry brush, to green desert valley (?), to high plateau. I spoke to three people today. I spoke once at a rest stop, once to ask about a bathroom at a gas station, and once at the Big Bend visitor’s center. Each time, I have been surprised by the sound of my own voice. I can only imagine how lonely the girl working at the visitor’s center must get during the summer off season.

Now I am sitting completely naked on the top of a mountain waiting for the sun to set over Mexico. It is funny to me to be sitting in one country, watching the sun set over another country. I wonder what I will hear from the L-rd in all of this solitude.

My Oasis

2009-07-20T14:43:00.005-05:00

The desert is much greener than I imagined. Everywhere that I look around here there are trees, flowers and prairies. There is a cool breeze blowing off of the Amistad Reservoir, and the cool morning air is filled with the calls of ducks, cranes, and song birds. Everything is peaceful here, and though it is not quiet, every sound that I hear, the rustle of leaves blowing in the breeze, the buzz of insects, the gurgles of water disturbed by fishes, all of these things are restful.

The campground is empty except for day users. I keep expecting to look up and see the deer that I photographed yesterday evening. Aside from those deer and jack rabbits, I have not seen any large animals near the campground. That is probably a good thing, because I tried to sleep outside on a park bench for several hours last night. It took almost no effort to build a fire in these conditions, and once I had a decent little blaze going, I crawled onto my sleeping pad on one of the park benches and slept very poorly for several hours. Finally around midnight I moved back to the truck, which is slightly more level than the park bench, and managed to sleep well through the entire night.

I am amazed by the natural beauty of this place. This morning, I found a secluded area along the edge of the lake where I could strip down and take a bath in the crystal clear waters, while fish swam past my ankles. This area stands in such sharp contrast to San Antonio.

San Antonio is a large urban sprawl, not so spread out as Houston, with a laid back attitude and a beautiful downtown. Much of the east and west side of San Antonio is extremely poor, and gang life is a reality in these areas. The Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio is the opposite of the east and west sides. The Riverwalk is a beautifully constructed and landscaped canal, lined with restaurants, shopping centers, fountains and waterfalls. Everyone is nicely, though sometimes scantily, dressed, and you can feel the money being spent

Just off of the Riverwalk is the Alamo, or what is left of it. Much of the Alamo property was bought and turned into streets and buildings a long time ago. Today you can still see the church, as well as several other buildings and walls that are nearby. What amazes me about the Alamo today is that, in typical Texas fashion, the park/museum is free to the public and is maintained entirely by donations and sales from the gift shop.

I really love Texas, not for the heat or the dry flat scenery, but for the people, for the belief that if we can do it ourselves we should, for the freedom to keep arms and defend your home, for the pride which Texans hold for their state and for themselves. There is something very attractive about that. It may not be the most Christian attitude, we are called to be humble and help each other, but it is still an attitude that I can really respect.

Guilty As Charged

2009-07-15T15:31:00.003-05:00

It is amazing to me that God continues to break don my prejudices. I am in San Antonio right now, participating in a missions trip with the Grace Church youth group. We are working with inner-city youth from the ages of 4 to 18, leading Vacation Bible Schools and doing work projects around the Young Vision Church.

The prejudice that I am overcoming is not against the poor, or against African-American’s or Hispanics. I am prejudice against “Christian” kids. Or at least I was. Please do not take this the wrong way. I am not against kids who love the L-rd. The people that I am talking about are the youth who have grown up so sheltered by their church that they have no concept of what the “real world” is like. I tend to view these people as conceited and naive. I see these kids as wanting to make their friends into evangelistic projects, or as looking down on people who listen to any music that isn’t contemporary Christian or classical.

For a long time, I have lumped the youth of Grace Church into that category. I know many of them, and I do not dislike them as individuals, nor do I believe that they have false hearts. My prejudice comes from the fact that I have lumped the majority of them into the category of “Christian kids” without spending much time around them.

This weekend, I have been working in close proximity with these teenagers, and I have been amazed by what I have found. These are regular people. They may be a bit strange at times, which I guess is something that we have in common, but they love each other, and they love the L-rd, and as far as I can tell, they are not the ones sitting around judging others. Apparently, judging others has been my job.

Why is it that people, like myself, who try to oppose prejudice, are so often the ones who are the most guilty of it.

Make Straight the Paths of the L-rd, or Why Did the Stripper Cross the Bay?

2009-07-12T17:00:00.001-05:00

Have you ever met someone and immediately got the sense that they were very spiritual, maybe not religious and maybe not Christian, but very spiritual. I always seem to find these people in the most unlikely places. That is how it was with Tom. I found him sitting on a cooler, waiting for the ferry to cross the bay.

Tom was a little bit dirty, with paint covered cloths and tanned skin. His eyes opened so wide that they looked as if they were about to pop out of his eye sockets, and his friendly grin showed a mouth full of crooked, broken or missing teeth. He wore a white fisherman’s cap that failed to contain his wild tangle of curly blonde hair. Tom looked like John the Baptist.

Tom is definitely one of the most interesting people that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Over the course of half hour ferry ride we talked about all kinds of things ranging from Hurricane Ike to the stimulus package to his family and his thoughts on how to live a better life.

Someone once asked Tom what he would do with ten million dollars. He said he would spend it.

When I asked Tom what he did for a living, he told me that he builds houses, but that, after building a 1650 square foot house single handedly in just seven months, he was looking for another line of work. Now he is working on learning a guitar and becoming a musician, a dream that he fully expects to accomplish.

As we talked, I got the sense that Tom looked at life through a very positive lens. He talked about the problems in the world, and though he is not religious, he believes that the end of days is coming, and that it will take “something else”, his way of referring to a higher power, to make it right.

“If you could give a stranger any one piece of advice, what would it be?”

“I would tell them to slow down, and take time to solve your problems and do things right, because we are all going to live forever, and if we try to make our lives a little bit better each day then at least we are making progress.”

The last that I saw of Tom, he was smoking a Black and Mild, and jogging down the side of the road toward some unknown destination.

The funny thing is, I would not have even met Tom if I had not missed the ferry to talk to Anika, the dancer / construction worker from Texas City that I met as I was making my first bay crossing of the day.

Anika stopped me to see some of my pictures, and to show me some that she had taken. As we talked I learned that she was dancing, and working construction to pay her bills and try to save money. She loves to travel, and wants to buy a vending trailer so that she can travel to different places around the country and bring her job with her. I really got the feeling that Anika loves independence. She lives in a 14 ft trailer, and her only bill is her cell phone, a whopping $170 a month.

When I asked her what piece of advice she would give to a stranger, she responded by telling me the gospel. I was really surprised at first. Dancer and Christian is an odd combination. She told me that she really did not like where she was at in her life. She felt like she needed to dance because it is the easiest way for her to make money and still be independent. She told me stories about her high school youth group, and her seven brothers and sisters, and her alcoholic husband.

Spending time with Tom and with Anika was a serious lesson in not judging a book by its cover. Both Tom and Anika are extraordinary people. If I had not taken the time to get to know them, then I would have an entirely different impression of them than I do now, not that it would be a bad impression, but it would not be the real them.

PS: Sorry about not having pictures today, because of an oversight on my part, I was not able to edit the portraits that I have of these people.

PSS: I did not even get to talk about Charles, the shop manager who survived Katrina in New Orleans, and then Ike in Galveston, but who is still making a living and moving on with his life, and who now owns a forth floor apartment.

A Tame Lion

2009-07-11T13:00:00.002-05:00

When I was a child, I remember going to the zoo in Houston. Now, I have been to a lot of zoos in my day and they all start to run together after a while, so it did not surprise me that the only part of the Houston Zoo that I remember distinctly is the gift shop. It is funny to me that in spite of my love of animals, and the importance that I placed on a trip to the zoo as a child, the only thing that I can remember is the place where you buy things. That, my friends, is good advertising.

I spent much of the morning doing chores, everything from washing cloths to cleaning my truck. It is a challenge to keep my truck clean and organized, but the bigger challenge that I faced today was how to fix the leaky rear window. The solution that I came up with involved some pliers, a pocket knife, and a hammer. For two hours I scraped silicone, applied weather stripping, disassembled and reassembled the window, and pounded on random pieces of metal, in an attempt to make the back window fit properly into its frame. I think I have achieved success, but I am not sure.

Staying with the Greenisens is a vast improvement over the parking lot next to the abandoned building where I slept my first night in Texas. Dr. Greenisen and his wife, Bonnie, make a funny pair. Bonnie is a sweet, red-headed, green eyed lady of Swedish decent and Dr. Greenisen is a shorter, rambunctious gentleman with a narrow beard and a friendly face. They have made my feel welcome by not making a huge deal out of my stay. If I want to do something, that is fine with them. If I want to do nothing, that is fine with them.

I am really impressed with Bonnie’s cooking abilities. Last night she made delicious lasagna, accompanied by key lime pie and cookie cake. At the dinner table, Dr. Greenisen carried the show, with stories about his times in Russia, and what those guys would do with a bottle of Vodka and a coffee mug.

“If you could give one piece of advice to me, or to anybody really, what would it be?”

After a moments thought, Dr. Greenisen responded, “Trust your instincts.”

“And what about you Mrs. Bonnie? What would you say?”

“Be a life long learner, because if you are a life long learner than you will have the ability to change careers or life direction when you need to.”

After tonight’s dinner, I met up with a friend from Tuscaloosa who is working in Houston and we went to Chelsea Wine Bar. I have really been amazed by the different cultural experiences that you can have in bars around the country. I sat there, sipping red wine and talking with my friend about the future of space travel, while in the background a 6ft 2in biker in a leather vest pinched his girlfriends butt, and a bartender wearing pearls and a black and white plaid skirt stopped to listen to the group of people playing Celtic flute music. It was definitely worth buying a glass of wine to get to experience the atmosphere of Chelsea Wine Bar.

I am starting to learn that there are a lot of good people to meet and good experiences to live if you are only willing to pay the cost of inconvenience. It is worth making an unexpected U-turn and pit stop when the result is a gymnasium with trees growing through the floor. It is worth four hours in the hot sun on the beach to be able to talk to some neat surfing instructors.

Not every risk is worth it. That is why they call them risks. On the other hand, nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you never take risks or do hard things, you miss out on a lot of what God is offering us in this part of life.

Thoughts From Yesterday

2009-07-09T12:02:00.004-05:00

I am feeling somewhat discouraged. Things have been going well on the trip so far, but I am starting understand what I knew in my head before I left. Traveling alone and with little money is both lonely and uncomfortable. Simple concept, I know, but it is a hard one to understand until you are looking for a safe place to sleep at 11:00 at night, or trying to find a cool place to escape from the hot noon sun.

Kasey always says that right after she gets into a relationship, she will get panicky and feel like she has made a mistake for a couple of weeks, and then she is okay. It is always the same pattern for her, so she just expects it, and moves on with her life.

I think that I am experiencing what Kasey felt. I have started something new, and I am afraid because it is uncomfortable and difficult. I realize that these feelings will pass, and that I will have a wonderful trip. I just need to press through it.

Kawabunga!

I was encouraged this morning. As I drove down the sea wall, I came upon a three day summer camp where kids were learning how to surf. For the next four hours, I watched as children from the ages of 4 to 14 attempted to stand up on surfboards that were, in some cases, twice their size.

Parents stood proudly on the shoreline as their children face planted into the ocean time after time. It was the second day of the camp, and many of the kids were already successfully standing up and riding the waves.

After the camp ended, I spent some time talking with Erin, a first year instructor for the camp. Erin has been surfing since she was 12, so she was excited by the opportunity to make a little summer cash as a surfing teacher.

As we talked, I found out that Erin is on track to finish a fine arts degree in just two and a half years. Like Andrea from Seaside, Erin is a painter. She told me that she likes to paint surrealism, which is not surprising considering the warped and colorful hour-glass tattoo that she has winding from her left hip all the way to the top of her shoulder.

Erin grew up in s town outside Houston, and being the younger than her three brothers and two sisters, she definitely gave off the vibe of someone that is easy to get along with.

I may stop by the surf camp again tomorrow, or I may not, but either way, meeting Erin and some of the other staff has been a helpful way to learn the area, as well as a good way to fight off loneliness.

Welcome to LaPlace, Louisiana, now will you please bend over and allow us to stick our boot…

2009-07-08T15:28:00.003-05:00

I am irritated this morning. What a way to start the day. Here I am traveling on a limited budget, and the McDonalds restaurant in LaPlace, Louisiana just charged me four dollars for a sausage biscuit, a hash brown, and a bottle of water. I did not even want a bottle of water. I wanted a cup of water. When I asked the lady about it (after I had paid of course) she said that a cup of water would cost me $1.09 and that a bottle was $1.39. This is just one more reason for me to hate McDonalds. I only ate here because this restaurant is part of the Wal-Mart Supercenter where I spent the night. And to top it all off, no free Wi-Fi.

This town stands in huge contrast to my adventures of yesterday, which began with Mary Katherine’s mother graciously allowing me to take a shower at their house before I set out for Gator Alley. Gator Alley is a board walk in Daphne, across the bay from Mobile, which is free to the public and is known for the many alligators that you can see swimming, or sunning themselves along the shore. I personally saw three.

From Gator Alley, I travelled across the unreasonably long causeway and through a tunnel to Downtown Mobile. Mobile has a very peaceful feel at 9:00 on a Monday morning. I spent a short time cruising around the streets, taking time to stop at a rare book store and a large, well manicured park. The thing that impressed me the most about Mobile was the way people treated each other. These people are true southerners. As I was walking, I saw a table and umbrella blow over outside of a corner restaurant. Almost immediately, a gentleman down the street walked over to the restaurant, notified the wait staff, and offered to help them. This sounds like a small thing, but you do not see this kind of behavior in many other cities.

On my way from Mobile to New Orleans, I decided to stop by Biloxi, Mississippi. Now I had never heard much about Biloxi, so I was amazed when I found that it was a beautiful beach town, with old houses on one side of the road, and unobstructed ocean view on the other. After hurricane Katrina destroyed several of the oak trees that lined the road, people carved the remaining stumps and branches into sculptures.

When I finally arrived in New Orleans, I was immediately struck by the smell of human waste, a smell that I stopped noticing within a few minutes. The Garden District was just as beautiful as everyone claims that it is. I was spoken to by several people as I walked among the old houses and stately oak trees. Without knowing, I parked my truck directly in front of the former home of Ann Rice, one of my favorite authors.

From the Garden District I made my way to the French Quarter, where I spent three hours exploring the old streets and Spanish style buildings. I was uncomfortable with the amount of voodoo and fortune telling that abounded on the streets of this city. I stopped in many small art galleries as I wound my way through the ancient city.

It was almost time for me to leave, and I could already tell that in spite of New Orleans beauty, I was ready to move on to a new place, so I decided that I would take advantage of my one opportunity to have a drink on bourbon street. I changed in the back of my truck and then made my way to the north end of Bourbon Street, away from the strip joints, past the GLBT clubs to a little place called Blacksmith Bar.

The Blacksmith Bar is said to be the oldest building that is currently used as a bar. The structure was built in 1722 and eventually served as a front for the smuggling activities of the pirate Laffite, who would later assisted in the defense of Mobile from the British invaders. In 1782 the structure was converted into a charming, low key bar.

It was here that I met Caroline, the Cubs loving geologist from Chicago. Caroline talked with me for more than an hour about travelling, school, work, and life in general. Caroline works with an organization that does research on super contaminated soils in accident areas. She is serving a five month stint in New Orleans dealing with redevelopment and the creation of green space after Katrina, before she heads off to Texas to be closer to her boyfriend.

It was refreshing to have a long conversation with someone that I did not have to instigate. Years from now, I will not remember the art gallery that I passed or the house that I photographed. I will remember Caroline and the Blacksmith Bar, and the earthy feel of New Orleans.

Before we go, I have one final memory of New Orleans that I would like to share with you. A couple stagger to the left and right as they drunkenly make their way down the street. I smile as I pass them.

“Hey! I remember you!” The man grins as he talks, “ I saw you BEFORE I was drunk!”

Courtesy of the University of Mobile

2009-07-06T08:18:00.006-05:00

For the last few days I have been dreading the start of my road trip. I have been plagued with doubt about whether or not it will be a good experience. I have worried over whether or not I am being realistic with my plans and goals. Most of all, I have been afraid of leaving my friends and family.

This struck me for the first time when I was waxing my truck on Wednesday. Two of my friends came over at 8 in the morning to help me get my truck washed and waxed, as well as to take care of a few other chores. After we finished, we went to Hungry Howies and split a pepperoni pizza. Then I told them bye until October.

Saying bye has taken many different forms with my different friends. I told Mary Katherine and Josh bye over the phone. Kasey and I said good bye over lunch at a Mike and Ed’s. I stopped bye Marion’s house on the way out of town. My Mom cried in the driveway as I said goodbye to her and my dad.

Some of these goodbyes were accompanied by tears, and others were made with composure. Kasey told me the other day that it seemed like just about any time she needed to get out of doing something, she could use the excuse of having to see me before I left for a month or two. I have to admit that I do leave town quite a bit. Leaving doesn’t seem to get much easier with repetition.

Keep Off Courts Without Gym Shoes

Small towns always have the best scenery. Cities may have impressive mega-structures, but it is the small towns that have the manicured main street, and the abandoned schools and water towers that I love. I stopped at several of these small towns as I made my way to mobile.

The Clock Still Worked

When you travel, simple things have a tendency to transform into daunting tasks. Oddly enough, one of my major considerations while planning this road trip was how to find showers. I was not expecting to have a free shower before I got to Houston, but luck was with me today. I decided to drive by the University of Mobile on my way into town, just to get a look at their campus. As I drove past the athletic facilities, I noticed that there is an exterior door leading to the men’s locker room. On a whim I decided to check the door, and sure enough, it was unlocked. I quickly explored the place and upon determining that the building was empty, I proceeded to take my first road trip shower, courtesy of the University of Mobile. Thanks Guys!

Dinner