Home again, naturally.

Well we made it home. After driving up I-5, we turned off toward Klamath Falls and stayed with a friend of Ben's. This morning, we got to see Crater Lake, which looked very lovely in the snow. We avoided I-5 after saying hi to DJ at OSU and made our way up back roads. We finally rolled back to Ben's house, where we started, at around 5:30 tonight. We've been gone 11 weeks and 1 day. It's nice to be home.

Crater Lake in the snow.

Over the pass and 88

The pass through the Sierra Nevadas.

Yesterday, we woke up at a weigh station near Topaz, right next to the road that we wanted to take. Unfortunately it was closed, so we kept driving and made our way back to the valley. As we were driving, we figured we'd go to the first church we found. At 10:29, I saw a church and Ben turned around and we pulled into the parking lot at 10:30 am, right when the service started. We ended up going to The Healing Word, a Foursquare Church in Pioneer right off of Route 88. The folks at the church were extremely welcoming and we had a great meal after the service. We really enjoyed hearing about the church's work in the community and how they followed their words with action. They even gave us some delicious food to take with us, which will definitely get us home.
We then made it to Galt, where Austin's dad lives and he treated us to dinner and gave us a warm place to sleep, which is awesome.

Our Whirlwind Tour of the Southwest

First off on our speed through of the southwest was the Grand Canyon. Teddy Roosevelt said that every American should visit the Grand Canyon in his lifetime, if he is able, and he is totally right. The Grand Canyon is majestic. We were able to drive up and down the south rim, do some hiking and see a ranger bellow and yell about how the Canyon is big and pretty. Good times. Our hike took us down part way to the Colorado River, near Santa Maria Spring and back up, which was way harder than going down. Our original plan was to get to the bottom and hike back up in one day, but there were numerous signs warning us not to and we each had reasons not to go. Mine was I didn't want to be sore for the next couple days (or get injured), Ben didn't want to further aggravate his foot and Austin didn't want to get up in the cold, because we would have had to leave before dawn. We would have done it anyway (well they might have, I was still unsure), but we came to a consensus that it would be better to go on a short hike and come back another time and conquer the Canyon.

Austin's looking at you.

View from the top of the Canyon.

Another view of awesomeness.

This is a view of where we stopped for lunch on our hike.

Austin's animal companion.

Next on our tour was Zion National Park, which was nothing short of incredibly immaculate. Just after the entrance, there's a cave that takes you through a mountain. Every so often, there are huge windows which offer you all too brief glimpses of red and orange rock monoliths rising out the ground. Upon exiting the tunnel, the monoliths surround you and demand that you gaze upon their epic visages. After that, it never stops. Everywhere you look, huge striped cliffs rise up and slot canyons carve their way below them. We did a short hike to the Emerald Pools, which was fantastic. After a break for lunch (cat food stew), we did some rappelling down into a slot canyon and explored around the area. I think Teddy would have also said (if he didn't already) that every American should also visit Zion, because it's not too far from the Grand Canyon and it's immensely beautiful.

Just after the tunnel.


Two views from the Emerald Pools hike.

Not the one we rappelled down, but still cool.

The view from near where we rappelled.

Las Vegas paled in comparison to what we saw previously, but we had to go because it's on our way and it's there. (And so we can say we've been there.) Fremont Street was what I pictured Vegas as being, mainly that it had neon signs, including that smoking cowboy. I'm fairly certain I pictured the Vegas from the 1950s in my head, so Freemont was perfect. We got some (slightly) cheap, but delicious, western burgers and set off to explore the Strip. On foot. For those of you who have never been to Vegas, or have never walked there, I will let you know that this was not a good idea. We ended up walking a couple miles that night and got back to the car way too late, not to mention that we felt like it was an hour later because of the time zone shift. On a positive note, we got to see several wedding chapels, including one with people getting married and several of the more famous casinos, like Caesar's Palace and Circus Circus. It's too bad that the inside of the casinos don't reflect the outside, because we went inside of Treasure Island and I didn't see any pirates, which was kinda disappointing. We also missed the last pirate fight show thingy by an hour, which was sad.

Neon is in this year.

We woke up outside Vegas in an empty lot/trash dump/construction site and made our way to Death Valley. Death Valley was nice in its own way, although it's pretty much desert and barren everywhere. The most interesting thing there was the fact that we were below sea level for quite some time.

Below sea level in the desert.

Barren and kinda beautiful.

That covers our previous adventures and brings us to our current one, which is taking us the long way around Yosemite Park. Snow is supposedly blocking several roads into and through the park. This same snow will prevent us from seeing the park, so we'll just have to come back next time. For now, we're staying with Austin's dad in Galt.

we are still alive!

sorry this is going to be a really short post. we are currently trying to figure out how to get around a road closure in Yosemite national park which is preventing us from getting over to I5.

we have seen the grand canyon and Zion national park. Zion is AWESOME! we did a little climbing and some rappelling which was so much fun! we will do a better post later when we get around the road closure and find some internet. umm so there is bad news and worse news... almost all the east west roads that go over the pass are closed :(

The Freezing Southwest

We've made our way across Texas, managing not to run out of gas on at least two occasions. However, before we left Texas, we stopped at Immanuel Baptist Church, where the people were most welcoming and nice to us. Let me back up a bit and tell you how we came to get to the church. As we were making our way around Fort Stockton, we saw a van with the church's name painted on the side. So obviously, we started following them as they made their rounds picking up kids. (At the time, we thought they might have been dropping them off.) Finally, after we gave up, turned around and started following them again, Ben got out and asked when/where church was today. They told us to follow them and we went back to the church. (Which we passed earlier ironically.) After the service, they even let us shower and fed us sandwiches. Their ministry is helping folks who come through town, giving them a place to stay for a spell and helping them out. This is inspiring to say the least. Our thanks go out to the folks at Immanuel Baptist Church, who took us in and treated us most kindly.

Paisano Pete, the mascot of Fort Stockton.

We then wandered towards New Mexico and visited Carlsbad Caverns, which was beyond description. The underground beauty was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. Ben also made some enemies with the local wildlife and I was threatened by a ranger: "I will stab you." She used to work at Grand Teton National Park and she told us she always got asked where the moose were, much to her frustration. Austin then told me to ask her where the moose were, which gave way to her humorous reaction.

Whale's Mouth at Carlsbad.

Grainy group in the cave.

On the way north we cruised through Roswell. (Yes we saw aliens.) Historic note! - After WWII, Roswell housed German POWs and some of them stayed after being released. There was also a piece of the Berlin wall at one of the memorials in town. The west side had graffiti, the east side had none.

Ben's friend at Roswell.

This is how cold it was in the desert. (That's ice!)

Onward to Colorado, where we saw Mesa Verde. We managed to squeeze in a quick drive through the houses and temples before the last ranger led tour to the Spruce Tree House. Our hippyish ranger led us up close to the site and we got a very interesting history of the area and houses from the ranger and one of the archaeologists on duty. After Mesa Verde, we went to Four Corners, which cost money, so we looked and left. Now we're back to the present on our way to Tuba City and then the Grand Canyon.

Car update: The choke heater is broken, so the automatic choke doesn't disengage in cold weather. The motor is running very rich and causes poor gas mileage and sputtering at various times. Hopefully it'll stay in one piece until we get home because our pop can shielding doesn't seem to holding up.

The Spruce House at Mesa Verde

Speaking louder than words

Ben has kept you informed of our doings, so I thought I'd share some pictures to go along with his post.

In Louisiana, we hit a number that you don't see often.

Posing with the big star of Texas.

This way you know which way your lane goes.

The Alamo is kinda smaller than its legend makes it seem. But it was still way cool.

Sunset over the River Walk in San Antonio.

Well that's the best of the bad. Tune in next time for more plains, desert, and sunsets.

middle of no where Texas

so tonight we are camping at a rest stop off of I10 in west texas. we didnt find fuel for over 100 miles and as such are sitting with an almost totally dry tank. optimistic estimates for fuel give us 3/4 of a gallon and a realistic estimate is more like 1/4 of a gallon of gas left in the tank. the closest fuel we know of is 15 miles away so there is better than even money that we will run out of gas before reaching a gas station. hopefully though we can get gas in time to find a church to attend :) something will work out, it always does!

while we were thinking about our gas situation this team of 4 people came up to visit us because they saw our sign in the car window. they are a volunteer team for invisible children who spread the word about the longest running conflict in africa. they have been on the road for 2 months and have been living out of their van! we chatted about different places we had been and things we had seen along the way. it was neat to find other wandering people and Christian ones at that! we exchanged contact info in hopes that we might meet up again at the grand canyon in a few days and we took turns praying for each other. they took off, hoping to make it to new mexico later this evening.