Arrival

We left Ohio on Sunday afternoon. It was so awesome to spend a day with Michelle, my friend from Africa. What a haven her place was. We didn’t drive for 19 hours! It was so great to just relax and reminisce about that summer in Benin. After leaving her place we were pretty ansy to get some miles behind us. We ended up driving through the rest of Ohio, through West Virginia, and into Pennsylvania.

It was night by the time we got into Pennsylvania but it was the first time we had totally clear skies on our trip. We could see the moon and a sky full of stars as we drove down old highways and interstates. Took a quick little jaunt to Punxsutawney to see Phil (Groundhog’s Day, anyone?) around midnight. Then we ended up crashing in the parking lot of a rest area (crashing as in sleeping. Not as in a motor vehicle collision).

Monday we drove through the rest of Pennsylvania. Stopped in Scranton, of course, and went down Mifflin Avenue (my favorite show, The Office, is based out of this town). It felt so great to arrive in New York, 12 states and 8 days after we set out on this road trip.

A week ago Mr. B (camp director) jokingly called me and told me he’d like a pizza delivered from Oregon. So before driving up to camp on Monday, we stopped in Greeneville and ordered a large pepperoni pie. Our intention was to deliver a whole pizza to Mr. B. However, we didn’t take into account the fact that we hadn’t eaten much of anything all day and it’s next to impossible not to eat a slice of pizza when it’s sitting on your lap in the car. So we split a piece and promised ourselves we’d save the rest for Mr. B. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as we planned (or maybe it was because we hadn’t planned…). I couldn’t totally remember how to get to camp, so we ended up driving around the countryside for a while. By the time we did get to camp there were only three cold pieces of pizza left. But nonetheless, we delivered the pizza as promised.

I can’t even express what a blessing it is to be at camp. The first summer I worked at Good Tidings I was 17. I remember sitting on a grassy hill, just looking at the magnificent view. This place felt like home for me. I remember writing a letter to my folks that summer, saying I felt like I belonged at camp (I think I scared them a little and they weren’t sure if I was coming back at the end of summer). But the timing wasn’t right. It’s so neat to see how God’s hand has been directing me and so amazing to see this dream of mine come to fruition (not really sure if this word fits here but I'm trying to sound smart).

For the most part, everything I own in the world (save for some books I left in Oregon) was packed tight in my Subaru. I didn’t have room for any furniture or dishes or lamps or anything like that. I expected to get to camp to an unfurnished trailer (mobile home-ish) and sleep on the floor in my sleeping bag. I was blown away when I walked into my new home and saw that it has everything I need. A comfy couch, a kitchen table and two chairs, two cots, some book shelves and lamps, pots and pans, and dishes! And Mrs. B brought me a trunk load of groceries to get me started (and a bouquet of yellow daisies). They also got me my own desk in the camp office and my own set of business cards. God is so good!

Roadtrip Pics

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=23509&l=988d9&id=505714925

Encounters with the wild in Indiana

It's hard to believe this trip is almost over. It's gone by too quickly. We'll be in New York by Monday evening. In time to deliver a pizza to Mr. B (GTBC camp director).

We checked out ol' Chicago yesterday. It's a city rich with history and stories and brick buildings. We camped near Lake Michigan last night. We've had to stay at a few motels along the way, so it was nice to be sleeping outdoors again. As we set up our campsite, Janna yelled, "Brianna, look!" And pointed to a raccoon about 20 feet from our tent. I'm pretty sure raccoons during the day are not a reassuring site. Something about rabies flashed through my mind.

"Janna, get in the car. And grab the camera." Janna climbed back in the car and I picked up a big stick. What's the worse that could happen, I thought. I received a partial rabies inoculation when I thought I was going to Sudan, so I felt a little fearless. I jumped toward the raccoon, waving my twig madly in the air, while yelling for the rodent to scram. He didn't move, but just stared at me and hissed. Hmmm.... my tactics weren't working.

A scene from the movie, Elf, flashed through my head. I could just picture this raccoon lunging for my face and biting it off. Despite how often my low-self esteem displays itself through my moaning and groaning of how I look ;), I'm rather fond of my face and would like to keep it intact for a little longer. At that point I figured it might be wise to get some help.

We notified the park ranger about the raccoon (that we lovingly dubbed "Rambling Ralfie the Rabid Raccoon"). He had some animal control officers come into the camp to "remove" the raccoon. Their plan was to contain Ralfie, move him off-site, and kill him. They were really worried how we would handle watching this, especially if they ended up having to kill him in front of us. We assured them that we didn't mind (after all, we had already set up our tent). The ranger laughed and said, "Oh that's right. You girls are from Oregon, right?"

They did end up killing him in front of us. It wasn't all that exciting. They shot him a couple of times (maybe with a 22), he squirmed on the ground a little, then he was dead. It was nice not to have to worry about a rabid raccoon attacking us as we ate our dinner around the campfire.

Day 3 through 4-ish

It’s 3 am. Janna’s asleep in the passenger seat beside me. We’re parked in front of a rest area, just outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. I’m wide awake and want to keep driving through the night, but we need to stop in a little town called Seward in the morning. It’s the town my oldest sister, Heather, was born in and I can’t, in good conscience, pass it and not stop. So we’re waiting for daylight. The rain has let up some, but it has been a torrential downpour since Wyoming.
Our plans and routes are very fluid, changing often depending on the weather, our moods, or what our atlas tells us. Thankfully, we don’t have a set schedule and are enjoying the spontaneity of doing whatever we want.

The Rockies and western Wyoming were absolutely beautiful. Breath-taking. Awe-inspiring. When we first entered eastern Wyoming it seemed very stereotypical, in a cowboy Western film sort of way. But as the brown, treeless hills rolled on for miles and miles, we quickly grew tired of Wyoming. And Wyoming is a wide state. Very wide. Instead of camping in southern Wyoming like we had previously planned, we decided to continue on into Colorado. Unfortunately, there was a huge storm just waiting for us – it seemed like a flood. Rain, snow, hail, wind, and lightening. We really wanted to be hard-core and camp anyway, so we took the Boyd Lake State Park exit and followed the signs to the campground.

The campground ended up being in the middle of a new housing development. Literally. It looked like an old, abandoned playground, with no playground. Concrete slabs were the campsites. And it cost almost as much as a motel. So we decided to drive through the night.
We bought some books on c.d. to listen to including my favorite, Shel Silverstein, "I'll tell you the story of a silly young King, who played with the world at the end of a string, but he only loved once single thing. And that was just a peanut butter sandwhich."

Each passing minute brings me further away from my family, my close friends, my home. Part of me feels as though my heart is being pulled out of my chest and I don’t know how to fix it. Even still, I can’t help but feel that each sunrise and sunset, each snow-peaked mountain, each moment of laughter with Janna are subtle ways the Lord is trying to get my attention. I know Him and love Him and worship Him. Yet often, I worship other things too. I turn people into gods and believe they can fill this void in my heart. As I’m surrounded my God’s amazing, diverse creation I’m reminded that only He can satisfy and give me the peace I long for with my whole being.

On a different note, we’re really enjoying the various signs we see along the way. I’d have to say, my favorite so far was in Ft. Morgan, Co. And not just because the town has my last name in it. We pulled into the town and on the left side saw this sign:

Road trip

Tonight concludes day 2 of our road trip to New York. We didn't even make it out of Oregon on our first day. Oregon is much wider than I had anticipated. But today we drove through Idaho and into Wyoming. I had this picture in my head of camping in the Rockies, playing my guitar around the campfire (thankfully, Janna is tone deaf), listening to coyotes howling in the distance (do coyotes even live in the Rockies?). But I learned something new today: apparently people don't camp in the Rockies in the beginning of April. Something to do with the snow and below-freezing temperatures, I guess. We weren't going to let the snow deter us from camping, however. But my Subaru was unable to plow through the 5 feet high snow drifts that sat at the entrance to each campground.

So we are in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in a Super 8 Motel. Awesome. Since we spent extra money on the room, we decided we should still make the dinner we had planned to cook around the campfire. So we lugged in our propane stove and camping utensils into the room. Our plan was to make a totally ghetto meal of fried pork chops and macaroni and cheese (my all-time favorite camping meal that my dad used to make when I was a kid). We kind of forgot about the fact that each room has smoke detectors. We remembered once the room was filled with smoke. Thankfully, we had the presence of mind to turn off the propane, open the windows, forgo the porkchops, and make the mac and cheese in the microwave. If life was a contest on who could be the most ghetto, we would definitely be in the lead.

The Rockies are absolutely beautiful. We watched the sun sink down over the huge, snow-peaked mountains. It looks like a winter wonderland here. We listened to Christmas music as we pulled in the Jackson Hole. It seemed the right thing to do...