Mountain Men and Yellowstone

Sulphur Beds!

Geysers!

This is YELLOWSTONE!

It is the height of tourist season.  We had noticed this in Glacier, but were now headed to the oldest National Park in the nation and by far the most popular.  Keaton later described it as a Disneyland flavored national park.  While there are "day-hikes," Yellowstone gets its name from the massive amounts of sulphur deposits created by the systems of geysers, mudpots, springs, etc.  But we had a church to see before we arrived in Yellowstone.

Following the 90 and a few state highways down the Continental Divide, we ended up in the town of Seeley Lake.  Nathan's grandpa had been a backwoods pastor in the real sense.  One could almost say a backwoods missionary.  Three of the churches in Eastern Montana, Al Pullmann had built with his own hands.  One was out of the way in Eureka, one we had passed in a town in Condon, and the last we were stopping at in Seeley Lake.  In a fortuitous turn of events, the cleaning lady was just finishing up, so we got to see the church inside and out.  Nathan's grandfather was a master carpenter who used wood in almost every facet of the three churches that he built. Unfortunately, the pastor was not there.  Nathan signed the guest-book and listed his family history so that everyone would know the descendants of the first pastor had tread here again.  That sounded overly dramatic, but we were hoping it was as cool as something like that.

So, we ended up in Yellowstone late afternoon to discover that every campground inside the park was full (surprise).  We also discovered shortly that every campground outside of the park in a 20 mile radius was ALSO full (less cool, but ok).  The ranger reminded us that in any National Forest in America (including the one surrounding the entrance to Yellowstone) we could camp anywhere as long as we were 100 feet from water and 500 feet from the road. The only problem now became finding a flat spot in which we could camp.  After all, we were in the Rockies.  These weren't even foothills, they were the ROCKIES.  After driving several miles deep into the African rainforest...err, American National Forest, we came across a turn-out.  We decided we'd find something here or bust.  The "happy" medium we found was somewhere in between.  We climbed up a deceptively large foothill (it seemed smaller from down below) only to find false crests, more sagebrush, and a notable lack of anything truly flat.  But, we had dragged our stuff up this mountain, so we were going to make a comfrotable night of it.  At least, we were going to make a night of it.  The good side entailed watching a beautiful and long sunset at high elevation.  I don't think pollution makes the beautiful colors of the sunset; I think they've always been there. At any rate, Wyoming (technically DEEP southern Montana, but whose keeping track) had them just as good as Orange County or LA had.  The down side had us eaten alive by mosquitoes.  Retiring into our sleeping bags simply for protection, we wondered why there had to be so many mosquitoes.  Why not just enough to feed the bat and bird population, and no more?  Maybe they reproduce more after the Fall.  

We woke up the next morning still pretty tired and rather sore (sagebrush does not provide a very comfortable sleeping surface).  Heading down the mountain, we jumped in the car and car-toured Yellowstone.  Almost immediately we saw a couple bison; I'm convinced the rangers teach them to pose.  The ones near the road always seem so picturesque.  It also felt like a theme park; we didn't even have to leave the car to snap a picture of the buffalo.  We then meandered through the park mostly in the car, getting out to walk past the sulfuric fun along the boardwalks provided.  After admiring Old Faithful and the rustic lodge built almost entirely of lodgepole pine, we headed down and out of the gigantic park and into Grand Teton.  Yellowstone is an awesome park, but there were far too many people there to make us want to camp the night there. We saw almost everything they had to offer from the road, which involved quite a lot of getting out.  We also covered both Eastern and Western roads, since after we did Grand Teton we came back up through Yellowstone to get back to Nathan's house.  Here we'll share some of our favorite picture-postcards from the land of sulphur and hot-springs.

The first night, we almost stayed in this abandoned pump-house (it's interesting to notice how much National Forest used to be private land).  This pond actually fed an irrigation ditch that had been out of service for more than a generation. We saw the farmhouse to which is belonged down in the valley, but couldn't find a way to get to it.  The pump-house ended up not really being structurally sound enough (nor big enough) for four men...

                      

so we opted for the MOUNTAINSIDE (it looks a lot tamer than it is):

          

hopefully these pictures provide some scale as to the size of the thing.

Here we are on top attempting to record the sunset while ignoring the skeeters.

                          

And finally, some favorites from inside the park:

Camping - Alpine Lakes and Glacier

Now, if you've read more than two sentences of this rather loquacious blog, you have realized that we do everything on a budget.  Our accountant, Allen, has done an amazing job at keeping track of the numbers and ensuring that our output does not exceed our input.  We applied this same principle to camping.  When preparing, our first stop was REI... then we realized we had just graduated from college and nearly everything in that store was far out of our monetary reach.  So then I remembered a sporting goods chain in the state of California, Big 5.  Other than monetary issues, our other hitch was space.  What more could we fit into the trunk of a Toyota Camry? Four sleeping bags and a tent?  Not likely.  So, which to buy, the bags of the tent?  We opted for bags and two tarps, which folded much flatter than any four man tent could have.  

We did end up paying for this mistake, but more on that later.  Before we even got to Glacier we had two camps to stop at and entertain.  The first camp was Hans Zeiger's church camp.  We had been in touch with the pastor there and showed up at his church camp just after lunch time.  They gathered the teenagers and adults into the main room and we sang from all of our sets: sacred, pop, and barbershop. Afterwards, about 17 super-moms came to our rescue and decided that we needed to be fed.  We did not disagree and after a delicious lunch of flank-steak, mashed potatoes, and corn, they asserted that we must take food with us.  An entire cardboard box full of food later, we swam in their lake for a bit and went on our merry way...VERY well fed.  :)  

We weren't in the car long when we arrived at Nathan's old Lutheran camp.  He had been there many years in a row with his dad for pastor's camp. The location was ideal on Flathead Lake (a large lake that will be on any map of Montana you see).  The water was limpid and felt very glacier-fed.  There was, however, a high dive!  After a couple dips, however, we decided just to try our muscles on top of the water and not in it.  Keaton, Nathan, and I grabbed a canoe (with permission) and canoed around the lake for a bit over an hour.  Keaton got stuck with a gimpy paddle and a less-than-ideal seating location, but performed admirably.  It was comforting to know that I still have some of my scout skills (steering a canoe).  Nathan, as usual, was essentially our motor...pulling the canoe through and against the current on the way back. Now, the only stop left was Glacier for two nights!

The GPS eventually got us all the way to the Going to the Sun Highway (which I thought was ridiculous overstatement for a road).  But, believe it or not, Glacier and its main highway lived up to its reputation of beauty. If I were to give it a review I would say that it exceeded expectations, but then again, I don't think God often cares about our reviews.  So long as His created beauty turns us toward him.  I wish I could just tell the story of Glacier with pictures, but it is a massive beauty so hard to catch with a single lens.  The depths and heights of Glacier is half it's grandeur.  We entered the valley floor at about 4,000 feet about sea level, with 10,000 foot mountains towering over us.  No foothills between us and the cliffs.  Straight up! Carved in a deep U-shape by a glacier.  The first night we only did driving, and already had two bear-sightings!  On the way into Glacier we had counted ten bald eagles.  I had never seen so much wildlife so easily and it was only going to get better.  I had a list of things I'd never seen and this week of camping shrunk my list of American species rapidly.

But, a true adventure is a mixture of suffering and joy.  We had our suffering first to get it out of the way.  Around nine o-clock we noticed that most of the park was full, no campgrounds.  We were finally granted the handicapped spot near a beautiful lake over which a storm was blowing in.  We had about 15 minutes to come up with a solution that didn't have all four of us sleeping in the car.  The Eagle Scouts, Allen and myself, would sleep outside.  We set up the picnic table near the lip of a retaining-wall and stretched a tarp across the tarp to shield us from the rain and drain it away from us. Placing our second tarp underneath, we tossed our bags in, crawled in, and hoped for the best.  The best we did not, in fact receive.  Allen, as it turned out, was at one of the lowest elevations of the campsite.  Thus, he ended up with most of the water in his bag anyway.  (We're not stupid, it was just a lot harder to see these things in the dark.  And, ok, maybe we were a little stupid).  At about 3am, he gave up with half his body soaked to the bone and entered the car.  I huddled close to the retaining wall for the rest of the night with the bottom half of my sleeping bag wet.  Attempting to sleep in the fetal position close to a wall is a strange experience.  It was some of the worst sleep of our lives.  The guys in the car didn't really have a much easier time of it, except that they were dry. We poured out sincere supplications that our next few nights of camping would be dry.  

We woke up the next morning and waited for the sun to peak over the massive granite cliffs. Once it had, we used its warmth and light to find a camp-site early and dry out our soaking wet sleeping bags, clothes, shoes, etc.  Then, we continued up the Going to the Sun Highway and found a day-hike right off of Logan Pass.  As typical of this time of year (the height of tourist season), the trail to Hidden Lake was packed with crowds of all ages and languages.  Keaton, who has been keeping track of all the state license-plates all along, scored big and found nearly all fifty in the National Parks we were in.  Once we got past the boardwalk section which provided an "easy way" to the overlook (in spite of massive snow-fields all around), we could continue on a real trail down to the lake with much less traffic.  On the way, we saw many a hoary marmot and figured out very quickly that the mountain goats had grown fully accustomed to human traffic on their trails.  A couple mothers and their babies grazed high up on the mountain.  Down closer to the lake two different males were meandering right by the water.  Oftentimes, they did not even try to get out of our way.  We kept a respectful distance; they did not.  Allen nearly had to climb into a tree to get out of the way of one of the bigger males.  :)

We hiked back out and camped that night, warm and dry.  We were still on the ground, but we are young so are bodies can handle that.  The next morning, glorious and bright, we hiked a tiny nature trail through one of the oldest stands of trees in the park and found a few cool places to take pictures.  We found a hollowed out tree that was still alive on top, but could fit three of us in the bottom.  :)  From there, we had to say goodbye to Glacier and head down that day to Yellowstone.  There were a couple planned stops along the way to see a bit more of Montana and Pullmann family history.  But this post has gone on long enough without pictures.  Here they are! 

Yes, Glacier provides a beauty almost impossible for us amateurs to capture on film. 

Here are our best attempts.

These were just some of the sights we were able to see right from the road.  Land of a thousand waterfalls this place could be called.  

The pass, well, we didn't have to hike to that... so this is a joke picture.  :)  The goat, was much closer than that, but who can get their camera out as a mountain goat walks towards you?  And the passes full of snow, yes, we were hiking on those.

  

These last three are from our first camp.  Allen and I spread the tarp from the picnic bench to the other edge of the screen.  That was our "tent" during the thunderstorm.  Be Prepared, eh?The other two are from the camp the first night--beautiful, when dry.  :)

    

How many college grads can you fit in a tree?

                               

From Coeur D'Alene to Camping

Leaving Seattle in its typical (though some friends beg to differ) cloudy rain, we continued up and over the Cascades once more.  The higher latitude brought out a different aspect of the Cascades; though we didn't believe it possible, they actually grew greener and wetter.  Stopping on the highest mountain at a tiny little ski resort to gas up, we smelt the "dearest freshness, deep down things" as Hopkins once described it.  The world is indeed charged with the grandeur of God, it rushed down the slopes of the Cascades right into our eyes, noses, and ears. Eastern Washington continued with the typical "desert-side" of most mountain ranges, but it was by no means as desolate as the deserts of California and Nevada. 

It was late afternoon when we arrived in Idaho, but we couldn't really tell the difference as the cloud-cover had not let up much the whole way.  The rain, lightly sprinkling on and off, was quite refreshing after so long in the dry south-west and western US.  Coeur D'Alene, literally translated to "Heart of the Awl" and mysterious in its nominal roots, was already gearing us up for the foothills of the Rockies.  The Jenkins' family, with whom we stayed, lived on several acres outside of town in a true log cabin just finished by their father.  He was a logger who explained to us a lot about the business of designing and building a house where the walls, insulation, plumbing, and wiring all had to work around solid logs.  There wasn't much drywall or plaster in the place.  It's rustic beauty suited the countryside around it quite well.  We also found ourselves not only in the warmth of a cabin, but also once again in the radiance and glow of a big family.  They knew how to cook well for four post-college guys and we ate our fill.  The next morning, they helped us plan our route to Glacier and through their knowledge of the area and helpful atlases, we were ummm....ready... for our camping trip.   

Puyallup and Friends

We faced the worst traffic we had ever seen on the ENTIRE trip in Olympia.  Nathan nearly pulled the steering wheel off the car.  It took us an hour to move 17 miles.  It was NEVER explained. But, we did arrive in one piece and were greeted by Jody's parents.  It was a shame that Jody was in DC, but we got to see our housemates childhood home.  They were, of course, full of Jody stories, but so were we.  :)  They provided us with delicious snacks before our concert, and had advertised so well for our concert that we had our biggest crowd!  Plus, there were three Hillsdale alums there: Hans Zeiger and his family, Jules and her family, and Eric Blanchard.  Afterwards, we caught up with all of them.  Hans gave us a place to perform in Montana at a camp he had worked at near Flathead Lake.  Jules and the rest of us went back to the Lent's for dinner.  After a delicious dinner, Nathan and I went back towards Olympia to pick up Anna Stinogel and took her and Jules and Keaton up to the house of Jeff Myers.  Now, if any of you know anything about Jeff Myers... a very good time was had by all.  :)  Jeff is hilarious.  He told us about his future plans and we showered him with stories (mostly the ones embarrassing me).  We had good cheese, good beer, and some awesome conversations.  We returned home and hit the hay.  Idaho's panhandle was waiting for us.  We had many memories from Washington, but alas... not many pictures.  :(  Sorry.

Portland and Environs

And so we continued through the Pacific NorthWest, through the National Forests and deep into the Cascades.  Unfortunately, a fairly thick cloud-cover prevented us from seeing a lot of the volcanic beauty around us.  We crossed the border into Washington and found (eventually) the house of the Sims.  They live nestled in an old farm house with four grown kids and the youngest (Catherine) still romping around the grounds of an orchard, a delightfully British garden, a christmas-tree farm (or a piece thereof), and some delicious berries.  Catherine gave us the grand tour of the grounds and the house.  The house seemed to fit the family perfectly. One big bedroom for the five girls to line up their beds and books.  One small room for the boy to dream big and prepare his adventures to the center of the earth.  After our concert at Holy Rosary, Catherine and I slipped into Portland to have some fun.  As it turns out, neither Catherine nor I nor are GPS were very good at getting us around Portland.  That, however, did not prevent our having a good time... and even meeting some of her friends.  

While we didn't quite make it to the VooDoo Donuts place that KPay had so ardently recomended, we did stop at a coffee shop with a musical flavor called the Rimsky-Korsakoffee house.  It was filled with fruits and nuts, but I have come to expect that of the Left Coast which I called home for 18 years.  It's color had a certain appeal, though.  There is something I love about individuals being themselves and not putting up with a lot of pop-culture stereotypes.  I guess I think of it as them that much closer to real truth when they'll at least question the cultural air they breath.  But, many of them still don't.  We still have the working definition of a hippie as someone who will kill a baby before an animal.  And, yes, we cursed them frequently in the car.  "Damn hippies!" became our favorite apophthegmatic expletive to shout as if we were ornery old men. Perhaps the only adjective that doesn't yet apply is old.  :)

After the coffee-shop of fruits and nuts and some lively Catholic conversation at a level too loud not to give offense to the many free spirits in the room, we gallivanted off the a close Chinese restaurant with a couple of other friends of Catherine's and one of the older siblings of her brood.  Our gallivanting found us a parking lot more than 10 blocks from where we needed to be, which perturbed the older sister in this picture enough to complain vociferously... but we decided to love her anyway.  After some tasty Chinese food, we had not the energy to continue our adventures in the strange city of Portland... so we headed home.  The night continued well with good conversations turning over any and every examination of every good thought and read we had had that summer... but alas, Tom did not have infinite energy (take note, all ye who disbelieve it).  I went to bed, tired, but happy.  The Pacific Northwest God has filled not only with awesome natural beauty... but good friends with quaint houses and awesome land.  :)  The next morning brought the most beautiful mass that Allen and I had yet been to and a drive up to a very old friends house, our housemates parent's Jody.  And that was adventure full of other delightful friends.  I'm sensing a theme developing...a theme augmented with ornate variations.

In a totally random side note, while the Lutherans were waiting for the Catholic's mass to end...they went to see a waterfall just outside of Portland.  I leave you all with some pictures of their adventures.  

Nathan playing hide and seek in something that looks like a cave, but really wasn't:

And the waterfall itself.  Each one is so different, I don't know if we can tire of the beauty of all the ones we've seen, from Niagara to Multnoma.

Sisters and Bend - A Whole New World

And we struck off up the Oregon Trail.  Then our OXEN DIED!!  Ok, not really. But we were all headed toward territory none of us had explored before: the Pacific Northwest.  None of us had been to Oregon before.  We expected tree-huggers, hippies, fruits, and nuts.  We were a bit pleasantly surprised to find a lot of sane people in addition to the aforementioned motley crew of liberals.  After a rather boring drive through the desert side of Northern California and into Eastern Oregon, we noticed a subtle change.  Eastern Oregon began to give way to taller and taller foothills which separated long, flat, fertile valleys.  The beauty increased steadily as we approached the center of the state.  In the West, we had taken the least amount of Interstate.  Our serpentine route up the coast and into the heart of Yosemite required almost entirely state highways.  What a difference it makes,not only in terms of speed, but also in terms of what you see out the window.  These foothills joined up with a mountain range that is geologically connected to the Sierra Nevada.  The Cascades, however, differ profoundly from the mountains of the Sierra Nevada.  Much of the beauty in the Sierras was either carved by a glacier or happened naturally with tectonic movement. The Cascades announce their volcanic roots from the beginning.  Their perfect conical shapes, disrupted at the very top by a tangle of reaching rock, wretchedly barren, belies the glacier and volcanic influence in their development.  Their beauty if astounding, and we got to stay with our friend Katelyn Pay right in the middle of it all.  Sisters, Oregon is a resort town where many Oregonians go in the summer to vacation. Blanketed in snow in the winter, the summer meadows, streams, and mountains offer a beauty that I had not often heard advertised (read: never).  

KPay had arranged a couple surprises for us aside from the breath-taking beauty.  A graduate from our class, Cameron Wilkens, came out to hang out with us and see our concert.  Our concert was at an Episcopal Church in Sisters and had the three mountains which named the town as the backdrop to the altar.  It was a gorgeous country church with a good sound.  Afterwards, we chilled at Red Robin.  Waking up early the next morning, KPay led Keaton and I on a bike-riding/kayaking tour of the area around Black Butte Ranch.  We had to get up to Portland, but we were a little sad to leave all the beauty of the Three Sisters (Faith, Hope, and Charity are the names of the mountains) and their surrounding valleys.  But, in Portland (or just outside it), was waiting a dear friend and an area I had been longing to see for a long time.  :)  And thus we directed our Garmin to the house of Sims.  Pictured above is Mount Washington, the view just as we headed up to Portland.  

I shot a man in Reno... just to watch him die

As macabre as the title is, it is really just a reference to the Johnny Cash that we listened to on the way out of California (after a tasty dinner and stay at Allen's dad's house).  An old friend had arranged us a place to stay; alas, we did not have a venue in the wonderful rodeo town of Reno.  We noticed that it was a bit less seedy than Vegas, but we didn't stay long.  In typical Katie T. style, I easily convinced her (as I was already convinced myself) that we should show the guys Lake Tahoe and eat dinner there.  Lake Tahoe borders California and Nevada and is exalted to the skies as the largest, deepest, and arguably most beautiful alpine lake.  It is 1,644 feet deep and 192 square miles.  Thankfully, we now have the camera back and can show as well as tell about the lake.  We went to a great Mexican restaurant where we were strangely served by a Polish emigrant (only in America).  Nathaniel had a Lengua burrito... cow tongue in the vernacular.  It tasted a lot like liver (YES, we all tried it).  We then drove back watched Ocean's 13, sang a bit for Katie T., fixed her router, and went to sleep (not all in that order).  Here is our proof that we have in fact been to what Katie calls the "bottom of heaven" because it is so beautiful.  

Random side story evoked by pictures.  When in Missouri, we had been very close to the boyhood home and stomping grounds of a rather favorite author of mine, Mark Twain.  His biography of Joan of Arc I will recommend to everyone until I die.  It annoys my close friends how often I talk about him and that book.  At any rate, on the way to Tahoe, at a gas station, we MET Mark Twain. Ok, real story... a kindly old man with a wizened face honed for humor was sitting on the bench reading a newspaper.  He was clearly a gentleman in his white suit out-bleached only by his white mustache and head of hair.  I sidled up to him in  a manner that I knew would put him at ease, affecting my most gentlemanly southern accent, I asked him what he was reading.  He congenially told me about the weather in the places he had recently travelled.  He had apparently just spent the summer in San Francisco and remarked that he had never had a colder winter than his summer in San Francisco.  I chuckled at the witticism and joined him on his bench.  Here I am, basking in the salt of his wit:

And here I am, proving how fast we forged a friendship in minutes!

Wine Country and Yosemite

While we stayed a few days with the Zarcone's, they were mostly uneventful, resting days.  Allen got to spend time with his family and the guys got to catch up on sleep, letters, reading, etc.  It was there that I caught up with the blog through to Vegas.  :)  Oh how slow I am at these things. 

We did do quite a bit of singing, however.  We sang at St. Apollinaris, the Zarcone's home parish. After two nights with Mrs. Zarcone, we went out to Allen's grandparent's house and sang for them as well. Later that day, we went to Yosemite and "HALLELUIAH" we had the camera back.  The camera and our skill with it cannot do justice to the beauty we saw in Yosemite Valley.  Unlike the Grand Canyon, we actually ventured out on a bit of a day hike.  We went up to Vernal Falls on what the map called the Mist Trail.  It was no misnomer.  Once we had hiked a couple miles in to the base of the falls, everything began to be gently pelted with a light mist.  It grew heavier and heavier, increasing the foliage around us and intensifying the color of everything from the wildflowers to the grasses to the black granite around us.  My descriptions do about as little justice as the pictures.  Consider this an advertisement to GO TO YOSEMITE.  The conundrum for us on this trip after we have seen the beauty of five National Parks is which one to return to first.  :)  Here are some pictures and explanation of Yosemite.

Vernal Falls:

At the top of the Falls:

A really sweet rock providing scale:

NorCal - City by the Bay and Wine Country

The Howards hosted us well in Berkeley and Zach had arranged a couple of concert opportunities that really paid off.  Before we performed, we went to church in San Francisco and met up with my best friend, Tom Dudro.  We toured the most basic part of the city that every tourist ought to see--Fisherman's Wharf.  There is so much to do along that stretch of road, that we had little time to take them elsewhere.  On a rather interesting side-story about Keaton, he was conned into helping with a break-dance show.  Every ethnicity was represented in this break-dance team--except white.  So, when the host asked for "two really tall white guys" to volunteer from the crowd, Nathaniel and I pointed out Keaton rather dramatically.  :)   They ended up picking him and renaming him to make him "black," which they associated with "cooler than he was before."  His nickname? Kareem Abdul Jabbar.  Could be worse, right?  At least now he had basketball skill.  The other guy was granted the nickname of the "greatest black man who had ever lived" (to which most of us thought they would say either MLK or Michael Jackson [seeing as he had just been beatified]).  Wrong.  The other white guy volunteer had the name of Obama thrust upon him.  Their show was talented and funny.  Their politics... well, it was San Francisco, what should we expect?  We then returned home to change and get ready for two performances.  

The first place we performed was the Howard's normal church.  In Berkeley, to attract potential Christians to the gospel, they promoted a really relaxed atmosphere.  The pastor reminded everyone to listen with open minds and open hearts and we sang, in English and Latin.  It was awesome to bring into the open air voices that were not heard in that city very often.  Voices of medieval and renaissance Christianity were brought to the ears of moderns and post-moderns for a dialogue that many had never thought about.  I hope it struck much of the congregation as a bit more than "cool" (which is was) and served as a testament to the roots of Christian worship through music.  After all, that's why we do these concerts in the first place.  :)  

The second venue that Zach cooked up was a warehouse in an industrial district that acted as a multi-purpose room including but not limited to Christian worship.  With the relaxed setting, we mixed it up in a similar structure to what we did in Southern California at my house.  Several Hillsdaleans were there and we were more than happy to hang out with them afterwards.  When things settled down, we headed up to Allen's house in American Canyon to catch up with the family we had not seen in too long-- the Zarcone's!

Cavorting up the Coast

My rule was: we all had to wear board-shorts as we went up the coast so that, should we see an inviting beach, we could run out and jump in the water without anymore effort than taking off our shirts.  So we began winding the way up the Pacific Coast Highway through areas I'm familiar with (Santa Monica, Malibu, etc) into areas with which I was less familiar (Santa Barbara and almost everything north of there).  We hugged the coastline all the way through.  We stopped at a few missions (Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Carmel).  It was awesome for me to see them again and remind the guys who hadn't been out West that even this coast had some older history (they were building the missions around the same time the country was being founded).  It was also nice to know that California's history was, from its first contact with the West, Christian.  We also enjoyed the coastline and parked the car at a mostly empty beach below Big Sur but above Goleta.  Water temperature did not deter us and we sprinted in and played in the waves.  While it was cold, it was also exhilarating and we remained in the water longer than expected.  We then checked out some of the rock formations along this coast. Although there were no tide-pool creatures, Keaton led the way climbing a large rock that jutted almost straight out of the water about 100 feet into the air. On top, we found a lot of bird poop (several inches of dried layers of it) and a couple dead cormorants. There were some live birds that were also annoyed with how close we were coming to their nests.  The view was astounding, but the climb down was a bit rough on our feet. In the end, totally worth it for an unbeatable view of the not so peaceful Pacific Ocean.  

The last place we stopped was the city of Monterey.  A gentle bay hosting a fascinating fishing population, we saw otters, seals, sea lions and the ever ubiquitous sea gull (attempting to steal fish out of the mouth of the sea lion).  In town, we walked around the historic district and saw how important Monterey was to early California history.  We had some delicious seafood and then finally turned inland (sort of) to go up the East Bay.  

As dusk closed in, we decided we would find a tall hill and watch the fireworks shows of the whole Bay Area from the tallest hill we could find.  It was at the top of a gated community, but we found one in Fremont.  :)  It was delightful.  We literally could see hundreds of fireworks shows going off for miles around us.  From Fremont (look it up on GoogleMaps), we could almost see the the city of San Francisco.  We could see shows in the East Bay, shows in Oakland, and show across the Bay as well as nearly every show directly in the San Jose area.  Glorious.  Finally, as night cloaked us in firm darkness, we descended the hill and drove into Berkeley, CA where our friends the Howards live.  I have always loved Berkeley for its color and weirdness.  It was made so much more lovable by the knowledge that a Christian family lives there on purpose to preach the gospel to those colorful people we often dismiss as "damn hippies!"  :)  The Howard's house was amazing and we had two venues at which we could sing.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself because this is only supposed to cover the Coast.  

California - Here We Come!

So, hello everyone! After a long hiatus in which we seemed to fall off the face of the earth, we have returned.  I told you we'd be back.  Right now, we have one week left of road-tripping, but it looks like I have a lot to catch you up on before we get to any and all of that.  

So, driving out from Vegas, making good time... we headed straight for the land of glitz and glam, the land of facades and film: Hollywood.  Taking the guys to Hollywood and Highland I showed them where the movies premier at the Mann-Grauman Chinese Theater, the Kodak theater, and the Walk of Fame.  The most interesting part (since all of us love good movies) were the hand prints and foot prints of famous actors and actresses through the years right in front of the Grauman.  We walked down Hollywood Boulevard and took in the sights (of course, we saw the sign). We also noticed that a lot of street vendors were selling Michael Jackson paraphernalia.  In that town, you would have thought he had just been canonized.  We checked out a cool record/DVD shop famous out west called Amoeba Records; that too had colorful people and more than one tribute to the King of Pop.  When we had been satiated on grime and overall chicanery on which Hollywood thrives, we turned south and headed to my house.  Not much had changed, and I had a lot of people to catch up with.

The next day, Keaton and I went and explored historic Pasadena, one of the oldest cities in the Los Angeles area.  That night, we went Swing Dancing (something we hadn't done since Dallas) and had a blast.  The next day I showed the guys Huntington Beach and Laguna Beach. Our stay in Huntington afforded us ample time to walk on the pier and take in the sights and sounds of "Surf City, USA."  Because of traffic, we didn't have as much time at Laguna Beach.  After driving through the canyon, we sprinted out of the first parking space we found (after throwing a quarter in), sprinted down the hill, removed enough clothing to swim and swam for about five minutes.  We then dried off primarily by running back to our cars.  We had made it into three oceans in less than a month.

 That night we had to return promptly for the party my parents had arranged to "host the Hillsdale boys."  We had invited pretty much everyone my family knew who might be interested in either my singing or Hillsdale.  A great deal of them showed up!  I got to see Lowell again, twice in the same year!  That hadn't happened since we'd gone to high school together.  We sang a lot that night from all of our repertoire-- sacred, barbershop, and secular (pop).  It went over pretty well and we represented the school well for my friends and family.  Many old friends stayed late and we caught up for a long time; who knows when I'll see some of them again.  

The next morning (the 4th of July), we got up early to book it up the coast on the Fourth.  Well, we didn't exactly book it.  We meandered.  And the drive itself was so beautiful it is worth a blog-posting all its own.  It's too bad we still didn't have the camera.  :(

What happened in Vegas... was pretty sweet!

And we'll tell you about it.  We all knew that moving from the Grand Canyon to Vegas would be like going from God's natural creation at its best to human edifices and institutions at their... brightest?  richest? and usually most sinful.  In what I began to call the Incarnation of Capitalism, the Las Vegas Strip (old and new) lit up before our eyes.  We had reconnoitered for a delicious dinner of elk steak (another first for me) at Nathan's uncles.  Adding his cousin, a native of the area, to our eclectic crew, we headed into town. They say the lights are bright on Broadway and we had seen the lights of Times Square and Rockefeller Center.  Vegas blinds them all.  The visual overload is impossible to describe.  The old strip is a covered mall and the ceiling is s constant light show (interspersed with advertisements).  The old strip obviously tries to appeal to the old crowd and this summers theme was a throwback to Woodstock's Summer of '69.  After several psychedelic buses, mediocre guitar solos, and suggestively groovy female dance moves, we had seen that strip and could move on.  

One thing I did enjoy about Vegas was that there was no way I could be weird enough to turn heads.  There was no way I could do anything strange enough even to stand out.  It is a city of absolute individualism (if you can afford it).  It is also a city that runs itself on the antithesis of the three monastic virtues: money, sex, and power.  While it is tempting to vow poverty, chastity, and obedience just to get away from it all, some of the  things in Vegas were pretty impressive.  The fountain show at the Bellagio was set to music (sometimes Classical, sometimes rock).  The scale models of Paris, Venice, and New York that they manage to fit into these casinos is impressive to say the least.  It is clearly the triumph of imagination to have a hotel with its own Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe.  The constant slew (or sewer) of pornographic and sexual advertising throughout the city is a little less than splendid.  My theory is that in any city where there are extremes of poverty or sin, one can still find extreme examples of largesse, virtue, and beauty.  The casinos had a bit of that.  After walking a lot from one cathedral of capitalism to another, we eventually got tired enough to go home.  Vegas is a mixed bag; I'm not sure when I'll go back.  Disclaimer, this blog more than any of the others is heavily my opinion... not the entire quartet's.  :)  Allen likes Vegas a lot, but, with all his love for the city, he is smart enough not to gamble here with the "high rollers."

We woke up the next morning and Nathan's uncle gave us directions out of Vegas a bit to the North and West so that we could see the Red Rocks and pass the state park.  It was quite a view of some gorgeous geological formations.  More proof that I often underestimate the desert when I call it ugly.  The desert once we got into California, however, was fairly ugly.  I had the drive on Interstate 15 through to my hometown.  I remember every time why no one lives in that area.  Soon enough, we found ourselves in Hollywood... and the rest is history.  

Flagstaff and that grandiose hole the in the ground

So, my dad said "get a GPS, you'll get lost less."  What he meant was, "get a GPS, you'll get lost less often, but when you do, it'll be much more creative because you will have placed your trust in technology and God still wants you to know that he understands the earth a bit better (as do cartographers) than a bunch of cans of aluminum orbiting the earth and shooting down signal to a stupid little box on your dashboard."  

I was more than a little annoyed with this little Nuvi.  After a beautiful drive through the desert (yes, even I will admit that the desert can be beautiful), we remembered that the Cook's had warned us that they lived off the beaten path.  With this in mind, we didn't question when our Garmin Nuvi picked a dirt road for us to turn onto.  We trusted it and soon (as in several miles later) found ourselves on an unkempt road through a farmer's ranch.  Nathan (the driver this day) had the tenacity of a bulldog and kept driving onward.  While there was as yet no risk to the car other than dirt, we were turned back when we noticed it was private property protected by barbed wire laid across the road.  In Arizona, they mean business.  Taken severely off course and ready to crush the Garmin under the weight of our car (and ire), we called Mr. Cook who met us at a gas station and adroitly guided us home without a blink of an eye.  As it turned out, the Cook family did not live in the middle of nowhere; rather, it was a nestled valley up above Flagstaff in the beautiful forests that many people forget Arizona has.  That night, Greenlaw Baptists Church hosted our concert and were very receptive and generous.  It was a beautiful space to sing in and they admitted that hearing the Latin music was a rare treat for them.  The Cook's, as with all the large families we have stayed with on this trip, were adept hosts.  It was as if adding four guys to a big family isn't really adding much to the burden as adding to the joy, noise, and conversation.  The kids were fun to get to know and the parents kept us entertained with information about the area and their roots in Flagstaff.

After spending the night in Tim and Josh's room (which seemed to lack their presence), we awoke the next morning to delicious breakfast and headed off for our first National Park... the Grand Canyon!  We entered the South Rim and drove all the way across, stopping at the particularly breath-taking parts.  I hadn't been to the Grand Canyon since I was much younger, and Nathan and Keaton had never been at all.  It was worth the National Parks Pass that we bought to get in.  We will use the same pass to get into Yosemite, Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, and Mount Rushmore.  It will pay for itself.  :)  After the Grand Canyon, we had quite a bit of Western Desert left ahead of us until we arrived in Vegas that evening at another of Nathan's uncles.  

Albuquerque - A Study in Color

On down the spine of the Rockies we roared.  I was driving out of Colorado, so we were roaring.  Or I was roaring and trying to get the guys to join in... they though it was lame.  When the bellicose sounds of elation had subsided, we discovered that New Mexico is much prettier than any of us expected.  We also discovered that there is a Las Vegas, New Mexico.  Don't worry, there is good reason you've never heard of it.  If you have, then you know why we hadn't heard of it before we drove through it.  

New Mexico, on the whole, surprised me in many ways.  The northern part of the state is very much mountainous, not the desert scene I painted in my head growing up--complete with adobe filled arroyos.  In fact, the mountains do not subside until you get to about Santa Fe.  Furthermore, there are more ranges than just the Rockies on your Western side.  Soon you find yourself flanked by the Sangre de Cristo mountains in the East.  The mountains do shift in hue from the greens and blues of Colorado to the deep reds leading you subtly into the high desert.  Albuquerque sits at an elevation of 5,314 feet above sea level.  That was higher than Fort Collins (5003) and Denver (5280)!  As we arrived in Albuquerque, we noticed that we were in a valley with mountains on three (nearly four) sides.  The crisp, clean blue signaled that we were still fairly high up.  

We arrived at the home of our Mu Alpha brother, Stephen Ford.  His family greeted us with much warmth and with a TON of GREAT FOOD.  It was so nice to be close to delicious avocados again (I ate nearly the entire bowl of guacamole BEFORE dinner).  The Ford family's warmth overflowed into their ease of conversation and their broad knowledge of the United States.  After making fun of North Dakota, I learned that Mr. Ford was from there (good times).  Mrs. Ford, on a much more cultured note, was born and raised near me on the border of Orange and LA county.  Clearly, this family had a bit of everything.  They had travelled the world in their missions work and had instruments from all over and an cosmopolitan understanding of world cultures.  It had all reflected in their son of course, but it was so edifying to see it in the parents as well.  We had the pleasure of singing for their family and the pride of musical brotherhood as Stephen could join us for some of the songs.  :)  As the sunset, they took us into their backyard to show us the Sandia mountains around their house.  Sandia means watermelon in Spanish and the mountains lit up with a deep red glow.  The sky was so dry, however, that the sunset was not as we had seen for so long in Michigan, the East, and the South.  Instead, the sunset lit up the ground beneath it and a bit of the sky, while the remainder of the sky held on truculently to its vibrant blue until it had to concede its color to the deep red band of clouds beneath it.  The clash of blue and red continued until the whole evening was consumed in a deep shroud of purple.  That night, we watched some Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and dozed off to bed. 

We awoke the next morning, went to our respective churches and were off again.  Today we set our GPS for Flagstaff, AZ... if only we knew how lost it would get us.  :)

Colorado - Answering the Western Call

And so we approached the Continental Divide... slowly but surely.  Realizing that the part of Kansas that most people stereotype as the whole state is the part along the interstate 70.  It's a shame to judge a state only by its interstates; at least meet its inhabitants first.  Moving into Eastern Colorado we began to hit my favorite weather patterns again: tumultuous thunder-storms.  Pullmann drove admirably under some pretty windy and rainy conditions.  The lightning show that God put on was a good precursor to the Fourth of July, but the coolest part was that we could see the rain.  Allow me to explain.  From a distance, we could see exactly where the sheets of rain began.  Approaching it across the flat plains, it felt as if we were driving toward Niagara, then it felt as if we were driving THROUGH Niagara.  Then we caught sight of those colossal guardians of the West, the Rockies.  We drove up the spine into Fort Collins, where Monica Way had prepared for us a delicious feast of Middle Eastern food.  Grape leaves consumed and ice cream settling into the stomach, we explored Fort Collins, a lively (albeit slightly hippy/green-peace oriented) college town.  We sang and gathered a crowd as usual, and explored a couple different shops.  We met up with our fellow Hillsdale classmate, Lydia Melancon, and shared beer (local microbrews of course... Fat Tire and that family of beers) and great conversation back at the Way house.  

Now we had rid ourselves of the humidity, and even the heat had become more bearable as it dried out.  From Colorado we looked down the spine of the Rockies and headed straight for the Fire Swamp... also known as Albuquerque, NM.

Wichita - Flatness and Family

Contrary to popular belief, Kansas is both more interesting and less flat than generally assumed.  Driving out through Missouri, we noticed that almost the entire Eastern part of the state still contained something akin to rolling hills.  Arriving in Wichita at my cousin's new house, we noticed that their first growing season had just ended; all the wheat field had been mown to stubble.  My cousins had a sweet place and immediately offered us relief from the heat and the humidity in the comfort of their very own pool.  After several reckless attempts at awesome jumps, we had thoroughly relaxed and a significant chunk of my extended family filled the house to hear us sing.  We barbequed, sang, talked about Hillsdale, and just enjoyed ourselves.  That night, Pullmann, Keaton, and I went out to see the new Transformer's movie. While the explosions and such were cool, we all thought the movie rather over-drenched in sex, especially for a genre that will attract young kids.  The highlight?  We got a pitcher of Shiner Bock delivered to our seats that we could drink during the entire movie.  A bar and a movie theater... why had no one thought of this before?  :)  And so the adventure continued the next morning into Colorado... a long drive that one was.  

Missouri - Backwoods and St. Louis

From Dallas we had quite a long drive ahead of us through Oklahoma (going quite close to where my grandma grew up!) into central Missouri.  We pulled up at Nathan's grandparents and saw some faces we recognized.  We had met them at the beginning of our trip when Nathan's older brother got married in Montana.  This time, they were the hosts instead of the guests right along with us.  :)  They were wonderful hosts.  The weather was not nearly so obliging.  Grandpa Groene has a ton of land, but we didn't spend much time enjoying it because it felt like August hit Missouri early this year.  The thermometer fixed itself obstinately above 100 degrees and stayed there (even after dark it felt that hot).  The heat index and humidity conspired against us as well.  Our final foe in the field were mosquitos.  Combining all of those we nevertheless enjoyed ourselves outside at times.  On Father's Day, we went to celebrate with Nathan's Great-Grandparents (quite an experience for me...I've never known any of my great-grandparents).  That involved quite a bit of sweet tea and delicious food.  Of course, we sang for our supper.  

The Monday and Tuesday of that week we had a concert.  Monday's was a little ways in a neighboring town and Tuesday's was at the Groene's home church in Owensville, Missouri.  They were both small congregations but generous and attentive.  After Tuesday's concert, we went out to dinner with Grandpa Groene's brothers (Nathan's great uncles).  It was a rather uproarious dinner in which several new jokes were born and mirth was shared as plentifully as sweet tea (which was plentiful and ordered in an impeccable southern accent by myself).  After being made fun of for milking a turkey, we spent the last night playing a game from Nathan's childhood: King Oil.  The point of the game is to get as many oil derricks as possible on the board.  For every oil derrick you had, you would get a certain stipend every turn based on the card you turned over.  Having completely shut off the math section of my brain, I flipped over a card that gave Keaton $4,000 per derrick (he had six derricks).  Doing the math quickly in my head I was astounded and, after a brief silence, announced in all seriousness "That's a hundred thousand dollars."  ALMOST immediately realizing my egregious error, we broke out into laughter and anytime anyone has to guess at a number now on this trip... it has become 100,000 of any unit.  It was a fun game, in spite of my arithmetical ignorance.  :)

I almost forgot something.  The Monday before the concert, we drove into St. Louis to see the sights as we so often have before.  Our goal this time was the Cathedral Basilica.  Outside it is a beautiful granite construction, a burgeoning emerald-topped dome and two imposing towers.  Inside there isn't an ounce of paint.  Completed in this century following  a Byzantine style prevalent about 1000 years ago, every pictorial piece of art is a mosaic.  Over 7,000 colors of glass were used and 24 different shades of gold.  The artwork was astounding.  We asked permission from the office to sing in the sacred space and they graciously allowed us in the West Transept.  It wouldn't have mattered where we'd sung since the sound would bounce all over.  But we obediently found the West Transept and sang facing the altar to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  When we had finished a few, we turned around and noticed that dozens of people had sat themselves in the pews to listen.  We had stopped all the tours and even the janitor had temporarily stopped doing his job so that he wouldn't disturb (he later thanked us personally saying we made his day... he never heard music in here like that before).  Before we finished, one of the priests of the basilica as well as the organist and the music director's wife had walked in.  Impressed, they wondered if we would do a concert there (alas!).  We told them this was more of a farewell tour anyway.  They complimented us highly and asked us to sing one last one.  So we sang Victoria's O Sacrum Convivium, one of the best pieces of polyphony we know.  It was so amazing to hear the sound, the truth, the beauty of the music fill and reflect all around such a beautiful place of worship.  Everything from the baldachinno and the beautiful crucifix with Christ carved out of the whitest marble in the world to the side altars with statues of prayerful angels contributed to shouting "God is King" and facilitating an air of humility and awe that is so necessary for a relationship with our God.  Nowhere else have I felt I ever prayed our music better.  We were glad that the church had been so generous as to open up their sanctuary for us and to be appreciative afterwards.  

From there we toured a few more things, the Lutheran Seminary so famous for so many things (including famous Early Church historian, Jaroslav Pelikan). We checked out DogTown (the Irish center of St. Louis) and chilled in a coffee-shop for a while to beat the heat.  And finally, just as our day ended and we were about to return for a concert, we discovered that even our GPS system can get confused.  Telling it to direct us to a Bookstore, we followed is time and again to several dead ends or neighborhoods.  While this facilitated us enjoying a great slice of the domestic architecture of the city, we never found a good used book store.  :(  Instead, we were visually accosted when we walked into a modern bookstore to find no fiction older than 50 years, and a larger GLBT section than any other section of their bookstore.  Thoroughly grossed out by modern and post-modern thought... we left to go pray our concert.  I apologize for not updating sooner.  I hope to finish the updates through Southern California before we leave Southern California.  Hope all is well with all of our friends all over the nation!