Rose Bowl Road Trip: Post 3

The journey continues...

Day 3 (continued):

We arrived in Zion with about an hour of daylight left, so it was truly a sprint through the park. It struck me as a place that would be absolutely incredible to spend some time intimately with, as there are plenty of trails into the back country. As well, it seems like it could be very pretty in the spring with all the potential for green. When we left there, our journey took us to St. George, Utah. In this highly Mormon town, we could see the temple from a large distance and found that despite the size, there was only one bar in the community. Therefore we could not watch the UFC fight we had hoped to catch that evening. We did however get to get entertained by the attendant at Russ's Gas Station. With his hilarious (to us) accent, we got treated to him answering our question about where the best place to eat in town was, with "GOLDEN CORRAL." No question that he loved that restaurant. We spent our night in the luxurious Sands Motel. Ok, so luxury might not be the right word.


Day 4:

This is the day that we teased Justin with Las Vegas. We headed to Death Valley, but we had to skirt past Las Vegas on the way there. As we crested the hill to see Vegas, it felt like Mos Eisley Spaceport, a large city in the middle of nothing desertland. We finally arrived at Rhyolite just outside of Death Valley. This ghost town was a bustling community barely a century ago and now it sits in ruins. We then headed into the valley, which is legitimately one of the most desolate places I've ever been. I found it to be really ugly in many ways and the beauty is very hidden. However, there were some very cool features such as the sand dunes we played in and the view from 5000 ft above the valley floor (picture 3). The white patches you see are actually sand deposits on the floor of the valley. We left the valley as the sun was setting and the next stop on our trip was the Hoover Dam. Little to our knowledge though, there was no way to get out of our cars and experience the dam after night. We did drive over the top of it, but nothing more than that. It was disappointing, but a good reason to return. We then drove into Las Vegas. We mistakenly drove all the way to the strip to get to our hotel that was way off of it. It goes to show you should do better map research. We spent over an hour traveling barely 10 blocks. I was feeling super sick, so I went to sleep right away in my bed in our Super 8 Hotel. The next day...Vegas

Rose Bowl Road Trip: Post 2

In a continuing effort to bring the most accurate coverage of The Bowl trip possible.

Day 3: What an action packed day this was. We awoke from our slumbers in Williams especially early (around 6 am) to get to the Grand Canyon for sunrise. Oh my goodness it was a cold morning! As we stopped for gas before heading out, I was shivering even at the pump. We arrived about 20 minutes before the sun crested the rim of the canyon, and as a consequence, froze our butts off. Many other people joined us as well. It was truly incredible seeing the first sliver of sun break over the horizon and ignite the red rocks on the other side. What commenced after that was our attempt to get to the warmth of the visitors center. Of course it wasn't open yet, so we had to settle for the car. We drove up and down the roads that run parallel to the canyon, taking in each unique view. The expanse is so large that many times you are seeing the same things, just from new and compelling angles. The first 2 pictures there are some of my favorites from the Grand Canyon. As we drove back towards the east part of the park, we got to see clouds chasing us headed the same direction. As we left the park, we drove north, and on that stretch of road northeast of the Grand Canyon, there is a section of the Little Colorado River Gorge (picture 3). It is an impressive geological feature in it's own respect. The steep walls surrounded by desert truly captured the scared part of you, knowing that this place would kill you if you fell into it :). We continued along some wonderful expanses of desert. Something that struck me was the very different lifestyle people lived from here in Illinois. The homes were intensely cheap and the pace of life seemed to be slower. It also seemed like poverty was a lot more widespread. As we continued into the desert, we ran into a bridge (picture 5) across the Colorado River north of the Grand Canyon. There we stopped because of the wonderful gorge it spanned (picture 4). We got a chance to really get a sense as to the height of the fall we would have if we fell off the bridge when we spit and it took what seemed like an eternity for it to fall. After that, more and more desert was the tale as we drove and finally arrived in Utah. There we were planning to see Zion National Park....

Rose Bowl Road Trip: Post 1

So, I wanted to lay out what the trip to Pasadena and back was like.

Day 1: We left from St. Louis, Missouri to Amarillo, Texas. This was our longest day of driving on the way out. We really didn't stop to think and instead pounded down on the driving. When we were at the border of Oklahoma and Texas, that is when the snow started to fall. I know right? Snow. It was a hazardous drive from the border of Texas to Amarillo. It took us about twice as long to get to Amarillo from the border as expected. We made it to Amarillo barely in time to eat at the Big Texan. It is this big time novelty restaurant. It offers a 72 oz. steak that you can get for free if you eat it in 1 hour. Of course Pete, Justin, nor myself actually tried to do this. If you don't complete the task, you have to pay full price for the steak. After that we crashed at our hotel for the evening.

Day 2: We left Amarillo and headed towards Arizona. In Arizona, we made our first stop on the trip that I really wanted to photograph. This was Petrified Forest National Park. It was a really neat place. The vistas there were a perfect introduction to the trip that was at hand west of that point. We got to see rocks that were once trees too, so that's cool. We got there in the early afternoon and as we were headed west again, the sun was setting. That put us headed to Williams, AZ for the night. There we got ourselves another cheap dive hotel. We ate at Jack in the Box for the first of a few times on the trip. When we returned to our hotel, we consistently could not get the key to open the door. We finally got into the room on a freak time the electronic key worked and Pete barely getting the door open. Once again, we watched some sports and crashed.

Time for THE GIANTS to vanquish evil...

sad

It's time to vanquish evil...

Who am I? (When it comes to entertainment)

A breakdown of who I could be in a few shows...I love these shows...sooooo much. Now I can pretend to be in them,and to be honest, I'm pretty satisfied with the results.

Your results:
You are Mr. Eko

Mr. Eko 75% Boone Carlyle 70% Sayid Jarrah 65% Claire Littleton 56% Michael Dawson 52% Jin-Soo Kwon 50% Charlie Pace 48% Hugo "Hurley" Reyes 46% Shannon Rutherford 40% Sun Kwon 40% John Locke 35% Walt Lloyd 32% Dr. Jack Shephard 32% Kate Austen 30% James "Sawyer" Ford 29% Ana-Lucia Cortez 28%

You are neither a leader nor a follower. You are a Bible reader and are motivated by God's will. Many people have respect for you.

Click here to take the Lost Personality Quiz

Which Office Character Are You?
	You are Ryan. You are extremely smart and perceptive, and it irritates you to no end when inferior people try to tell you what to do. Sometimes, though, your critical eye makes you come off as aloof and bitter to others, and it may take awhile for people to get to know you.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which Heroes Character Are You?
	You are Hiro. You are everyones favorite Japanese tourist. Your time is well-managed and you make sure things get done. On top of that, the girls always want a second chance with you.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Character Are You?
	You are Leonardo. You are a natural leader with a strong sense of honor.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

A couple of thoughts from the day

1) Why do we always get to say, "I don't believe in that," or, "I believe that isn't the case," etc.

Does that make sense? We always speak in the I Believe tense. As if your opinion changes the absolute. Now, obviously when somebody asks you what you believe, you can give that opinion, but when did it become so important to speak passively? We are afraid of constantly offending people maybe? More likely, it just makes sense that we want to not have to deal with arguments.

2) Is Christianity's diversity a strength or a weakness?

It seems like this could go either way. It seems good that Christianity could go many directions and still be received. However, it also leads to the idea that the faith is seemingly becoming bastardized as it transitions to other versions or denominations. So, what is it, a strength or weakness? I think it alls under the strength category. Now before you say, "duh, Alan, you are a Christian and you would defend your faith," hear me out. I think it points a lot to the resiliency of the core Gospel. It is so strong at the center that it can be stretched across all sorts of cultural, geographical, and temporal boundaries. I would say that is true of other faiths. However, I use Islam as an example and it appears to me that there are strong cultural ties to that faith, whereas the Gospel of Christ can permeate so many cultural boundaries.

My Writers Strike Ends

So, I wasn't blogging...at all...over break cuz I didn't find the time, didn't have a computer of my own, etc.

So now, I find myself writing again for the first time...So, in old school fashion, I present to you my bullet points of the recent times.

• I went to the Rose Bowl on an epic journey across our country (this will be highlighted later)
• The Packers are in the NFC Championship game and I am stoked
• I got an amazing Canon digital SLR camera for Christmas (thanks mom and dad!)
• The Cowboys lost to the Giants! Sorry Tony Romo...
• I started classes again. I am enrolled in 5, but one of them is super lame so far, so it might be gone, as I don't need it.
• Illinois basketball is playing super sloppy
• Christmas was a lot of fun with family and getting to see my new young cousin Peter was a blast. He's a cutie.
• I have been watching a lot of tv shows on DVD. My roster includes Lost (gotta get through season 3 before the 31 of Jan), The Office (just about caught all the way up), and Heroes (thanks Emily for that one! I'm finishing up the most recent episodes that exist)

I think that's a good start...