Alaska Day 6-7

Miles: 2,715.7

Average MPG: 19.3
Gallons: 140.71
Bears and Wolves: 12
Alaska Beards: 6
Miles Hiked: 8.6

Wow Community Group was epic tonight.  First off, the Menashe Family saw me down at the Morgan Junction and gave me a ride down to Brandon Street.  They are an amazing couple; in fact I would "do a back flip off my roof" if I mature into half the man Jack is when I hit his season in life. David (pronounced Dei-vid 'cause he's a Brit, hmm I am too, but I don't call myself Jaw-shua, I respond to Josh, or occasionally "Hey Penguin!", or even "Hey Bone!"), our community group leader, left a note on the front door telling everyone to enter in silence and take a seat.  We sat down and waited.  At 7:30PM, Cole suddenly read Luke 21:29-38 and David invited each of us to set aside all the crap from our thoughts, all the worries and weight of what we are so easily distracted by and take 30 minutes to pray to our Father in quiet reverence. I sat on the floor and prayed to my Dad.  He reminded me how good he is and convicted me that I need to cut out KassemG from my 1 hour a week media time. I love that my God is so specific and takes the time to open my eyes to my blindness. We then transitions to small clusters to talk about what we had heard from God and prayed specifically for each other. After we closed in prayer, I got some time with David and Jack one on one and got some amazing advice from godly married men about how to honor one of God's daughters.
Oh and one more thing before I transition to Alaska, I worked at a Golf Tournament this last weekend.  It was the Boing Classic over 50 PGA event. You know how golf is really really really...not that exciting on TV?  Well it's just as "enthralling" in person.  Still I got to volunteer and help raise money for a hospital and enjoy a really big manicured garden and all the free soda and granola bars I could eat.  I also went to the volunteer appreciation dinner afterwards and I won a prize from Tiffany & Co.!!  You know the really fancy stores  with the vault doors in the malls that sells jewelry? Yeah I won a pair of Tiffany beer glasses!? Yeah they make those, and I now have some.

Alaska:
So I believe I got my days mixed up so I really don't remember what went down on day 6....So on to day 7 I guess.  Maybe what I thought was day 5 was actually day 6.  We might have taken day 5 off and just relaxed all day, I can't really remember. Sorry.
Day 7 was awesome because the day before I picked up our bus tickets so we awoke early and were on the very first bus at 5:15AM. It went from our campground out to Wonder Lake 90 miles down the road. We piled into the big green bus in row 4 and 5, that way were were near enough to the front to hear from the driver but not too far forward as to be uncool.

Funny aside...or maybe just lame you be the judge:  I had no formal education before 6th grade (except for one 5th grade math class at Highland Park Elementary).  So on the first day of 6th grade, I got on the school but for the 40 minute ride to Washington Middle School.  I took one look at the bus after boarding and took the seat closest to the driver because everyone on the bus was huge and very angry looking (I was the smallest and shortest kid in he whole middle school 6th-8th grade).  I huddled close to the driver for 6 months before I worked up the courage to more to row 3. In 7th grade, I made a few acquaintances and moved to row 5. By eight grade I hit my maximum coolness by sitting in row 6.  Through the next three years, before I dropped out of high school, I never developed sufficient coolness to moved father back than row 6. i don't know how that related, but whatever.
So we set out from Reilly Creek and our soft spoken but eagle-eyed bus driver spotted and stopped for these beautiful animals:

So we stopped briefly at about mile 50 on the bus ride, and Josue got to experience life as a Caribou:

So we continued out to Wonder Lake which is 90 miles from the park's entrance. On a clear day, this place has the best views of Mount McKinley, unfortunately there were too many clouds. We actually left the park without ever seeing the peak.  No big deal, we found other ways to entertain ourselves.  We walked down to Wonder lake and we practiced out walking on water skills. Notice the lack of ripples, these pics took real skill to give the illusion of the miraculous:

Man I love to skip rocks and I think I imparted a little knowledge to Josue.

We then went for a short hike into the endless blueberry fields.  I had my bear mace and kept my head on a swivel because we have seen no less that 5 grizzlies on the way out.  We only ran across a chipmunk city, but there was plenty of fresh bear poor broadcasting the big guys' presence.  The berries were tasty and were everywhere.  We came to a peaceful creek and we stopped for some food.  I challenged every one to make their own boat for a little boat race. The Rule was that you had to make it only from what you could find naturally occuring and your boat has to have an occupant. Some builders employed grass and used a little daisy as the occupant.  My strategy was the aerodynamically stable stick with a blueberry passenger.  I came in second, and I think  Tina won the big race.  We ate ravioli out of a steel can cooked on Nick's MSR stove. it was awesome.

The race track...the finish line was the little island in the creek.

We made it back to the bus pickup location and took some silly pictures near the sign:

We rode the bus back toward Reilly Creek and saw some more sweet animals, but this time much closer in:

It was amazing. We got back to the campground and enjoyed some hot dogs and canned corn.  We ended the night playing a Epi game of UNO. We let Tina make up the rule to the game and it was awesome.  She totally messed with us and we all ended up laughing all over ourselves.  I actually cried I was laughing so hard. 

So, Day 7 was another stretch of beautiful blacktop on my life's road trip.  I had the honor,  no the high honor, of sharing it with Josue, who taught me so much about what it might look like to be a dad, Yulia, who encouraged me and showed me what it looks like to just live the Christian life in a state of quiet expectant joy, Tina, who challenged me on my endemic self-deprecation in a gently mocking way, Nick, who helps me to see every situation in a new light and whose sarcasm jarred me to laughter again and again, and Mirella, who excellently modeled motherhood and kindly encouraged this childe Roland on his lofty quest to ride this life until the wheels fall off and reach the end to see Jesus.

Alaska Days 1-3

Miles: 2,384
Average MPG: 19.2
Gallons: 124.17
Bears and Wolves: 4
Alaska Beards: 3
Miles Hiked: 0

Well we made it to Denali National Park...technically a private campground just outside the park called Grizzly Bear Campground. It's a brisk night with a low of about 48F.  We are camped overlooking a beautiful river and are enjoying the soft ripple of water over smooth stones. Yulia, Nick and Mirella drove very well and covered the bulk of the distance.  My specialty was the night time sections.  I remember a little road trip I took in college with Trevor, Lili, Sam, Joe, and Jean.  They killed the days and I owned the night (the trip was from Hillsdale Michigan out to South Padre Island, 30 hours of sweet blacktop).
For some inexplicable reason I have been blessed with excellent sight (20/10 right and 20/20 left) and, when properly caffeinated, very good reflexes. So I love the night drives.
We only had one little issue on the way up (besides a few minor wrong turns), the Canadian Mounties!? On the U.S. / Canadia (YES! the proper name for "Canada" is Canadia, or America's Hat, or that loft apartment above a really great party) border we hit a little problem.  When the border agent asked for our passports and an explanation of how all the passengers knew each other he got suspicious and told us to pull over to the parking area.  We complied and went inside the 1960s era facility. A stone-faced Asian Mounty asked me to explain how these disparate people all happen to be going to Alaska. I felt his subtle implication loud and clear: you must be smugglers trying to get some of that chine-white American common sense into the warped world of Canadia...and I won't let you, Eh!
While he and his comrades in Mounty-dom removed every last piece of gear from our car and using the most sophisticated techniques known to a Canadia-ian, a portable X-ray machine (no doubt loaned from the U.S. Border Patrol) found that we are really boring people, no booze, knives, tactical nukes, or copies of Calvin and Hobbes Revenge of the Baby-Sat (this book must be illegal in Canadia where anything fun must be viewed with suspicion, apparently including some Alaska-bound crazies in a rental car with Colorado plates). During my interroga-...I mean "cordial interview" with the Mounty, his questions led me to explain the hierarchy and organizational structure of Mars Hill Church.  I thought that was hilarious, but I tried to keep a straight face. My 5 month internship under the executive elders and their assistant really came in handy.
After surviving the Mounties, we snagged some snacks and dropped the Traverse in gear to cross the great wastes of Vancouver Before Christ and the desolate Yukon. Along the way I played California by the band Phantom Planet which Tina convinced us to change to "Laska, Laska...Laska, Laska, Oh here we come!"
I also made the mistake of self-disclosure. I told two stories that led to the creation of a mad inside joke. So in an attempt to kill an inside joke by making it a Google-able outside joke, here goes:
I was once studying with my grad school colleague Greg Teplow.  We were studying in a coffee shop (propably Zoka in U Village) and my tall and 30% African American buddy turns to me and says in a bold voice, "You Sir are a Racist!" And he immediately goes back to his notes and books.  I an sitting there kinda stunned and trying to avoid eye-contact with all the curious people looking at the little mostly white looking guy with the tall mostly black looking dude as they mentally place bets on how many second it will take the white guy to die after the black guy leaps across the table.  Greg was totally joking but the awkward reaction in the coffee shop was priceless.  Another odd story comes from my buddy Joe Seaver who had a brother who inspired him. When someone sneezes in most of the English speaking world the proper response in to say bless you but what do you say when someone coughs?  Joe's answer was brilliant: "SHUT UP!".  So I disclosed these two stories to my travelling companions.  So for the rest of the trip Josue led us in a chorus of "Shut up you racist!" Or "Shut up Sir" Or "Racist Cough-er" at random times for no apparent reason.  It was great fun. On highway 37 we saw 4 black bears just on the side of the road. At Whitehorse Yukon Terrotories, we enjoyed a nice meal at Earl's Restaurant.  They actually gave me a sweet design idea for my house.
We made the Canadia / Alaska border at 4AM and after a laugh with the lone border patrol agent over how bad Canadia's roads are and the majesty of the Alaska state bird (the mosquito) we were back in the land of awesomeness. American roads are far better than Canadia-ian roads and actually are crowned so the rain water actually runs off of it instead of pooling.
By noon of the third day we had resupplied in Fairbanks and turned South to Denali.
Now some Pics:

 The Park Sign

 I managed to pick up a hood ornament.

An example of the beauty we encountered on the drive North

Special thanks to Bardo Pond, and my old musical friend Mogwai for providing the tunes for this blogging experience.

Vegas Blog - Day 1

Miles: 776.2
Gallons Burned: 29.7
Elvis Sightings: 0.0
Total Miles: 15412.4
Total Gallons Burned: 511.1
Total Caffeinated Drinks: 86
Total Gigabytes of Pictures: 33.6
I'm in Wells Nevada in the northwestern portion of this great state. So far I have seen exactly 0 Elvis impersonators, disappointing.
My kind traveling companion Par has been a great co-pilot despite his lack of sleep. Using my latest piece of road trip tech, Par has managed to predict the exact location of a series of thunderstorms and flawlessly modify our lodging plans all without the need to halt our relentless forward progress toward that oasis in the desert. How did Par know the weather's location and exact arrival time in advance you ask? He used my new netbook computer featuring an Ericsson cellular modem. This enabled my co-pilot extraodinare to connect to any cell tower in our path and utilize the 3G network. Using Google Earth he verified local forcasts, checking often to ensure our safety.
How terrible of me, I almost forgot to thank Nick for his patient and excellent dirrection that allowed me to activate and integrate the GPS cabability of my netbook. Nick walked me through the proper hyperterminal commands to render the NMEA protocols active. This rapidly updating system provided Google Earth with our precise global location allowing us to acurately judge our pace and the best places to resupply.
As the driver for this road trip, I have enjoyed being at the wheel of Par's fine 1997 Mitsubishi Galant. The first leg from Seattle to Boise Idaho was uneventful yet beautiful.

The second leg of our trip was slightly more eventful as Par regaled me with stories and wisdom of the ins and outs of Las Vegas while the weather predictably darkened. We saw this as we approached our stopping point for the night:

Just as we entered Wells the rain began in ernest and lightening shown in the Sierra Nevadas.
Allow me to share Par's imPARted wisdom ;)
1 - In Las Vegas they try to attract people to gamble away their childrens', grandchildrens', and great grandchildrens' inheritances by offering very cheap food - so be prepared for $12.99 all you can eat Prime Rib!!
2 - In an attempt to destroy your judgement to facilitate the rapid transfer of said offsprings' future wealth from your pocket to theirs, the casinos provide free alcoholic beverages to all active gamblers - so even if you are playing the penny slots very slowly you can score a free drink (Par's personal record is a 19 cent Long Island Iced Tea)!!
3 - Smoking is allowed in all Casinos, to better promote all manner of vice - so if you have asthma and a gambling compulsion, you could very well die at the roulette table, hmm maybe they should call it 'Merican Roulette so we don't fall behind the Russians!!
Tomorrow we will arrive in Vegas, and maybe explode from our planned Prime Rib eating contest, tune in tomorrow to find out!