Yes, I know you are all thinking it's been a long time since my last blog, and I know how everybody misses the season "Mishaps in Spain," so hopefully this new season will also be enjoyed and edifying for the masses.

In all actuality, I must say that the majority of what I'm about to recall did not take place at or anywhere near Southern.

Sometime during the school year a couple of my buddies, namely Joel Kurtz and Brian Glass, decided that we should take a trip up to Walla Walla to see one of their friends up there. From there a couple of other people got invited, and I think I heard about it through Brian and invited myself. Brian says that he invited me, but I don't remember that part. Anyway, this developed into full-fledged two-week roadtrip that was completed the very first two weeks that school was out. The five lucky ones that were nominated out of the hoards clambering to go are as follows: Brian Glass, Shama Eller, Timothy George, Temple Bragg, and Joel Kurtz. (A little side note here, several of the other "hoards that were clambering to go" actually went to the trouble to organize their own road trips. I'm not actually certain how much "planning" actually went into their trip though. The long and short of it is that it sounded like their roadtrip was very VERY eventful. Anyway 'nother story for another time.)

Where was I...Oh yeah, so we started out on Friday by driving down to the Eller's house in Georgia; at least Kurtz and I did. We drove Shama's police car and Kurtz almost died from falling asleep, but we did eventually manage to straggle up. Shama, Temple, Phoebe(Shama's sister), and some of their cronies had gone down the day before. Brian followed Friday evening very late because he underestimated how long it would take to pack up his room and get out. I personally believe that he was just getting distracted all day. I hope I'm not boring everybody, I'm really enjoying writing this.

So we had an awesome weekend with the Eller's, of course, and started out on our real sojourn at 4:30AM Sunday morning.That first day we traversed, or at least drove through parts of six states. Finally, we arrived at Oklahoma Academy where Temple, Shama, and also Emily Fisher(she drove with us in her own car that first day to OA) had all gone to school. Joel and I went running and Brian road my longboard because he fractured his wrist on Sabbath through a rather violent plunge that was instigated by us. It's too complicated to explain here, but it hurt him really bad so we didn't want to injure himself further. When we arrived back from our run we went and played soccer with the guys there until the dean blew his whistle thereby signifying that play time was over. The next morning we did a worship for all of the kids there. It is interesting to note that while we were singing that a good number of them were avidly conducting from the audience. Come to find out, they get extra credit for something if they do that. OA is just east of Oklahoma City btw in Harrah.

The next day was also one of our long days for driving. We drove across the rest of Oklahoma, the panhandle of Texas, all New Mexico, and to the middle of Arizona. To the Grand Canyon actually. We were so shot when we arrived because of the lateness of the hour that we rolled our sleeping compartments out on the dusty soil and finally induced sleep to our weary corpses. When we awoke the next morning we were pleasantly surprised to find out that Allie Westermeyer and her entire family were there to greet us as well as Beaver Eller and his wife Bekah. So we all took a stroll down into the Grand Canyon. I must say it was a glorious day would have been perfect if it hadn't been for the mule drivers brashly instructing Brian and I not to take short cuts off the trail, because he wanted to get there first. (Actually I think his argument was something to do with dislodging stones and killing people with them.) I assured him that we had no intention of hurting anyone, but were just exercising our rights as free Americans. Then I remembered the patriot act and new that if I didn't comply it would probably come back to haunt me, so we begrudgingly clawed our way back up to the trail. Indeed I do surmise that the journey may have been very different if it hadn't been for the ubiquitous eye of the mule drivers.

At one point we parted ways with Beaver and his wife and shortly thereafter with the Westermeyers as the were going to continue down to a camp by the river. So we never actually made it to the river but in the end it ended up being about 12 miles long in all. I think that the pace going up the canyon was a little fast for Brian, but being good-natured as he is he laboriously came along and even thanked us for the workout later. I think that he has heart disrhythmias or something of the sort, so I kind of felt a little bad about that later.

Realize as I recount this tale that I am leaving out many juicy details that for the sake of space and my hands getting tired I'm not writing here; nonetheless, if you bother to ask me in person, I'll be more than happy to fill in the cracks.

Continuing on, when we arrived back at our camp all of us were pretty well beat, so we concluded that spending the night once again in the same place would be a prudent thing to do. So that's what we did.

For Wednesday we relaxed a little for a change we wanted to go to one of the many parks that litter southern Utah. Originally we wanted to go to Zion, but thought that it might be difficult to secure a back-country camping permit seeing that it has become more commercialized than some of the others. for example the one that we actually decided to go to.

Something that I haven't really mentioned yet, but that I think was and integral part of our trip was God. There were many times when we weren't very sure what to do, or where we were going to stay and God worked it out for us perfectly. In fact better than we could have done ourselves. This time was not different. We would up in a place called Escalante/Grand Staircase National Monument. It's actually about 7 million acres of desert. Albeit beautiful desert. Because of weird time change between Utah and Arizona, we wound up at the ranger station well after they closed, so we thought we were going to be high and dry without a permit to camp. Amazingly enough though, at this place we found that the permits were there. Just fill one out take a copy and leave the original there. It was about an hour to darkness, so we headed off, not knowing where we were going. After about 47 seconds of hiking we arrived at a small stream which I traversed quite rapidly with my trusty flip flops. Perfect for hiking in I thought. I walked down the trail aways by myself and sat down for another 15 minutes while a listened to the breeze through the trees, the birds tweeting sweetly amongst the branches, and the occasional shriek from someone attempting to ford the creek without wetting themselves(no pun intended). Finally I started to get worried that somebody had drowned and was about to head back when here they came around the corner

We continued on around the next bend and the valley opened up a bit more. We were in a canyon you see. Off to the left I could a large recess in the canyon wall; I started up that way and they followed. We climbed up to a little ledge that broadened until Kurtz discovered a little alcove stretching back into the rock face. The stone was now over us an on either side. There was a little sandy patch where we could all pitch our tents comfortably, and also for Temple and I to make a little pre-historic hearth wherewith to cook our sumptuous viands. One of the most beautiful places I've been. It was so perfect. Again we attribute it all to God. Not only did he make it specifically for us, but he guided us to find it. Next morning Joel and I arouse with the sun and climbed up to the top of the cliff overlooking our tents. There we discovered a great boulder that was teetering on the edge threatening to slip off and squish us all. At least the ones that remained at the bottom. Shama, Temple, and Brian were taking an unusually long time to wake up so we encouraged them by throwing small pebbles of sandstone down on there tents while they slept. When they hit they would burst like miniature bombs in a little puff of smoke. Eventually, their hazy brains figured out that it wasn't raining and finally showed their shining faces. They came up to and we had a nice worship as was tried to see the sun come up through all the clouds. After that we set up a slack line down at the sandy patch and swung in the hammock while Shama and Temple amused themselves with drawing names and figures in the sand on a big flat rock next to the precipice. We had breakfast and by and by took everything down and went down to the river in the valley to bathe our filthy selves. The water was freezing, but also refreshing. Kurtz sprayed a bunch of peppermint oil soap in his eyes while squeezing the bottle tightly because nothing would come out. Looked and sounded like he was in a lot of pain, but our resident nurse (Brian) didn't have any quick fixes for us. Kurtz would put his face in the water to wash the soap out and then yank his head back out because it was cold and loudly protest to the incessant stinging in his eyes. It was a very sad moment for all of us...
 

On a happier note, he eventually discovered, I think, that his eyeballs felt very clean after that. We hiked the short way out and in the parking lot ran into an interesting German fellow named Wolfgang. Amidst other interesting advice that he vouchsafed to us was that he was not W. A. Mozart. An interesting fellow indeed, so we gave hima "Hidden Truth" and said goodbye.

Be sure and read part 2.2 coming soon!