California Trip - 1

We headed for the west on June 24th (Tues) across New Mexico and Arizona visiting the Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon (Wed) along the way. Staying on schedule with our crew of ten people is quite an achievement that has been rarely accomplished on this trip. As a result, we arrived at the Grand Canyon a little bit later than we expected but it allowed us to be there when the sun set! God's creation is really beautiful.

The Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon at sunset

When we arrived in California we first drove through L.A. (Thurs) to visit some relatives including one of my great uncles. It was a great time of swimming, singing and visiting. Next stop was San Fransisco (Sat) to see more relatives (my mom's cousins) who gave us a tour of the city. We visited a glass exhibit at a museum, the Japanese gardens, rode the subway/cable car, walked to fisherman's wharf (a long walk,) rode a trolley, went out to eat and drove across the golden gate bridge. That was quite a day!

The great Golden Gate

Sunday we found a church at 11:30 :) After that we drove to Yosemite National Park and saw some beautiful waterfalls and mountains. We went back on Monday to look around some more.

Beautiful scenery at Yosemite.

Hear are some pictures of the bear and deer we saw.

Yours Truly filming at Yosemite

The same guy again

The conference started on Tuesday evening, but since we attended in Big Sandy, most of us toured around and relaxed :) We stayed at a nice hotel (Hawthorn Suites) which had a hot breakfast each morning - what a treat compared to the regular "continental breakfast" at the other hotels we had been staying at during the trip.

Friday we began our long trek back home - scheduled to arrive in OKC Tues evening, after a few stops in Colorado....but it seems that God had other plans because it is now Monday evening and we have been stuck in Ely, Nevada since Sat. We broke down on what is called "the loneliest road" and let me tell ya, it is well named. But, praise the Lord, several people stopped and they were kind enough to hunt down some help for us because there was no cell phone reception where we were stuck at. Not only that but we were 45-50 miles from Ely which is known to be "the remotest town in the U.S." - Salt Lake, Reno and Las Vegas are all 240 miles away!! Now, try to get a new radiator with those statistics...nonetheless God is faithful and a couple from the church we visited were headed to Salt Lake anyway and offered to pick up a radiator for us! They are, Lord willing, on their way back right now and we should have it put in later tonight. Hopefully we can take off tomorrow morning....keep praying :) Oh, and the hotel we have been staying at for the last couple of days took pity on us and gave us a great rate! The people here are fabulous and there is so much more to tell about but I guess I'll wait till I have some more pictures.

Being stuck on the side of the road for a couple of hours provided a great "short video" opportunity - you'll be hearing more about it after I get back home and back to my computer ;)

I'll post more pictures and more details later...