There and Back Again by J.F.

The Crusade trip went off without a hitch. We met early morning Dec 28, 2005 and drove to the Alamo gas station in Sparks to fill up. We didnt even get out of the gas station before we got in trouble with security, one truck forgot a tarp and had to go back, and one guy backed his parents Jeep into a pole...I think they are still mad. We took about 50 pictures of the people in the van more out of boredom than anything else. Here's one of Jen Boyd and I :)


Outside the parking lot, we made pretty good time (if you can call it that) up to Spokane, WA...it was a 15 hour car ride...yeeeeaaaaa. I think just about everyone took a nap through the first session the night of Dec 28 - a 15 drive with little or no sleep the night before will do that to ya. Oh yeah, I forgot about A-hole intersection on the way up...I must tell this story. We pull into this little po-dunk town in western Idaho where they are working on the only stoplight in town. The whole intersection is shut down, but nobody is directing traffic...ah, it's lunchtime. Is the WHOLE workcrew supposed to take lunch at once? I guess it works if your from Idaho. Anyway, we take a left and fillup on gas...then the addicts spot it...Buckies. I like Starbucks, but it has to be in this town...why me? We go back across the intersection...still no workers. We enjoy our coffee...as seen in the picture...

Afterwards, we try to continue on...but we can't. The workers got back from lunch...a LOT of them! Aparently we can't take a right now that they are working again. OK, fine..."how do we get through?" I ask. The worker says to go straight through (back to the gas station we started at), do a u-turn and take a left. OK...NOT. We waited in line for 3 cycles of every other line to go...this guy had a power trip. Then, finaly our turn! Nope! I go to turn left and the worker runs in front of the ASUN van - I almost ran over the dude. Red faced and screeming he runs to my window..."WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" I calmly answer..."taking a left". He replies..."YOU CAN'T - YOU'LL GET A TICKET IF YOU DO"...aparently very flabbergasted. Aside from running this dude over I have no idea what to do so I ask him how to get around onto the road we need and he proceeds to give me the best directions of my life..."TAKE A LEFT AT THE NEXT LIGHT". I take a left at the next light...into a Home Depot parking lot. Cool would not describe my internal demenor at this time. OK, try the next one I think. Nope, the next light gets us lost in some neighborhood. We finaly got a call..."we have GPS, stop and let us lead". We finaly got back on the road and on our way - away from that horrible A-hole intersection. That dumb place cost us like an extra hour.

We all had a great time up there. I may follow up with some posts of what I learned...once I process it all. I will share a highlight though. There was this seminar on defending the Word in a university setting. It basically showed some of the commen arguements used to discount the Bible's creditbility, threw down and whooped some "A" on th lies that "scholars" come up with. My analytical mind went to town - I enjoyed that a lot. Another neat feature was a lady doing interpretive paintings during the main sessions.


As always, the conference throws a killer New Years party...here are some pics...


The drive back was rainy for the most part. There was about an hour of extreme wind that was a little freaky to drive in and also about an hour of snow, but like I said...rain, rain, and more rain for most of the drive. The biggest event on the return was getting stuck in the mud. The same girl that forgot a tarp and cost us an hour the day we left drove into some mud in this field in Idaho...another hour gone. She tried to rock it out...didn't work. She tried to drive backwards...didn't work. We tried using tie downs as tow straps...bet you can guess how that worked. Finally we dug her out, piled chunks of asphalt and shoved bushes under her tires, and pushed...IT WORKED. BUT EVERYONE GOT MUDDY! We made a huge mess in the van...that was so so so much fun to clean up...LOL. We drive 5 minutes to the gas station to clean up and the gas station losses power while we are there! What the HELL?!?! That town is now called Hellsville. All in all the return drive was 16 hours and we got back at 2 am on Jan 2, 2006.