California pictures

Heather my wonderful friend.

These wagons are cabins for the elementary camp.

Hume Lake

Heather and the Jeep

A giant sequoia

The General Grant

Heather and Brendan

Buck Rock Lookout

California

This past week I have been hanging out in California with my good friend Heather. It has been a ton of fun to see her again. She lives in Hume, CA which is about an hour and a half outside of Fresno. She lives in the beautiful mountians and works at a Christian camp. I have been lucky enough to have her as my tour guide during my week here and we have gone to see a lot of very cool things. She took me to see some ginormous sequoia trees. It was amazing to see these trees that are so tall that I could barely get the whole tree in my pictures. Talk about standing in awe of what God has done...standing next to those trees you realize how little you really are. God created these huge trees that continue to stand even when they are burned all the way up the middle. It was truely an amazing experience.

We also went to see a fire lookout called Buck Rock...but it was closed because of all the smoke from forest fires in the area. It would have been cool to see the land from the lookout, but I didn't really want to climb all the stairs to get to the top anyway. =) On the way to the fire lookout we had to drive through a prescribed burn area...it was really smokey. The firefighters were out along the road keeping a close eye on the fires they had started. Their plans for the burn didn't quite work out right...the wind they were hoping for to clear the smoke out didn't really come. So the smoke has kind of just hung around the area...makes for a very smokey few days and really hinders my ability to take some good pictures. I did however get some amazing pictures and I will post them when I get back to my parents' house because I left my cable there. In all, it has been a great trip out here to California and I am so glad I was able to come spend some time with Heather.

Next week's adventure...online class, wedding things, and who knows what else!

The joys of traveling

Well, yesterday I was supposed to fly from Pucallpa to Lima to Miami to Chicago. I made it as far as Lima. My flight to Miami last night was canceled because the pilot was sick and in the hospital. However, I did not find out it was canceled until after I had been sitting at the gate for about an hour. Then came the fun of getting out of security (which means them having to cancel my exit stamp in my passport), then going down and getting my luggage, heading over to the American Airlines counter and wait about an hour in line to get my flight rescheduled. I got my flight rescheduled from 11:30pm last night to 4pm today. However, leaving Lima at 4pm gets me into Miami too late at night for a flight to Chicago. So, I have to stay the night in Miami and then fly to Chicago tomorrow morning. Along with rescheduling my flight, American also gave me a hotel room, taxi ride to and from the hotel and meals. At first I was a little bummed that I wasn't able to stay at the airport hotel, but when I walked into my room at Thunderbird Hotels, I was not disappointed. The hotel room is amazing and the bed was super comfortable. One of the best nights of sleep I have had in a while. Even though I didn't sleep very long, at least it was in a very comfortable bed! So for now I am hanging out in my hotel room until the taxi comes back for me at 1:30pm. Hopefully he doesn't forget! =) Thanks for all your prayers for safe travels...they have been answered so far. Please keep praying that I get home safely tomorrow.