Mexico Begins!!

The trip started at 3:00 p.m., I left the church at 1:00 and went to cash my checks, get chains for my truck in case we encountered snow. The only place we would have encountered snow probably would have been over Siskiyou Pass south of Ashland, OR but none was to be found, that was cool. Also before leaving I needed to make sure that my oil was change because by the time the trip would be finished we would put close to 2,800 miles on my truck and Adam's car. After getting the pre trip maintenance worked out I was supposed to go get Doug Omelete by 3 o clock. I arrived at his house at 2:50 to pick him up then we left for the Heck's to meet up witht the rest of our team. When we arrived Anna was not ready yet and also needed to go to Shoreline Community College to drop off an assignment of her's.

We finally rolled out of Seattle sometime around 5 o clock on a Friday. Are you kidding me the traffic was extremely obnoxious. It took us till after 7 to get past Tacoma which is only 30 miles from Seattle. 2 Freaking hours to go 30 miles, I could have rode my bike faster than that and would have had way less of a headache. Our first stop happened to be in Albany, Oregon for gas and food. We had Taco Bell, the lady in the drivethru wasn't able to take a piece of paper from me that I needed to be thrown away, she said she couldn't take it because Oregon had some law that wouldn't allow her to dispose of it for me, Wow Oregon really is a screwed up state.

Our next stop was in Ashland, Oregon for another gas stop and for me a change of drivers. It was three in the morning and I had been driving basically for 12 hours straight. God was giving us favor with people though everywhere that we went. In Ashland I had a chance to talk with a couple of Mexican guys about our trip and what it was that we were going down there to do. I also talked with him a little bit about my truck it was actually pretty interesting because I wasn't looking to talk to the guy, he came over to me.

Our next gas stop happened to be in Sacramentowhere we stopped to pick up the sixth and final member of our crew, Jonathan Hurrell. We ended up having to wait for like two hours in the IHOP but it was OK to at least be off the road for a little bit. Shortly after 9:00 AM we got on the road again dun dun dun dun dun na, Willie Nelson eat your heart out. Our final gas stop before reaching LA was Kettleman City, CA. Po dunk town off of I-5 offering basically services and that is it. I ended up driving the last stretch to LA because I was leading us to the place we would be staying that evening.

We finally pulled into LA around 5 in the evening basically 24 hours after we started. We ate dinner at one of my favorite places in LA, Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. Yes that's right Chicken and Waffles eaten together is heaven on earth, not really though but it is pretty good stuff. For Doug and Jonathan it is their first time in LA so ever experience was a new one to them, it was cool. The uncool thing about it was all the freaking rain. LA has had the fourth wettest year on record this year alone. We went back to the church, Covina Foursquare dropped off our stuff and then we were going to go see the Santa monica Promenade but we didn't because it was raining. We ended up driving down Santa Monica Boulevard and just checking out all the stuff that was around there. We stopped at aJamba Juice to get a drink and had another divine appointment with a homeless dude who was outside the store we went into. We each gave him a little bit of money and doug gave the guy the rest of his drink. He didn't like it so he put a new straw and lid on it and gave it to the guy fooling him. Actually I don't think the guy cared he really started going for it and drinking it right away.

This is a post dated entry because I have been without my internet access for aout two weeks now because I have moved to my new locate with my good friend Chris H. The deal he was doing with Matt fell through so he needed a roommate and I already really wanted to live here because it was right next door to my real good friend Jeremy and Meg so it really worked out for me. God blesssed me abundantly. I will write about the other days of Mexico soon but for now I must go to bed.

The Toph