Home BlogPage 245

A Jedi with a Shepherds Heart…

The hills as you drive to beautiful Corvalis, Oregon are filled with sheep lazily grazing on wide open green pastures. Counting the sheep would have been a pointless effort, as there were too many and constantly moving. Just a few hours from the coast of Oregon, it is a beautiful place to live and minister, and the sight of sheep on the way in was fitting, as we were on our way to meet a young father and pastor with a true shepherd’s heart. Strong in the Force this Children’s Pastor is… Henry and his Padawan Learner… After church at Kings Circle (See Kings Circle Gallery) we headed out to lunch at my favorite restaurant that is now sadly missing in Chicago… The best former Chicago restaurant in Chicago. Allow me to rant: The busiest restaurant at our local mall in Chicago went ‘out of business’ due only to upper management mistakes. Soon all the other Baja Fresh’s in Chicagoland started to disappear, and rumor is that they are pulling out of the MidWest. Dumb. Why would a popular busy highly profitable restaurant close? I’d like to say to Baja Fresh’s Leadership: “I find your lack of vision disturbing.” A…

Continue reading

Splashin’ in San Fran…

I love the outdoors, but I love the Big City too (Chicago being the best by far in the world), but I really love when the two are combined. San Fransisco surprised me by having a lot of nature preserved around this beautiful city… Splashin’ around across the harbor… We spent most of the day packing and relaxin’ but the afternoon/evening was spent exploring with dinner on the Cliff along the shore with another of Sara’s childhood friends and a friend of hers. Too tired for any more pics than these teasers…. Splashin’ near the Golden Gate In order to complete the “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” theme, tomorrow we leave early via airplane to a TOP SECRET undisclosed location to hide out until the Revenge of the Sith…. but stay tuned, there is still lots of photos and reports to blog.(Oh, if you get my blog posts via e-mail updates, don’t hit ‘reply to all’ like Lisa did, or your note to me will go to everyone on the list and millions will get to read your personal note to me.) :)

Continue reading

Railtown 1897…

Cutting Edge Technology (100 years ago) Sticking to our theme of “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” we went on a historic rail ride yesterday that wasn’t even a part of our plans. On our drive from Yosemite to Lodi, we drove through the Gold Rush area of California, and stopped in Jamestown for some ice creme and shopping, and then noticed a Historic Railtown sign pointing up a hill that said ‘2 blocks’ so we turned – what a treat! We stumbled on Railtown 1897, one of the oldest steam trains in the USA still running, and turns out they only give rides on the weekends, so for $6 each we were on our way! Life Lingers Along the Tracks As well as being one of the oldest, this station and its #28 train is the longest running steam train in the country – after it stopped running for mining, it became a movie train, and has been in over 200 movies and hundreds of commercials and TV shows, such as Back to the Future III, Little House on the Praire, Unforgiven, among others. Engine pulling around to take us back to station. My favorite: a one-man hand-powered train! What fun!…

Continue reading

Final Day in Yosemite…

I was kinda sad leaving, and yet grateful for four days of perfect gorgeous weather, lots of fun animal sightings, and plenty of awesome opportunities for photography. Probably my favorite part about being here is trying to capture in new or unique ways images that have been seen through millions of cameras for over a hundred years. Rather than just ‘Ooo, that’s pretty!’ point and shoot, I try to find a different way to capture it. Anyway, I try. :) The Tunnel is Calling… My first adventure of the day was something that I am sure few people do. In the middle of the long drive in there is a tunnel through a mountain that is extreeeeemely long. The first day through, about in the middle, I looked off the side facing the valley wondering if I would see what I hoped would be there – YES! Toward the middle there is a tunnel, a man-made cave that leads straight out to the side of the mountain. (Often built for air, and for an emergency exit if the ends of the tunnel were to collapse) I declared that first day that I must climb through that dark cave and see…

Continue reading

Yosemite Sam, er, Karl!!

It was our third day in Yosemite – and I hit the trails so much I am sore this morning! But I have discovered that you haven’t experienced Yosemite until you get out of the car, off the main roads, and up into the hills, it gets even better! I have pictures at home of me on this sign as a kid! Met some monks from Burma along the way. My first destination was, of course, Inspiration Point. Sara trusted me to climb up into the rocky cliffs in search of inspiration. (There was enough inspiration for her just overlooking the Tunnel View, the #1 photographed spot in the park – it is breathtaking enough!) Not sure if I got to the Inspiration Point, but I did get to the point where I was inspired. The trail was hard to follow, and I think I finally lost it… (or it went off a cliff and was a mean trick!) So after that, I had to forge my own trail, going where no hiker has ever gone before. (I hope!) Me right before the log fell thousands of feet to the valley below! Back in the valley, we enjoyed walking around.…

Continue reading