so one day we went to greece

So we went to Greece! Steph and I decided in January that we were going to go on an international mission trip this year, and it happened! You're thinking, "Right, Greece... some mission trip." To which we say, Paul's mission trips were to Greece, so if it was good for Paul it's good for us.

Every year the international missionaries of the Southern Baptist church attend an annual conference in their region called an Annual General Meeting. This is a chance for them to get away from their local ministry with their families and take part in training, interact with other missionaries, and relax. The week is full with worship services, classes, VBS for the kids, and all sort of other activities. Steph and I were part of a team from our church in Nashville that led the worship music at the conference for the week. It was an incredible experience, and we met so many great people who have dedicated their lives to serving overseas.

Leading worship for the missionaries was an incredibly unique experience. In America we take for granted our opportunity to go to church without fear, and worship in peace and freedom. We've all been told that we take this for granted countless times. But this freedom was cast in a different light when we witnessed 900 missionaries worshiping who DO NOT have this freedom in the countries they serve in. We met a number of individuals who serve in high security countries where the political or military environment prevents them from being open about their faith, and demands that their work as missionaries be kept a secret (some of them couldn't even tell us exactly what city they served in and what their job function is). As you might imagine, song lyrics that talk about "trials" and "burdens" that may seem intangible to us take on an entirely personal meeting for these folks. We have never seen a group of people worship and sing with such passion, and the wall of sound of singing voices that greeted us every morning when we began to play was inspiring.

We were grateful to have the opportunity to spend a day in Athens on our return trip. Among the highlights from touring the ancient city was the ability to visit the Acropolis to see the Parthenon, walk on top of Mars Hill (where Paul gave his famous speech to the Athenians), and eat some really fantastic Greek food.

For us, a band of 8 traveling from Tennessee, playing music at a conference center was not what we would consider a great personal sacrifice. After all this is something we love to do, and whether we do it at home in Nashville or halfway around the world, we try to bring the same spirit and energy to prompt people to worship God wherever we are.

But to 900 missionaries who live in a culture that is not their own, who struggle daily with a language that is not their own, and are presented with daily challenges that would make many of us throw up our hands in defeat... being able to worship in English was a rare treasure. I think we all left Greece, not with a feeling of personal pride at having "performed" well, but with the confidence that God had used us to meet a specific and important need. It was a fantastic trip, and we feel blessed to have had the opportunity to go.

To see some photos from our trip, check out this album on Facebook.

new york, new york: this space is NOT for rent

This week Jeremy and I went up to New York for a digital music conference, as well as meetings with accounts and the guys we work with at Warner, our parent company. I've been to New York before, but only once, and only for a brief period of time. I never really had the chance to experience the city before, but this week I did!

* * *

One of the things that stuck out to me about New York is that they have PERFECTED the art of not wasting space. They are space "efficientists". Vacancy is a scare resource, and they use every square inch of it. Buildings are squeezed together impressively tight. If a road curves or angles, the building architecture curves and angles with it to make the most of all the real estate. Sidewalks are a good 15 inches narrower in New York than any other city to grant more internal square footage.

They say the only place to build is up, and New Yorkers do this well. Of course they have the skyscrapers, but anything and everything can be put on top of another building. Watertowers, and playgrounds, and basketball courts are launched upwards, and the buildings themselves are additions to the decades-old foundations, creating a continuous inseparable concrete / metal mass running the length Long Island.

There are 305 million people living in the United States. 150 million of those people live in New York City, and 100 million of them are cab drivers.

As we were heading out of town in our taxi we drove by a house in Queens that had a short little wrought iron fence outlining a tiny yard the size of a Fiat. In it were piled a trampoline, a bicycle, a push lawn-mower, a swing set, a toy tractor, and a jungle-gym.

There was a little seven year old boy playing in the backyard... actually he was just looking out the living room window smiling, imagining what it would be like if he had room to play in the backyard.

Sometimes there is an architectural oversight and a property owner is left with the smallest piece of vacant land after his building is erected. In this case the city immediately claims eminent domain, paves it, and lays down a set of solid yellow lines to convert it into a parking space.

Actually, this rarely happens as there are only 7 parking spaces in New York City. 2 are in lower Manhattan, 3 on the Upper West Side, 1 in Greenwich Village, and 1 is a park-and-ride up in the Bronx.

If by some act of the Almighty you are blessed with finding one of these spots, it will take an equally supernatural force to lift and place your car into a space the size of a twin-bed.

It's impossible to park under your own power, though some have tried, resulting in over 700 million deserted cars strung up and down the streets of the city. Their owners just got up and walked away. The cost of the car was less than the cost of time spent trying to maneuver into a spot.

That's actually how Hertz Car Rental got it's start. A couple guys from Jersey moved in, threw up some big yellow signs on street corners and started renting out deserted cars to travelers for 70 bucks a pop.

And that's why everyone started taking taxis in the first place... they couldn't find a spot to park their rental, so they just gave up and hailed a ride into the city.

Collegiate Peaks Wilderness: 2008 Backpacking Trip

As promised, a few posts on our recent backpacking trip are forthcoming, including pictures from the great wide open.

Our destination was the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness of Colorado, which is directly West of Colorado Springs about 2 hours. This area is located in the San Isabel National Forest and part of the Sawatch Mountain range; named Collegiate Peaks because a handful of the key mountains are named for universities (e.g. - Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Oxford, etc.)

My best estimation is that we hiked a total of 20 miles, including a non-pack ascent of Mt. Yale. In backpacking terms, it wasn't really a long trip distance-wise, but in my opinion it was quite difficult. Maybe I'm just getting old, and sitting in a cubicle 50 hours a week is catching up with me, but several stretches of our trip took lot of effort. But the effort was worth it and the views incredible at multiple points.

So over the next few posts as I write about each of our days on the trip I'll include some pictures, and I'll refer to my new best friend, the Google Map. Of course, I couldn't help myself - I had to plot out our route on the map, and I'll refer to it as I write. If you want to check out our route, you can see it here (and be sure to change the view to 'Terrain', it's more interesting that way).

TRIP POSTS

• Day 1: July 27
• Day 2: July 28
• Day 3: July 29
• Day 4: July 30
• Day 5: July 31
• Day 6: August 1

10 states in 10 days

Well, we're back, and wow, what a trip. I look forward to spending a few posts to 'unpack' the trip, especially the backpacking portion. But to kick things off I thought it would be fun to start simply with a cartographic representation of our trip. This will go to great lengths to demonstrate just how nerdy I am.

10 states in 10 days was accomplished by leaving Nashville and heading north towards Kentucky, then Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado. We changed things up a bit for the return trip and visited some new states, starting with New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and finally back home to Tennessee.

Anyways, check out this handy dandy Google map I made of our trip. You can see our route, and you can also click on the place-markers to see some comments and pictures.

into the woods

Today we start in on backpacking, which naturally means this will be my last post for a week. We drive up into the mountains from Pueblo this morning towards Buena Vista. We'll camp at the trail head tonight and then start hiking Monday morning.

I've gotten a lot of questions over the past few weeks regarding such things as: Are you really going to sleep in a tent for a week? Are you going to have to carry all of your food on your back? You mean you're not going to have running water out there?

Yes, all this is true. I consider this true camping - back-country backpacking, carrying all your needed items on your back in a pack, and far, far removed from civilization. We sleep in a tent, not a cabin. We cook our own food. We do not have bathrooms. We do not care if we smell bad this week.

This in my opinion is the purest form of a vacation, and I absolutely cannot wait.

Our trip this morning will take us up one the prettiest drives in Colorado, that being the Arkansas River canyon from Canon City westward. It features 100-300 foot sheer cliffs on either side of a narrow canyon which twists and turns upward over the course of 30 miles. The road is right at the bottom of the canyon, bordering the Arkansas River which at this point will be quite narrow, though moving quickly and appears extremely pure with a blueish green tint. Very beautiful.

Buena Vista is the closest town to where we will be hiking, though even that will be about 20 miles away from us once we get up into the back-country. But to give some sense of placement, we'll be about 100 miles directly west of Colorado Springs up in an area called the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness. It's called this because the primary mountains of the region - reaching upwards of 14,000 ft tall - are named after a handful of the Ivy League schools such as Mt. Harvard, and Mt. Yale, etc.

So that's the plan folks. Five days from now (Friday) we'll be exiting the wilderness - hopefully much refreshed, and inspired by some of the most beautiful country in the world. Priority #1 will be finding a steak restaurant to partake of a medium-rare prime rib, after a week of eating dehydrated meals in ziplock bags. But after that I'll post an update or two here to bring you up to speed on how the week went.

I will say this, if you don't hear from me for say, I don't know, two weeks from now, you may want to call the ranger station in Buena Vista, CO. But I don't anticipate any issues... let's just pray for good weather, and safe hiking. Talk to you soon!

oil fields and corn wells

Today was Kansas. All of it, in all of it's hot, flat, windy, dusty glory.

We hooked up with my parents, brother, and sister this morning in Olathe, KS - stocked up on required caffeinated beverages and took off down the road. We stayed on the Interstate for all of about 40 miles, and then hit the ol' US Highway. My dad had it in mind to take the scenic route today, which is fine - we have no real time barriers, so sure, let's experience the American Midwest.

My Grandma Burns lives in Ellinwood, KS, which is this tiny little hiccup in the middle of the country. We figured this was a good opportunity to see her, as well as my aunt, uncle, and cousin (along with her new baby boy). But first, we had to visit our oil well. Well, not our oil well... my Grandma on my mom's side inherited a share of an oil well that was drilled back in the 1930's, and by a share I mean .000009%, which is not a lot at all. I think she may get a check once a month amounting to about $25, so what the heck right? Now if you do the math on .00009% per quarter, it equals out to be $2,700, so the thing is pumping some oil. I don't expect to become a millionaire via an inheritance on this thing though.



So we visited the oil well, and well, you know it was an oil well. Doing it's drilling - pumping it's oil. I mean, what do you say about an oil well? Next we were off to Grandma Burns' house, and it was great to see my family again. I especially love my Uncle Rob - funny, funny guy. Uncle Rob taught me when I was little how to eat my mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving, by making a 'lake' with my potatoes, and filling it with gravy, the 'water', and then putting little kernels of sweet corn, which naturally were my 'ducks' swimming in their lake. Fun times huh? Anyways, the family was doing good, and we ate ice cream together, and then were on our way.




But dang, we got one of those true honest to goodness thunderstorms on our way out from Grandma's. Huge clouds, big wind, heavy rain and lots of lightning. Drove through that for about an hour, then it cleared up and on the back side of the storm some of the most beautiful cloud formations I've ever see. The Midwest has the best clouds.




The rest of Kansas was pretty predictable. Lots of corn, lots of oil rigs. Cow pastures all over the place. And now it's late at night and we're heading out the west side of Kansas toward Pueblo, CO. We'll sleep there for the night, and then take off for the beginning of our backpacking trip Sunday morning.

the great american roadtrip

Today, after staying up until 3:00 AM for the most epic night of bag-packing ever, we left Nashville for the American West. Destination: Colorado. Mission: Backpacking the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness Area.

We're taking 3 days to get out to our starting point, which will be a trailhead near Cottonwood Pass west of Buena Vista, CO. But the short term goal for today is Kansas City, MO where we visted with Steph's dad, and will meet up with my family to caravan the rest of the way out to CO.

We left Nashville in a rainstorm, which was fine - the car needed to be washed and we didn't have time to do it before we left. I'm certain my backpack is much too heavy. I pride myself on loading a light pack. During highschool packing trips I would load up a 24 lb. pack pre-food (which is pretty dang light). But on past trips I've always been a little light on food, and as a result have been left feeling a little too hungry some days. Never a good combination when you're exerting yourself physically.

So I've got food for this trip. Lots of food, and it weighs a lot. I'm afraid I'm going to have to thin things out a bit before we hit the trail.

Another thing adding the weight is my camera gear, which I've resigned myself to accept. I've never taken a really good camera up into the mountains before, and it's something I've always wanted to do. I've got my Canon 35mm SLR, which is a great camera, and 9 rolls of black & white film (I'm fascinated by really good black & white film landscape photography). I've also got two lenses - a standard zoom and a wide angle zoom (which I just bought off Ebay last week). And finally the tripod. Got to have the tripod for good landscape photography, and here's why:

Good landscapes show incredible detail as a result of a great depth of field. This means that things really close as well as really far away are all in focus, which means you need to set your aperture very small, which means that only a tiny amount of light is allowed to hit the film. This automatically means that your exposure time has to be set relatively long. And you know what happens when you have a long exposure time and you're holding your camera by hand - blurry pictures. Unacceptable, and this is fixed with a tripod.

So here we are in Kanasas City, ready to meet up with the rest of the family tomorrow morning. We'll drive through the entire breadth of Kansas, stopping off to see my Grandma Burns and aunt, uncle, and cousin. We'll get into Pueblo, CO late Saturday night and stay in a motel, and then it's off for the mountains Sunday morning.

gedney: the minnesota pickle

We went home to Minnesota this weekend for the wedding of our good friend James. Great wedding, great to see old friends.

I imagine everyone has those things that make home, home. And hence the ridonkulously large jar of dill pickles. We grew up eating Gedney Pickles. They're Minnesota grown and jarred in Chaska, MN, and their slogan is "the Minnesota pickle", so we're loyal to them. They taste great too!

Steph has an obsession with dill pickles - no she's not pregnant - so my family was nice enough to take us to Sam's Club and buy us this goofishly big bottle. I don't know if you can tell or not from the picture, but that's a full gallon there - a nearly 12 inch tall bottle! I'm sure it seems odd, but having a bottle of dill pickles grown in your home state on hand is one of those nice things that gives a sense of home when you live miles away.

Of course, now that I'm looking at the bottle, I see it says "Refrigerate After Opening". We may need to buy an additional mini-fridge to accommodate.

two hundred thousand point two

Dear Tim,

Saturday was a monumental day in the life of your purple car. Amidst a cow pasture on the right and a really big hill on the left, your 1997 Chevy Cavalier surpassed 200,000 miles, officially making it the farthest operating car I have ever owned [including my Ford Contour from highschool which went through three engine blocks in three years, as well as the legendary Neal Mobile which gave out at 195,461 miles].

I would personally like to take this moment to thank you for changing the oil so regularly, as well as replacing the clutch after teaching Karen to drive a stick. Your diligence in the care and maintenance of this fine car have surely lent to it's many long miles.

As of 200,000.2 miles, as evidenced by the odometer picture above, the purple Cavlier has made it's presence known in 15 States, including among others Minnesota, Kansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. It has also suffered 3 batteries, 2 alternators, 2 transmission cables, 46 oil changes, and 1 male white-tailed deer.

As the purple car was originally purchased as transportation for Steph, I let her drive the last few miles towards the goal of 200k, with ice cream from Sonic in hand to celebrate the event.

Thank you to everyone for your support and to all who have provided rides on days the purple car has spent hospitalized at the local Firestone shop.

Sincerely,
burnshead

back from visiting the fruit company

Well I got back from San Francisco last night having spent three days out there. It was a really good trip, all in all.

Wednesday I flew out, and we had an all day EMI showcase at a venue just outside of downtown. Got to see Tristan Prettyman perform which was fun - have always liked her. Thursday was spent all day in meetings, which all went well.

Can I just say... the drive from Cupertino, CA to Pleasanton is one of the prettiest I have ever been on... 40 miles of rolling hills and green meadows and red roofed houses. It looks like Tuscany, or what I imagine Tuscany would look like, having never been there.

I got to take some time to stroll around downtown San Francisco on Thursday night... walked all around the port area, saw some really cool architecture. Met a couple seagulls.

San Franciscan's are officially the gutsiest drivers on earth. First of all, it's an old city, so the streets are really narrow. Second, the whole thing is build on the side of a cliff, so it's 60 degree hills everywhere you go. Third, 80% of the roads are one way streets, so you really have to know what you're doing to get where you're going. I finally came to the conclusion that in order to accomplish anything in terms of driving in the city, you basically just have to forget every rule and law you've ever learned about driving, and just commit yourself to a giant free-for-all. Otherwise, you just get stuck trapped between a trolley car, 5 taxi cabs, and 700 pedestrians. It's definitely winner take all out there.

So, a good trip - glad to be home though.

bud and vern

Here is the final post regarding our adventures over Christmas this year recounting truly Minnesotan experiences:

This one tops them all... Grandpa Fjordbak's birthday falls during Christmas week, so while we were visiting him at the nursing home where he stays, they had a birthday party en masse for all the birthdays that occur during the month of December. It was celebrated with your typical fruit punch and cake in the dining hall, but the best part of the event was the entertainment they hired out for the afternoon... "Bud And Vern", the local polka band.

It was a truly Norwegian afternoon....

some things you should know about minnesota

Well we are back from our 13 day whirlwind tour of the great North. This was a truly Minnesota Christmas with plenty of snow and cold to go around for everyone.

Spending a couple weeks in Minnesota during the dead of winter always makes me realize that southerns truly have no concept of what four seasons really is. So, to offer a deeper sense of reality, I thought I would dedicate this first post of 2008 to giving a little picture tour of Minnesota in winter:

To set the scene, here is a picture of my parent's house all snowy-ish. For some reason, the past two years the snow has come late to Minnesota (January), which meant no white Christmas... very sad. We had a very white Christmas this year... in fact, I think this was taken on Christmas Day.





It always humors me listening to people in the South talk about snow. If wintry-precipitation is 'predicted' sometime within the next week in Nashville, all out chaos breaks loose. There's a rush on the local grocery store to stock up on all necessary items like milk, eggs, and canned goods that would get anyone through a nuclear disaster. After that, the roads all but shut down out of sheer fear - no one dares to venture out. The News programs go into 24-hour coverage updating you on every degree change in temperature, interrupting your television show and generally annoying the heck out of you.

In Minnesota it is quite different - we don't get all amped up about a little driving in snow. Note the picture above - this is New Years Day at about 2PM. Note the mounds of snow in the road, the ice on the windshield, and the numerous cars on the road. Getting from Point A to Point B is just something that has to be done, and so it is. If we were to sit around inside every time it snowed we wouldn't get anything done for four months out of the year.

Here we have the Official Pace Car of Minnesota roads, our friendly orange snowplow. The plows in Minnesota are really quite impressive... they're out immediately when a storm moves through and clear the major roads quite quickly, and work through the night to keep them clean. Frankly, we laugh a little inside everytime a Southerner complains about driving in the snow because we think you're a pansy.




This picture is for Steph... she works with horse-people in Nashville who baby their animals every time the temperature dips below 55 degrees, giving them blankets, barns, and heat lamps. Animals can adapt to their surroundings... look how these cows get all fuzzy in the winter to keep them warm.





For the benefit of Wachs, I want to establish the difference between a 'snowdrift' and a 'snowbank'. Snowdrifts are naturally formed by the wind and generally look very soft and clean [note image to left]. Snowbanks on the other hand are formed by snowplows or some other man-made device and are essentially piles of cleared snow [see right].




Minnesota has a lot of limestone, which is a rock very susceptible to cracking due to various acidic elements in the ground. As a result, this picture to the left is a common sight around our hometown... giant icefalls where water has been seeping through the cracks of limestone, and freezing on it's way to the ground.





So when all is said and done, this is generally what your car looks like after traveling through the wintryness of Minnesota... lots of road-salt and gunk all over it. I washed the car on Wednesday which took care of most of it. As it sat drying in the driveway, streams of saltwater started oozing onto the pavement leaving these giant white streaks beneath our car... nice.




So there you go. Winter in Minnesota.

anniversary weekend recap

So we made it two years! Celebrated our annivesary this weekend in Charleston / Savannah. It was good times and we had a lot fun. This is a week late, and this is probably much too long for a blog, but here's a recap:

To start, somehow Steph and I have this uncanny ability to enter every city we visit via the ghetto. I'm not sure how this happens, or how we continue to put ourselves in danger like this... we're gonna get mugged someday for sure. St. Louis, New Orleans, Tuscaloosa, Pensacola, Columbus, St. Louis, Atlanta - Steph and I can give you narrated tours of the ghetto in each of these fine American cities. This trip was no exception - add Charleston, Savannah, and the 'burbs of Atlanta to the list.

THURSDAY:
We drove to Conyers, GA, just outside of Atlanta, simply to spend the night and get us halfway to Charleston. Let me tell you - Conyers, GA, yeah, ghetto. Hotel in Conyers, GA? Ghetto. But we're really cheap and we shouldn't have expected anything else when paying $36 for a night.

FRIDAY:
Drove to Charleston. Checked into hotel in North Charleston. North Charleston = ghetto. North Charleston is definitely the armpit of South Carolina - the stench emanating from the area around our hotel was both incredible and mind boggling. We pinpointed 3 distinct smells, each of which ranked near the top of the list of "worst smells ever in the world". So we didn't spend too much time at the hotel and got ourselves down to Charleston.

Wow. Charleston, amazing city. Vintage and beautiful. Really cool downtown, and very active even at night. I loved the fact that the main streets of town were essentially like a shopping mall turned inside out... you entered all of your typical "mall" stores (Bananna, J-Crew, Pottery Barn, etc.) from the street, so you didn't have to spend half your day walking around stale mall halls with flourescent lights... rather, you spend it walking around the streets of beautiful Charleston.

The Battery was really cool, and the houses just amazing. Really neat park at the end of the penninsula with the old Civil War cannons.

SATURDAY:
Spent it wandering around Charleston, just relaxing. Went over to Fort Moultrie in the afternoon, a fort used in both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Saw the ocean there, and then drove a little bit farther to an actual beach and watched the ocean for a bit.

Supper was at Joe's Pasta back in Charleston... relatively unmemorable, except for the fact that we had the most forgetful waitress ever... how ironic. Then we spent a relaxing evening at a Starbucks that was converted from an old bank building (large vault included).

SUNDAY:
Started things off with a very enjoyable breakfast with our good friends Brad and Joy Pitner at the Charleston Cafe (best stuffed french toast ever). Brad and Joy used to work at Gotee and moved to Charleston to start a kitchen store called The Coastal Cupboard, which is definitely the funnest kitchen store we have ever been to. They've got a great (and unique) thing going - I've never seen so many choices for spatulas - and we're very proud of how well they are doing. They were kind enough to provide us with a few tasty treats for the road - they were great, thanks guys!

Post Coastal Cupboard we headed on down to Savannah and spent the afternoon downtown hanging out under some really cool (what I think are) Cypress Trees, walking amongst really old moss covered buildings. Another fascinating, historic city. Did you know John Wesley, founder of the Methodist denomination, got his start in America in Savannah? Niether did I. Do you care? Unlikely.

We spent the afternoon at Tybee Island, on the coast again and saw a cool lighthouse and took some pictures on the beach. Apparently the Air Force lost a nuclear bomb off the coast of Tybee in 1958 and never found it. Oops. We ended the evening with a fantastic dinner at Pearl's Saltwater Grille back in Savannah, which included a marvelous tuna steak for me and the BEST hushpuppies I have ever had in my entire life. Before we left I had the waiter fill up a to-go box with all the hushpuppies he could find and I've been eating them for the last week.

So that's the trip. We drove back Monday, narrowly escaped rush hour in Atlanta, and got home just in time to go to bed. Don't stay in Conyers, GA. Happy Anniversary to us!

driving me insane

Thank you Tim for your recent comment on my last post. You know I can't do another post until you comment... appreciate that.

So we're doing it again, beginning tonight... the mad crazy drive home to Minnesota to take part in a family event all of which will total more hours on the road than we actually spend with our family.

My brother's graduating. We're going home. It was a last minute decision. I don't want to make the drive, but it will be good to be there with him... unconcious as we may be tomorrow morning at 9:30AM.

Insanity coupled with foolishness, compounded by caffiene.


Today you should listen to:
Arcade Fire "Keep The Car Running"

colorado in seven easy steps

A week after returning from the fantastic state of Colorado, it’s time for a quick blog update. There’s no way to sum up even a short trip to Colorado concisely and effectively… here are some highlights:

It’s impossible to quickly find a place to eat in Denver from the interstate, especially if you’re starving. It took us 30 minutes, but we happened upon this little joint called Rico’s Pizzeria… little hole-in-the-wall shop, family owned by Italians, seating for 12, best calzone I’ve ever eaten. I don’t even know how we got there. But I’m going back next time I’m in the area. www.ricos-pizzeria.com.

If you intend to spend any time in the mountains, spend the extra dollars and get the upgrade to a Jeep (or similar 4WD vehicle). Originally we planned on getting a mid-size car, but then they ran out of mid-size cars and were about to stick us with a minivan… (I don’t know, don’t ask). We weren’t about to be caught dead in a minivan. Get the Jeep, it was an amazingly wise choice.

We love the mountains, so immediately upon arriving (and consuming a calzone), we headed straight into the mountains. Random advice nugget #2 – get the backroads atlas, and use it diligently. Never take the interstates up into the mountains, because that is for boring old people and families in minivans. If you’ve done like I’ve recommended and gotten the Jeep it will be no problem. We went up Jarre Canyon Road, west out of Denver into the front range of mountains between Colorado Springs and Denver. It was snowing. It was exciting. Minivans had to turn back.

Wives appreciate sentimental things, so we stayed in the mountain lodge where we spent our honeymoon. It was very nice, and made us think, “wow, we should run a lodge up in the mountains someday”. Wives also appreciate bathrooms with big huge whirlpool bathtubs.

When looking for something to do, grab your trusty backroad atlas, randomly pick a spot somewhere off the beaten path, and try to find it. You’ll need the 4WD you rented.

Pikes Peak… I’m not very happy with you Pikes Peak. I understand that it snowed 8 inches on top of your mountain and that for safety reasons you had to close down your road for those who unwisely chose to visit you from the comfort of their suburban housewife approved minivans. But come on – we have a Jeep!! Sadness. We went halfway up but were forced by rangers with guns to turn around.

The reason we went to Colorado in the first place was because we went to Sara’s wedding. It was a very nice wedding Sara – thank you for inviting us! We’re very happy for you.

Colorado weekend a success. Points to remember: Rent a Jeep. Buy a road atlas. Stop at Rico’s Pizzeria.

end of a glorious era

In 2001 I aquired a well-worn, much-loved light blue 1987 Toyota Celica. Quintessential 80's car. I got it as a generous gift from our good family friends Neal & Lisa Blackwood who knew I was a broke college student in need of transportation. Prior to getting the car from the Blackwoods, the aptly named Neal-Mobile travelled some 100,000-ish miles, spent 10 hot years in Texas, and endured several sub-arctic Minnesota winters. But I was grateful to have her when she finally arrived in my care.

The Neal-Mobile was a fine piece of machinery - Japanese made, reliable, quick, had to hold the handles up as you shut the doors in order to lock it. In the six years I had the Neal-Mobile I only had one engine related malfunction, which required the replacement of the distributor... all in all, not that big of deal. Like any car it had it's share of wear-and-tear, bumps, and rust, but was quite the trustworthy little thing.

I took that car everywhere. Made the trip from Nashville to Minneapolis at least 25 times. Drove it to Nebraska and back another 8 times. Drove to Coloroado twice. Took it to Ohio, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Kansas and probably a dozen other states. I drove it up and down every mountain road outside of Colorado Springs. Drove it as far as cars can go down the Mississippi River delta south of New Orleans, and I've got the picture to prove it. One time on one of my trips out west an Interstate bridge got washed out, so I had to go on this 80 mile off-the-beaten path detour. The traffic on the detour was so bad that I hauled out the old road atlas and forged my own road over cow fields, farm roads, and dirt paths all the way down to Colorado. The front struts going out was probably a result of that trip; my fault, not the car.

But all good things must come to end, so they say. One day the uber-reliable Toyota just kind of gave out. It wasn't one of those big dramatic things with the smoke and fire and all that... rather, after 20 years of faithful service, the Neal-Mobile conveniently rolled to a stop, in it's parking space in front of our house, and didn't start up again.

After such a career, and in honor of the Blackwoods fulfilling my need, thought I would carry on the gesture with my little car. Called up a place that does car-donations and uses the parts sales to give to children's charities. Filled out the form, the tow truck came, and she was gone.

Final Odometer Reading: 195,461.8

...yes, that was 95,000 miles in six years....

3,491

3,491: This is the number of miles driven in the last 12 days.

58: This is the number of hours driven in the last 12 days.

We do this to ourselves every year. I don’t know why we have chosen to live so far away from every stinking member of our family. From Nashville to Minnesota, to northern Minnesota, to Nebraska, to Kansas, to Nebraska, to Minnesota, and back to Nashville. The holidays become this strange caffeine-induced blur of dotted white road lines interspersed with segments of the traditional family griping about politics, religion, and why the kid working at the grocery store can’t keep his hair cut a decent length… the gall.

So, another Christmas season in the books. It was good to see all of our family and friends, and it was worth the 3,491 miles. We got my parents an iPod nano… spent several days instructing them on the intricacies of digital music. My grandparents got a couple DVDs, so we spent some time instructing them on how to use their DVD player (again). Many family board games enjoyed, much chocolate and cookies consumed, some good gifts received. And I love the Midwest – I get claustrophobic with all of these hills around me all the time. It finally snowed New Years Eve… would have enjoyed the snow a week earlier, but it will have to work for this year.

I just put new tires on the car two weeks ago. It’s time for a rotation and another oil change.


Today you should listen to…
U2 “New Year's Day”