Monday, June 16, 2008

4 people, one minivan, 2500 miles and two hotels

We just got back about two hours ago from the road trip. Some idiot (probably me) turned our AC off before we left so it is really hot in here. So since I won't be able to sleep, I figured I would give the rest of you a trip recap while it was fresh on my mind.

We headed out from Waco at about 6 am on Friday. We were pretty worn out, but the new Weezer album kept me company while Robin slept on the way to Bethany's house. We got in there at about 8.30 and after a brief stop at the golden arches for some health food, we were on our way. I took the first shift, because I like to get the worst over with mostly. So I drove us from Dallas to the motherland (Oklahoma City to the layman) where we stopped for a bite of lunch. We all discovered soon that the land between Oklahoma City and Denver is both humongous and desolate, I hate Kansas.

We finally got into Denver at around 10 or so and made our way to our hotel. If it could be called that. Tanner and I went into the Homestead Suite lobby and began the process of checking in. The woman was busy yelling at someone and telling them that she herself had just gotten in and didn't know why her room door was hanging open. I tried to not laugh too much, but it was pretty funny. After the whole ordeal, we finally got to our rooms. There we discovered that instead of a queen sized bed in each room, we had just one double sized bed. This wasn't acceptable, so I called the front desk. The informed me that the beds were queen, and to make a long story short, I spent more than an hour holding on the hotwire phone line and we moved on to a motel 6, they left the light on for us.

As we began checking in at the motel 6, by this time it was at least midnight, maybe closer to 1 am, the police showed up. The clerk told us he would be right back and proceeded to help the officers, who had showed up just in time apparently. We never found out what happened, but I like to believe we just missed a huge gang fight. Anyway, we finally got to bed late that night, and ended up in a bad hotel thanks to hotwire and my not double checking everything. Note to all of us, be sure to always double check everything.

The next day I woke up a few hours before everyone else because I am such a poor sleeper, so I took the opportunity to drive around a bit. Let me tell you all, the town is beautiful. Just being able to look at the mountains directly ahead of you as you drive down streets is wonderful. The grass was green on each side and a blue bird perched on my shoulder as I drank my coffee, except the part about the blue bird. Anyway, everyone eventually got up and we set about exploring our future home.

The first thing I noticed was how many people just hang out outside during their Saturday mornings. People were bicycling, running, and walking dogs. The first part of our trip was to just look around downtown. We saw the art museum, looked at all the cool architecture, and ate at a cool Philly Cheesesteak place Tanner suggested. It was delicious.

After lunch we decided to go check out the mountains, we drove around and found a little town called Golden just to the West of Denver. Golden was a quaint little town with wonderful architecture and a Coors plant. So we decided that since we were going to plant a church here, we had to take a tour of the Coors plant. It was pretty fascinating actually. They offered us free beer, but we didn't have much. We were all pretty worn out after this, so we went to dinner and then to a coffee shop and chilled for the evening. Tanner and I watched some crazy movie with the Rock and I played my DS.

The next day we started by going to the Red Rocks amphitheatre. This was the coolest part of the trip to me. Willie Nelson apparently prefers this venue to all others in the world, and I can see why. We stayed there awhile, and ton of crazies were there running the stairs and stuff, pretty hardcore since we were all wiped out from walking up once.... Anyway, we eventually got some lunch and went downtown again. This time we checked out the 16th street mall, which was also huge. So big they have a bus that takes people back and forth. This was only after a parking machine stole Tanner's money, it hated Texans...

We ate at a really cool diner and then headed to Boulder. Boulder was really cool. It is full of young people and life. They were having a Jewish festival in the downtown at the time, so I enjoyed seeing the Hebrew shirts etc. This will be a great place for us to hang out, meet people and stuff like that. Then a man from the "Truthians" gave Tanner a brochure about why Jesus is Satan, and I almost talked to him about it all, but really decided against it. Maybe once I live there I can meet some Truthians... Anyway, we headed to the hotel before dinner again.

We got up at 5.15 this morning and headed out. Now I am worn out, as I am sure anyone who tried to read all of that is. I will post pictures soon. Those of you who came, please add your impressions, etc.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I will have to go through my brain and remember if there was anything else awesome that happened, but pretty sure I laughed (very out loud) through that whole post. Too bad there's no one at home to share the joy...

All in all, excellent trip. I can't wait until that wonderful place is my home.

Anonymous said...

Ran into a Truthian outside my church in Colorado Springs this morning.

My buddy and I actually did speak to him. I can give you the basics of his arguments, if you'd like.

Well, I'll just do it anyway. These Truthians are the followers of a "priest" in Texas who claims to have "divided" (by which THEY mean to have discerned the truth of) the scripture (the reference is 2 Tim 2:15) through study of the scripture and language (although not necessarily the language of the original text).

This "priest" claims that scripture was corrupted by Satan during both the writing and the multiple translations. The truth is hidden in scripture, but only to those willing to dig through the scripture with a fine tooth comb "dividing" the wheat from the chaff... the truth from the corruption.

In short, their theology rejects the Christ, but affirms Yahweh's (because the word "god" means Satan) messiah. Our sins have not been cleansed because we are still under the law.

Your next question is obvious. How do we know the law if the scripture is corrupted by Satan? Well, the "priest" from Texas has sorted it all out. There are 316 (I think) laws that we must follow or face damnation. These 316 laws have been "divided" by this Texas priest as the truth while the others are cast aside. The law to sacrifice burnt offerings is corruption, the law to tithe 10% to your clergy is not.

In short, there is no authority in the scripture, the church, or in the resurrection, but there IS authority in those "wise" enough to discern it... like the guy in Texas.

We talked to the guy for about 45 minutes, even after he warned us that we were damning ourselves if we went back to worshiping Jesus after hearing his truth. There was a lot of circular logic and his arguments were full of scripture references - even New Testament scripture that was written under the covenant of Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection... even though he is Satan.

My buddy and I promised to look into his examples (listed below), with no such promise from him, and told him we would meet him next Sunday in the same place. I'll let you know if he shows.

Examples:

Amen = Amun Ra the Egyptian sun god (aka Satan)

Sunday = SUN day. Worship of the above (aka Satan)

Christ = Krishna the Hindu god of... something (aka Satan)

God = The god of this world and the god of many names (aka Satan) vice Yahweh, the one true God.

The list goes on, but I'm late to pick someone up at the airport. Besides. you probably get the point already.

Will let you know how next Sunday goes, if you're interested.

Rob