- Earth Day is coming up, and I have some activities planned for the days surrounding it. I think I will have a special “Earth Day Weekend” on this blog. So that’s something you can look forward to!
- I’m in a new job right now. Plus, I didn’t quit any of my other three jobs! I have no idea how long I can last like this, but the job has given me a new perspective on life. The training took place in my next county over, so on some days I took advantage of the surrounding activities like a covered bridge, a ghost town, an old-fashioned pharmacy soda shop, and even lower gas prices! I should write a post about the ghost town. Now that I’m on the job, I may occasionally have opportunities for local work-sponsored adventures! That’s cool, but I mostly just wanted to explain my lack of posting over the past few weeks.
- It’s free entrance week at national parks across the US! Last year I went to Crater Lake. I may have a chance to go somewhere on Sunday, but I am working a lot and already have big plans and Saturday, so even if I can’t go to a national park, I’d like to at least get the word out. My sister went to Crater Lake for free this past weekend, so maybe I can live vicariously through her.
- Should I build a tiny house? I’ve been thinking about it ever since I saw two in the Pear Blossom Parade a couple weekends ago. Still on the fence about it.
- What is my next adventure? When will it take place? I’m already pretty sure that the next BIG trip will be a cross-country road trip,but I have no idea when. I guess I’d have to end a couple jobs before I could do that! Or maybe, since my writing projects have been more successful lately, I could build that up into my main source of income. It would be so much easier to coordinate travel then! But as for now, every hour of work means more bucks in the bank for a future adventure.
- I recently took an adventure in the three hours I had between a staff meeting and more work. It’s surprising what you can do in a short amount of time when you balance plans and spontaneity just write! I headed over the the funky town of Ashland and picnicked in Lithia Park. I walked around to take in the art and culture before heading over to the Dagoba Chocolates factory. Since I had never been there before, that was the main point of this trip! I sampled about 20 of their delicious, quality chocolates. And I may have possibly bought a chocolate bar.. or two!
- I went geocaching this past weekend. It’s been almost a year since my last time, and it’s good to be back! I took two kids with me for their first geoadventure. We only found two of the geocaches we were looking for, but they were new ones for all of us. Plus they were both big enough to have treasures to trade!
- In whatever spare time I do have, you can often find me hiking around Oregon. But there’s a purpose behind this. I am looking for the Gravity Fall’s Bill Cipher Statue IRL. Supposedly placed in the woods of Oregon by the Disney Channel show’s crew, many people are looking for the exact location. As a native Oregonian with some experience treasure hunting in the woods, I do hope to be the FTF (first to find)!
- Update on my car: still enjoying the new car smell! But I have definitely broken it in with all that I’ve been up to.
- I’m so happy for the warmer weather! It’s hard to find an abundance of adventures that can be done while it’s cold and wet outside. Although I do love a trip to the science museum, I’m looking forward to more coming up!
Category: #ThrowbackThursday
Some Instadventures
Is “instadventures” a word yet? If not, it should become one! And its definition would be
noun: an adventure as seen through Instagram
Anyway, if you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that I’ve practically fallen off the face of the social media planet since my Mediterranean Trek. But as I wrote recently, I’ve promised to post a photo during every day of Lent. Have you seen what I’ve been up to over the past week?
I got an awesome new road-trip-worthy car…
…I received a letter from Juliet …
…I briefly traded my new SUV for a 15-passenger van as I spent the weekend at Wilderness Trails…
…and today, I went on a fake road trip in my driveway!
Okay, that last one only left me craving for adventure, but maybe I’ll get to take a real roadway getaway soon!
So check me out on Instagram every day through Easter, and discover more #Instadventures! (Oh wow, I should add that hashtag too!)
#ThrowbackThursday: SnowEMT
How’s the weather, East Coasters? Haha, I know it’s cold, stormy and snowy there. But I won’t brag about how nice the weather in Oregon has been and how I could walk outside without a coat yesterday. Instead, I’ll talk about snow!
Winter 2012 was my first real snowy winter experience. It was my first winter in Nebraska, and although it was more snow than I had ever experienced, all the seasoned Nebraskans said that it was one of their mildest winters ever.
So on Superbowl Sunday three years ago (wow, was it three years already?) a large amount of snow finally came and I was trapped at the camp I was living at. I wasn’t really trapped because of the snow, but I didn’t have a car. And no one wanted to brave the weather to visit me or pick me up, so I got to eat all the cookies that I made for my one-person Superbowl party. Anyway, I didn’t mean to tell you about my pathetic party. I wanted to tell you what happened afterward…
You see, I was taking my EMT class at the time, so that was something that was always on my mind. I had gotten a pretty bad leg injury a few days prior since a giant log fell off of a tractor bucket and onto my leg, so I wasn’t able to do much outdoors. But it was snowing for crying out loud, and I needed to build a snowman!
“Do You Wanna Build a Snowman” was not yet a song on everyone’s lips, but I certainly would have been singing that as I went out to find a good spot to build my creation. I had decided that I wanted something kind of Calvin-and-Hobbes-esque, like an army of snowmen or a snowman missing a head because another snowman used it as a bowling ball. Unfortunately, the snow was too powdery to roll any snowballs. I did, however, find a few chunks of snow compacted from being plowed off the road, so I sculpted those into a round shape. After stacking a few of those together, my first snowman was complete!
I had problems building a second one. The snowballs did not want to stack on top of each other. The top one kept on rolling off until the snowballs were side by side on the ground. That’s when it hit me: this snowman was suffering an injury! And of course, the standing snowman must be an EMT!
I hadn’t intended to make my snowmen as gruesome as the ones Calvin made in the comic strips, but I had to show that the snowvictim clearly needed help. I didn’t have any coal, but I did find some peppermint patties in the camp kitchen that made for good eyes, as well as carrots for the nose. I turned one peppermint eye sideways to represent an avulsed eyeball. Then, with the watered-down remains of a bottle of red hair dye, I splattered “blood” on the helpless snowpatient. But not to worry…
Soon it was SnowEMT to the rescue! Both of the snowmen feature arms made out of marshmallow roasters, but I put a pair of gloves on the EMT (since that’s always the first thing to do at any scene!) I wanted to put my uniform shirt on him, but was afraid that it would get wet, or worse, freeze to the snowbody. So I found a garbage bag and put that on the center snowball before putting my shirt on. I finished the effect with my stethoscope, but of course, I removed that after taking the photos so it wouldn’t get damaged.
I don’t much care for freezing weather, and I’m sure that someday I’ll create a lifestyle that will allow me to release my inner snowbird. But I know that snow can also bring about some fun adventures.
What’s an adventure you’ve experienced in snowy weather?
#TBT: In The News
One fun perk about traveling is that it makes news. I mean, I don’t expect a reporter to follow me around whenever I travel (although for celebrities, this does seem to make for good reality TV), but every now and then, on a day when the world is pretty much at peace, whether near or far, travel can make headlines.
I was first featured in the newspaper as a preschooler. I was visiting the now-defunct Jacksonville Children’s Museum, which was a four-year-old’s paradise housed in a historic prison. I was using the plastic food in the play kitchen to create fine dining, when someone with a camera started to set up her equipment. I ran off, afraid I would be in the way of her picture, but then she came over to my mom and asked if she could take a picture of me! So my first published photo was me tasting a pretend dish to head an article about the museum. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a record of that article, but I was able to find the next news snippet I was in:
My preschool class was going on a field trip. Sure, it was just to the public library that was two blocks away from the school, but even though we were in walking distance, it was made quite the adventure on a rainy day. My ex-scout parents passed on the “Be Prepared” motto and had sent me to class with an umbrella. It only made sense to share my umbrella with my walking buddy. On the way there, I glanced back and noticed that someone behind me was holding a camera, as if they had just taken a picture. I didn’t know I was featured in the paper until a few days later when my neighbor came over and showed us his clipping!
When I got older, Girl Scout events were a good source of getting into the newspaper. Sometimes it was completely accidentally, like this time I was off to the right in the background of the photo:
But seriously, all those service projects were good for slow news days. Once, when my troop went on a trip to the coast to participate in the annual beach clean-up, one of our chaperones ran into a news channel reporter, and they agreed to do a segment of us for the evening news! Other times, our helping the community helped the paper get a story, like when the Central Point Sun was released, we helped fill their very first issue!
As I got older, I was still mentioned in the newspaper for things like being on the honor roll, but being in the paper wasn’t nearly as desirable as it was before. Maybe it was because people stopped reading the newspaper, or perhaps I just didn’t like the way I looked, but regardless, there were several years when no more but my name and GPA were published. But in my late teens, when I started professionally writing, I started seeing my face in print again. But this time, instead of being in an outdated newspaper, I was in magazines. Many of my articles didn’t include my own pictures, but there were some, like the one below, that featured several pics!
In the past five or six years, I have had my picture featured with my written work several times. But there’s always the goal to make it as the cover feature. This past summer, when I served as the guest editor for Camp Business, I was told that my photo would be featured. When I received the issue, this is what I saw:
No, I’m not that girl. (C’mon, I would NEVER do a swimsuit shoot!)
Remember on Monsters Inc how Mike Wazowski was so amazed when he made it on a magazine cover, even though his face was covered by a barcode? This past summer, I had a Mike Wazowski moment. I finally make a cover debut… my name and photo is literally right underneath the shipping label!
#ThrowBackThursday: Winter Weekend at the Creation Museum
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, last year I spent a few days in Petersburg, Kentucky. But I did so much more than just spend a night in a BnB!
The weekend started when I had to drive to Columbus, Ohio to take a test. This test would determine whether I would be able to continue my EMT certification, so the weeks leading up to it were filled with lots and lots of studying! Since I wouldn’t know for several days after taking the test whether I passed or failed, I decided to eliminate the exam result anxiety by leaving the testing site afterward and, instead of heading back north where I was living, continue south. Then I would at least have a wonderful memory of a weekend trip, regardless of whether I passed or failed. (Spoiler alert: I passed!)
I had never driven south of Columbus before, and it was mostly farmland until I passed King’s Island park. Then I swung around Cincinnati and into Indiana for a few minutes before crossing the border into Kentucky. From there, it was a short drive to arrive in small town Petersburg.
I stayed there for two nights, one night for each of the two accommodations available in Petersburg. The first night was an incredibly unique location: a bank! Well, at least a former bank remodeled into a guesthouse. Deborah’s Guesthouses provides unique places to stay in Petersburg, but The Bank sounded the most appealing. Although there were three rooms that you can sleep in, the most coveted one is the former vault!
Because I arrived well after dark, I spent my first night just enjoying The Bank’s amenities before falling asleep. In the morning, I found a guide that provided information to take a historical self-guided walking tour of the town. It was nice to see how this friendly town looked in daylight.
I then headed to the Creation Museum, which is just a short drive out of the town and a big attraction for Northern Kentucky. It was surprising to go from small town and farmland to immediately hitting a huge parking lot filled with cars! The dinosaur footprints led me to the front door.
Inside the Creation Museum is a wide variety of displays supporting the creationist theory of how the world was made.
There was an exhibit on what “Lucy” (often considered the missing link) might have looked like…
There were Biblical wax characters.
…and lots of Bibles and other ancient Christian work…
A recreation of the Garden of Eden allowed a glimpse at what the world might have looked like when it was first formed…
…along with what kind of animals may have existed back then!
And then there were displays of how the Earth changed once sin entered. (I especially like the display of how Adam and Eve were eating some sort of berry or grape-like fruit, because there is no evidence to show that the forbidden fruit was an apple!)
Then there was the Ark Room, where 1% of the ark was displayed. (Answers in Genesis, who owns the Creation Museum, is now building a second attraction called the Ark Encounter, which will feature a full-scale version of the ark, complete with all the Biblical requirements of its features!)
For lunch, I ate the “Eden Wrap” at Noah’s Cafe, which was ah-mazing!
There were also some outdoor exhibits, that anyone can visit for free. I loved the petting zoo, with adorable, funny-looking animals like alpacas and camels!
Because it was winter, the pond by the outdoor garden trails was frozen over. Nessie sure looks cold! 
Because this trip took me to the Greater Cincinnati Area for the first time, I had to celebrate by going to Gold Star Chili and ordering my first-ever Cincinnati chili. An interesting combination, but it worked! I like it!
For my second night, I stayed at First Farm Inn Bed and Breakfast. I think I’ve only stayed in a BnB once before, when my church youth choir traveled, the very first year I was in it one of my host homes was actually a BnB. This one was a very different setting, being on a farm. One of the house cats followed me everywhere inside, and even insisted sleeping in my bed (until he attacked my feet in the middle of the night, when he was kicked out into the hallway). I stayed in a very nice room.
But this BnB had more than just nice rooms. And even more than just nice breakfast. One of the hosts was an actor, and I was given a ticket to attend Godspell where he played John the Baptist/Judas. I had never seen the play before, and after hating the musical Jesus Christ: Superstar, I was expecting a disappointment. Boy, was I wrong! That was a great play, made even better by the cast at Footlighters! Another perk of staying at First Farm is that they have horses. I even got to go out on a riding session with the horse Sundance.
Because all Creation Museum tickets are good for two days, I was planning to spend Sunday at the museum as well. The problem was, overnight, a horrible ice storm hit! Everything was covered in ice; it took several tries until I could get any of my car doors to open, and it took even longer to defrost the windows enough that I could at least see a little bit! All that time, I had to be careful not to slip on the road. I considered just heading straight home for safety, but I thought that the road conditions may get better later in the day, so I carefully headed to the museum. (I stopped along the way for a geocache, but when I found it, I couldn’t even open the container because the layer of ice surrounding it was thicker than the actual geocache!)
I’m not sure if it was because of the storm, or because it was a Sunday, but hardly anyone was at the museum that day, so I was able to spend as much time as I wanted at each exhibit without having to wait to get a good view or worry about someone waiting behind me. This was a much better day at the museum, and I noticed a lot more throughout, like the live creatures near the entrance… 
…or Adam and Eve in the garden right before the serpent came down to tempt them…
…and this creepy door that kind of stood out from its surroundings like a sore thumb…
…and how there were workers that built the ark just because they were employed, yet they still thought Noah was crazy…
…and having just taken my EMT certification test, the medical diagrams supporting creationism were of note…
…and even though the “Confusion” exhibit featuring the Tower of Babel was small, it had beautiful art.
Of course with the weather, all the outdoor things were closed that day, but here’s one of my favorite animals from their petting zoo: a zonkey! (And the animal behind him is a zorse.)
There was an almost-hidden exhibit showing different species of dinosaurs…
…and even some geological finds…
All in all, it was a busy, jam-packed travel weekend, and the snow-covered drive home just made for another adventure. In closing, here’s a picture of me with “Lucy”.
Don’t forget to sign up for your $25 AirBnB credit, so that you can stay in some crazy cool accommodations like the ones featured above!
#ThrowbackThursday: Trading Winter for Warm Weather
I’m not a huge fan of this season. If it wasn’t for Christmas, I don’t think I would be able to survive between the months of November and March. In Oregon, it rains too much to do anything fun outside. In other places I’ve lived, it’s ice spaced out by muddy thaws. Although I’ve had some fun adventures in the winter months, I always prefer warmer weather for my travels. Lately I’ve been dreaming of warm places, like Hawaii, Mexico, and Southern California. Then I recalled the last time I was in Southern California, back in June 2011…
Just sit right back and I’ll tell my tale, my tale of a fateful trip…
Okay, we did take a boat tour, and although it wasn’t three hours, we did see one of the locations where Gilligan’s Island was filmed!
Most of that trip consisted of going around the harbor by Newport Beach and looking at the super-expensive homes of the rich and famous. We only saw one location that was inhabited by the non-uber-wealthy, and it was a buoy full of sea lions:
But most places looked like the picture below. We didn’t stay in a place nearly as fancy, but we were fortunate to spend nearly two weeks in a beautiful home in Newport Beach that my aunt and uncle live in. They were in Sweden for my cousin’s wedding, so we got to house-sit for them!
I had realized that it had been a long time since we had gone to Disneyland. The last time we went as a family, California Adventure hadn’t even been built yet! I thought it would be neat to go and see everything we had missed over the years, so I secretly began making plans to pay for my entire family to go to Disneyland. When I looked up the admission prices, I realized that I couldn’t even afford to take just me and my sister! I began looking at other options. Then I remembered Knott’s Berry Farm, which I barely recalled since I only went there as a toddler. My mom ended up not going, but I got to take my dad and sister into this amusement park all for the cost it would have been for just one of us to go to Disneyland!
Of course, because we were staying at Newport Beach, we spent a lot of time at the beach. We rented a surfboard one day, and after my sister got a little bit of practice with it, I went out for my very first surf session. But no sooner did I get out in the ocean did a lifeguard call everyone out of the water due to too harsh of waves!
But there were plenty of boogie boards at the house we were staying at, so I went boogie boarding just about every day.
We did quite a few other things, too. One day we visited my grandparents, and another day I participated in the International Surf Day’s beach cleanup. We did a lot of shopping and fairly healthy eating, and we did some sand sculpting…
And another thing we did pretty much every day was ride beach cruisers. Newport Beach has a great bike trail that goes along the shoreline. Sometimes we would just ride to the nearest beach, and other times we would go further to different shops. Some days it was hard to ride because we were going quite a few miles in the direction opposite of the wind, so we definitely kept in shape!
Because we kept in such great shape, treats at the Balboa Pier were not only guilt-free, but they were mandatory! 
Travel I Can Cross Off My Bucket List
Yesterday, I posted my current Travel Bucket List. However, while I’m looking forward to hopefully accomplishing all those things in the future, I think it’s important to also look back on previous accomplishments. While I don’t plan every single trip around my goals, once I have a trip planned, I try to take advantage of any opportunities available to apply that trip to working towards a goal. I often accomplish several goals in one trip, which is why you’ll see that I have often done several goals at the same time. Here are some things that are no longer on my bucket list, because I actually did them!
1. Go to Chicago. (September 2014)
2. Eat pizza in Chicago. (September 2014)
3. Go up the Willis Tower and stand on the Skydeck. (September 2014- Okay, I’m done with the Chicago goals!)
4. Live away from the Pacific states. (August 2011)
5. Visit Amish Country. (October 2013 in Holmes County, plus two other trips within the following year)
6. Go to the Creation Museum. (March 2014)
7. Vacation in Hawaii. (April 2001, Oahu)
8. Go to Walt Disney World. (May 1999, plus three more times, all in May during my birthday!)
9. Bike around a major city. (May 2014, Columbus)
10. Be in two places at once a la A Walk to Remember. (March 2013, Nebraska/Iowa, also internationally in July 2014 at New York/Ontario)
11. Visit a different country. (December 2005, Mexico; July 2007 in Peru was the first time I stayed the night inside the country)
12. Visit a different continent. (July 2007 and August 2009, Peru, South America)
13. Visit Canada. (July 2014, Niagara Falls)
14. Go on a mission trip. (July 2007, Posada de Amor in Peru, plus several other trips after)
15. Go to Seattle. (March 2004 was my first trip)
16. Go to Nashville. (September/October 2012)
17. Go to Niagara Falls. (July 2014)
18. Take an overnight train trip. (December 2011, from Nebraska to Oregon)
19. Go on a cruise. (December 2005, California and Baja)
20. Support overseas orphans. (Not including Latin American mission trips, I’ve sponsored Nelly in Zambia since 2013.)
21. Fly first class. (January 2013, from Denver to Omaha)
22. See Mount Rushmore. (August 2011)
23. Be in the nation’s Capitol. (June 2007 in Washington DC, also in Peru’s capitol of Lima in July 2007 and August 2009)
24. Go to New York, New York. (June 2007)
25. See historic Philadelphia. (June 2007)
26. Travel out-of-state without my parents. (March 2003 to Washington, and many, many, many trips since!)
27. Travel by myself. (This one’s ambiguous: in 2001 I flew by myself but was picked up by family at my destination, in August 2011 I moved to Nebraska for an internship, in September 2012 I went to Tennessee for two weeks but one week was spent with a friend, in August 2013 I took a solo road trip to get to Ohio for my new job… if none of the previous count to you has having traveled by myself, then I definitely took several trips over the past year that would certainly count!)
28. Drive more than an hour. (First time was February 2013 from Twin City area in Minnesota to somewhere in Iowa)
29. Drive the entire way on a road trip. (First time was August 2013 from Fremont, NE to Marengo, OH)
30. See a Great Lake. (First saw Lake Erie November 2013, within the next several months also saw Ontario and Michigan)
31. See the Atlantic Ocean. (June 2007)
32. Go to Colorado, but not just inside an airport. (October 2011, Estes Park, visited twice later on)
33. Buy a car (August 2012, bought a y2k red Ford Explorer, sadly sold August 2014)
34. Go to Yellowstone National Park to watch Old Faithful, see large wild animals, and stand on the Continental Divide. (July-ish 2002?)
35. Take a tethered balloon ride. (July 2010)
36. Sleep (inside a car) in a Walmart parking lot. (September 2013)
37. See Multnomah Falls. (September 2014)
38. Go on an extended whitewater rafting trip. (May 2011, Rogue River)
39. Take a trip with only carry-on luggage. (September/October 2011, Tennessee, and nearly every trip ever since!)
40. Ride the Greyhound. (July 2014, and again in August/September 2014)
41. Go waterskiing/wakeboarding. (July 2004 was my first waterski attempt, July 2006 proved more successful and was also my wakeboard introduction)
42. Sleep all night in a hammock. (July 2012, at the top of a 60-foot tower overlooking the Platte River)
43. Stay in a hostel. (September 2012, Music City Hostel in Nashville; hostels are now my favorite accommodation!)
44. Attend a Christian music festival. (September 2011, Lifelight South Dakota)
45. See The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. (June 2007)
46. Visit the three main countries that make up North America. (Started at birth in the U.S., ended in Canada July 2014)
47. Hike from base to summit of a mountain. (The tallest so far was Harney Peak in South Dakota August 2011, but was preceded by Mount Humbug and both Table Rocks in Oregon)
48. Ride a roller coaster that goes upside-down. (May 2003, Disney’s Rock n Roller Coaster, and of course with visits to more “adventurous” theme parks like Six Flags Marine World, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Adventureland, I’ve been on dozens more)
49. Be invited to a movie screening before it comes to theaters. (July 2011 for Courageous; I’ve also gone to Grace Unplugged, Moms’ Night Out, and When the Game Stands Tall)
50. Become a travel writer (started professionally writing November 2008!)
So there you have it: my top 50 travel accomplishments! I’m looking forward to adding more to this list!
Throwback Thursday: Costumes and Fall Fun
I did a little bit of trick-or-treating as a kid. I was a clown, a doctor, a prairie girl, and once even a Lowe’s employee! But when elementary school ended, so did the Halloween festivities. But not too many years later, the costumes came back, and they were better than ever!
Costume parties inspired me to get creative and make my own costumes. It all started when I stuck a laundry basket around my waist and filled it with clothes. The following years included a street, a playing card, a bucket of popcorn, a postal package, and this picnic table:
Although I haven’t gone to any costume parties in the last few years, I started making a dress out of plastic bags. I finished it in 2012 and wore it while volunteering at a church event. It turned out to be a good thing, because I made popcorn for four straight hours, and the plastic dress saved my clothes from grease stains! While moving out of Ohio, I found it in my closet and had to take one final picture for old time’s sake.
Of course, I don’t save costumes for being October-only. I even dress up in my travels!
There was the traditional Peruvian dress in Peru…
…the kooky rock star at Lifelight Music Festival…
…Joining a bunch of little cowboys at Camp Tadmor…
…some super-heroic adventures in babysitting…
…and meeting Phineas and Ferb while dressed as Perry the Platypus!
There are a few other activities I’ve done to celebrate the harvest season. I loved learning about Latin American culture, so one year I decorated a Dia de los Muertos table.
I wanted to enter some pumpkin carving contests, but when I went to the store, I realized that watermelons were a lot cheaper. This foot carving in the watermelon won two awards! I also roasted miniature s’mores inside the melon.
Yesterday at my Toastmaster’s Meeting, we had a fun night with snacks and costumes. Check out my egg-cellent apparel!
Throwback Thursday: Around the World in One Room
In spring 2012 at Camp Rivercrest in Nebraska, we were gearing up for summer camps. Our summer theme was “The REAL Adventure”, and I wanted to use that theme for all it’s worth. The one downside of working at summer camps is that you can’t really utilize the summer to travel. Since I was the camp nurse, I had to stay at camp 24 hours a day except for my day off. (But then again, I didn’t have a car at the time so I was completely at the mercy of coworkers offering a ride.) Because I couldn’t spend that summer traveling the world, I instead brought the world to the camp chapel.
Of course, I couldn’t do this alone. I worked with some very talented artists who did all the detailed art, including a stage scene and globe that aren’t pictured. But I did enjoy coming up with ideas, like turning each section of the chapel wall into its own continent.
My favorite was the Antarctica wall because I got to put the winter camp decorations to re-use. I also put the most work into this wall, making everything except the penguin and dogsled.
And of course there’s the continent where I’ve had most of my travel experience, North America. While I had a wealth of experience in this continent, the only representatives I made for the North American road trip are signs for Route 66 and In-N-Out. The funny thing is, I’ve been to In-N-Out several times and don’t see too much that makes it special, and the only times I’ve been on any part of Route 66 is when I’ve visited California and it’s the quickest route to make it to a nearby destination. So this wall wasn’t very representative of my travels.
I guess I don’t have a finished picture of the Voyage to Asia, but the program coordinator brought in a bunch of decorations that she got from her time in China. In fact, a year after that summer, she moved to Asia!
The Europe wall wasn’t complete in this picture either. I hadn’t been inspired to backpack across Europe yet (or else this would have been a MUCH better wall), so we focused it on athletics and called it Tour de Europe, which is why you see the yellow jersey biking along the path, and we later added Olympic rings since they were held in London that summer.
Then there was Latin America, the only other continent I’ve visited to date. Although it ended up being more of a Mexican theme than true South American, I did enjoy cutting all of that papel picado!
Because of last-minute inspiration, I later decorated the Australian Outback Adventure wall with colorful boomerangs. I also painted the koala, but someone else drew it!
I didn’t do much with the African Safari wall, except add the black dashes (which connect all the continents around the room) and make the continent. I actually made all the continents, though I got help with the painting and cutting. I looked up pictures of each continent on my computer, then plugged my computer into a projector. I hung paper where the projection was, and traced. Africa was probably the easiest because there aren’t so many nooks and crannies to trace and cut!
While I had a lot of fun helping decorate each continent wall, it was important that the partitions in the front of the chapel were also decorated. Stage right was a map from the United States to China, because it was our goal to raise money for a Chinese orphanage. It made a great visual reminder. We covered the stage left partition with all sorts of maps. These giant foam cutouts were just falling apart in storage, so I decided to give them new life and use them as decorations.
Each circle had John 10:10, the summer’s theme verse, in a different language.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
Being able to look at at amazingly-decorated chapel all summer certainly encouraged me to live a full life!
Throwback Thursday: Last Time at Crater Lake
All the photos must be altered. Every picture I’ve seen of Crater Lake looks unreal. Even when you go and see it for yourself, it takes some time to convince yourself that no, you mind is not playing tricks on you, that beauty is actually there!
Since I grew up about 75 miles away from the deepest lake in America, one would think that an adventurous person like me would be there all the time, right? In actuality, I only remember going three times: once when my cousin visited, once to go snowshoeing with my youth group (and everything was so white you couldn’t even see the lake, so I’m not sure if that counts), and once as my last hurrah before moving away from Oregon.
All of these pictures were taken the last time I was at Crater Lake. I went with my parents, and we drove around the entire lake and stopped at interesting and informational viewpoints along the way.
Like I said about when I went snowshoeing, wintertime at Crater Lake means lots and lots of snow. In contrast, I could probably count on my fingers the snow days I had as a kid. I suppose in Oregon, all the snow gets stuck in the mountains! As we drove around the lake, I realized there were long poles on the sides of the road. That helped people know where the road was in the winter! Even though we went in July, there is so much snow in the winter, we found piles that weren’t even melted. Of course my mom had to encourage me to play in the summer snow!
I suppose that many people out there did not study Crater Lake as intently as we did in my school, so here’s a little history about it: Crater Lake was originally Mount Mazama, a volcano that erupted and blew the top off the mountain. Over the years, the bowl shaped that was left behind filled with water, until it became the deep, blue lake that we know and love today.
There are two notable islands on Crater Lake. Wizard’s Island is the large island seen at the top of this post. My favorite one is ghost ship. Whenever I’ve been able to see the lake, I’ve been able to see this ship-shaped island, but it’s named because supposedly it has a tendency to disappear in fog.
Now that I’m back in Oregon, I really need to go to Crater Lake again. I’ve read about lots of long hikes that can take you down closer to where the lake actually is. Plus, pictures just don’t do this scenery justice! A few of my friends also want to go, we just need to plan a time that works for all of us. Hopefully we can get to it before we need snowshoes!
Jessica Lippe 