More road trip photos

This was the road we travelled (under major construction) to get to Young Living farms.


Rob, viewing the filtering of clary sage essential oil up close and personal.


Eshinee, pretending to smell essential oils ...


... and actually smelling them.


This was the view for oodles of miles of driving through the Utah salt flats.



Us in Nevada ... self-portraits are tough but we did try.

Ventura journey

We rolled into Ventura in the afternoon on Saturday; had Baja Fresh for lunch ... Rob was made very happy by this. We got to the Greenslates and settled into our room-for-the-week. After cleaning up a bit from the road trip, we went to Rob's childhood church, Eastminster Presbyterian, for the kickoff of their 40 Days of Purpose. It's amazing how we've been to so many churches in the last couple of years but have never actually been available for the full 40 days at any given church. This was our first kickoff. It was good to finally see what all the fuss is about.

Sunday was great. We spoke at Peace Lutheran in Camarillo; our first joint speaking engagement! It went quite smoothly. Of course, my favorite part was the one-on-one afterwards. We met one guy who had just come from a safari in Namibia mere weeks before. Another knew the Borchards, fellow LBT missionaries. Another shared our interest in the Messianic movement in Judaism. Great conversations and encouragement ... fellowship, right? Love to be there when it happens.

This morning, we met with the pastor at Mount Cross Lutheran. That was pretty encouraging. And not only is he gung-ho about missions, he has a fun giraffe collection. We just came from a meeting with DeDe Taylor, missions elder at Eastminster. Also a good time. It looks like a November trip will come together. We're also looking forward to being able to come back to this area on furlough ... we've been very well received and cared for.

We're at Latte 101 right now; free wireless. Well, with drink purchase. We're splitting a smoothie to keep legit. Catching up on blogging.

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Happy Birthday, Dave!

On the road again

We're heading out tomorrow for the Ventura, CA area. We'll spend the night somewhere along the way, in Paso Robles or Stockton somewhere. We have a church to speak at! It's Peace Lutheran in Camarillo, CA. The pastor was very pleasant and encouraging, particularly on such short notice. We got a callback from the pastor of Trinity Lutheran here in Redding as well. He said we could speak at 2 services, one Saturday night and a Sunday morning. We went for the weekend of the mission conference (23-25), keeping everything in the Redding area for that one week.

This is encouraging. I had problems getting through to pastors yesterday and began to wonder if calls were going to be returned. Kati "tagged" a request for us onto grace last night at dinner, that calls would be returned. Hey ... it works and we ain't knocking it.

We're currently in a coffee shop in Redding: Yak's Coffeehouse. We're pretty sure it's affiliated with the Vineyard church next door. Nice vibe ... free wireless. Does it get any better? I had enough bandwidth to post our new website. I'll toss the new web address for that as soon as Sharon (my LBT supervisor) approves it.

In Redding

Long time, no post! Here's the history:

Tuesday:
When we hit the road in the morning, the coolant light came back on! We figured they had forgotten to put it in so we went back before heading out to the farm. They said that they had put it in and suggested that there might be a leak. I said that we had looked under the car and had seen nothing in the way of fluids. However, the coolant level was right where we left it before we brought the car to the shop. So, the guy topped it off and told us to check back after our drive to the farm down by Mona, UT. We drove down, over dirt roads and everything, to the Young Living farm. What a blast! We got to smell every oil they make and pick out our favorites (Rob likes 'Transformation', I picked 'Endoflex'). We toured the essential oil distillery and learned more about the therapeutic oils, as well as why other oils found in the US cannot be used therapeutically (something I had been wondering about ...). I think the details of that tour will be a post in and of itself later on. Then, we went to the restaurant there on the farm. We both had lavender lemonade, split a blue corn roll with agave butter. Rob had buffalo pot pie and I had buffalo stew. We took a wolfberry apple pie slice for the road. I bought a pocket oil guide, something I've had my eye on for literally years now but didn't want to buy online because the shipping would have jacked the price too much. It was an incredibly satisfying and refreshing stop along the way. We checked the coolant level: almost exactly where it was when we left the shop earlier that morning. Hmm. Not sure what to think now. So, we drove to Elko, NV to spend the night there.

Wednesday:
Hit the road pretty early. I had gotten up at 5AM to blog but the wireless internet available in the lobby appeared to wireless dial-up, if you can imagine that. It took 5 minutes just to open the home page. Sigh. I gave up and went back to the room. We drove to Reno, where we visited another Sierra Trading Post outlet, a nice little rest stop. We made it to Redding, CA after 6PM, glad to finally be stopping the driving. Watched Rockstar:INXS with Johanna.

Thursday:
We were pretty much wiped today. We went into town to look for new computer backpacks for Rob and Johanna and to order glasses for me. JC Penney had a sale on ($79 complete) but my final price still ended up being over $200 because my eyesight chomps. Ah well. Johanna reminded me that, hey, it's eyesight. You can't really cut corners there. She's right. It's not like I'll need to buy any more for a while. We also went to a wireless coffee place so I could do the internet research I needed to do to finish my LBT budget. Watched Anchorman in the evening.

Friday-Sunday:
The tiredness totally kicked in on Friday. I worked a bit on our Powerpoint presentation for churches but didn't get very far. I wrote a bunch of letters. Met pastors at a local church (Redding Christian Fellowship) on Sunday. Watched Final Cut one evening. Our coolant is still at normal levels ... and we are still getting the coolant light coming on.

Today, I start the phone calls to churches, arranging for visits over the next month. I'm just gearing up for that right now, actually, waiting until people get into their offices before calling.