Stockton, Kansas

So I am currently riding in the car from Oregon to Iowa and do not know when the last time that I blogged was so I am just going to start where I think I left off.

Hays, Kansas
So basically Hays was a day of disappointment after a day of disappointment over and over again, until Saturday. So Charles from the Audi dealership was supposed to ship the part overnight, and basically after about 3 hours of phone calls to UPS and Charles and other random people Charles still messed it up. He sent the package UPS ground, and was supposed to send it overnight air. So there was absolutely no way that we were going to get it, since it was in Wichita on Saturday night. The package never actually left Topeka until Friday later afternoon. So at this point we were completely discouraged, and thought that we were hopeless. We were sitting in the hotel lobby for 4 hours, and had no idea what we were going to do. The hotel was full, we didn't want to spend more money, and there was no way we were getting out.

Stockton, Kansas
So by God's grace this wonderful person named Andrea came to pick us up. It turns out that Elise and Bryan Goad (the people we were going to see in Oregon) worked at Washington Family Ranch Young Life Camp worked with Andrea and she was from Kansas. She was actually at home for the holidays and offered to come get us to stay with her family. So she came to get us and we headed to Stockton, Kansas. Stockton was a very quaint town of 1500 with a brick main street and everything. Being at a home, with a family after 5 days of hotel stays in Hays was unbelievable. Everyone was just so fun and welcoming. Apparently we were not the first random people to stay in their house, and they loved visitors. They even mentioned that their Dad was going to be mad that there was visitors when he was not home. He had headed out to Colorado for and elk hunting trip. So we drove to Stockton about 45 minutes from Hays and hung out at the house for a little while, but then headed down the road to the bowling Alley with everyone. Everyone means Andrea, her twin sister, her mom, her brothers Diego, Carlos, and Andrew, her brothers fiancee Brittany, and her niece, and of course us. Bowling was pretty fun even though I sucked the first game, I got like a 49. I made up for it in the second game by getting like a 130. So after bowling we hung out at the house and watched a movie. It was just really nice to be in a home. Coincidentally the family we were staying with actually went to the same church in Hays that we walked to for Christmas eve. So on Sunday morning we went to church with them, and had lunch at the youth house across the street with the whole family including grandma and grandpa. The family was just a bunch of genuine wonderful Christian people who had hearts for service and loved people. We could not have asked for anything more from them. They truly made our stay in Kansas so much better than it ever would have been. We hung out around the house again sunday and watched a movie, and I finished my book. I recommend Every Young Mans Battle to everyone, girls and guys that is. It is a really great book, even though it is sometimes hard to do what the authors suggest. If you want to know anything else about it just let me know. So on Monday morning this cool guy named Ed who was a family friend of the family that we stayed with came to pick us up and take us to my car that was fixed since Gale(Mom) was working. Ed was a really cool guy, with lots of good stories. He delivers large vehicles including RVs, and garbage trucks all over the country. So we went and got the car, and of course paid $425 to fix it, and then headed on our way. So we left at about noon, and then stopped in Amarillo, Texas for some Chick-fil-A.

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
So we arrived to the Grand Canyon at 3:45am and parked at a Mcdonalds to sleep. Remember we were at an elevation of about 5000 feet and the heat in the car was broken, and there was 2 feet of snow on the ground. So we were not really the warmest we have ever been.. actually we were freezing. It was about 10 degrees outside. So we woke up at about 7ish and headed into the park. Basically we looked at a lot of really big holes in the ground, walked around, and made our feet really cold. It would have been intelligent to put boots on, but we didn't. So then we left the canyon and ate breakfast at Mcdonalds, which was by the way the most expensive Mcdonalds ever. It was like 7 or 8 dollars for a breakfast meal. It also happened to be the same one that we slept at the night before. From there we drove to the nearby town of Williams to get my oil changed and check why my check engine light came on during the drive out of the canyon. Williams was a very nice valley town that was snow-covered, and majestic as Phil would say. After 2 people referring us to other auto places this guy changed the oil, and basically told me he read the codes and checked the problem and everything was all right. So he didn't have to fix anything really, and he charged me $120 just to tell me that. This was after he insisted that i needed 4 new tires on my car, and I said I couldn't afford them 5 times. So the guy ripped me off, but at least the car is still running. We headed from Williams to San Francisco by way of Chick-fil-A in Fresno, California.