Joshua Tree

This week-end was our troop's annual trip to Joshua Tree. This marked the first time for me in camping at Joshua Tree where we camped at a different campsite. The campsite we normally camped at for the past few years was Indian Cove. It is a short distance from the town of Twenty-nine Palms. The campsite we were at this time was Sheep Pass. I liked the campsite at Sheep Pass much better. The difference though is the group campsite is 20 miles from the town of Joshua Tree. Some of the dads couldn't make their morning run to Starbucks. It was a good time this week-end. The patrols practiced the patrol method in preparation for the camporee. On Saturday, we took a short, strenous hike up nearby Ryan's Mt. Saturday afternoon we had a short thunderstorm with wind, rain, hail, thunder, and lightning. That evening we had the privelege of looking at Orion's Nebula, the Rosette Nebula, Saturn and its rings, the Bee Hive, and the Two Clusters. We also saw Jupiter rising with the full moon. It was a great week-end. The only thing which was missing was my oldest son, Jacob. Jacob had been to the 7 previous Joshua Tree trips out to the Mojave Desert. A couple of dads asked were Jacob was. He was missed.

California Adventure 2

I forgot to mention one thing which is really exciting about us going to California Adventure. The whole week before we were to go, they had been forcasting rain in Southern California starting on the Tuesday before we were going to go on Thursday. Well, we prayed as a family for a week before that it would not rain on Thursday because then we would not be able to go. Guess What? It didn't rain until 2:30 that afternoon! If had rained that morning then we would not have gone to California Adventure! To God be the glory!

California Adventure

We were able to go to California Adventure 2 weeks after we went to Disneyland. California Adventure was new and shiny but it is not Disneyland. There is still a sense of nostalgia and warmth at Disneyland which isn't at California Adventure. California Adventure is just too new and too much into the post-modern culture. There was a show which was called California Dreamin which was a little bit occultic for my tastes. It had Whoopi Goldberg as the California "Spirit" who is there to guide you and give you advice any time you ran into adversity. It also had two big idles at either side of the stage which came alive and spoke to the audience. If some ancients ever saw these statues they would have worshipped them as gods. It is so easy to imagine about the image of the beast coming to life in the temple and being worshipped in the Book of Revelation. The best ride I liked was California Soarin which took you flying all over the state. The worst part of the trip was the first ride I went on with 2 of my kids, California Screamin. It was a roller coaster type of ride which left me feeling nauseous for most to the morning. It almost ruined my whole trip for me. The best part of trip was being able to spend time with my family for the day.

Disneyland

I'm going to Disneyland! That is what all of my family members had to say yesterday. That's right all of them. All of us had such an enjoyable time spending the whole day there. Some of my children haven't been there at all. The last time we were there was 9 years ago in 1996 with my mom and dad. It was a great time by all because it was during the middle of week, it was still winter, and there weren't any crowds which meant no long waiting in lines for the rides. We went on almost all of the rides. We got there at 9:30am and left at 8:30 in the evening. What a great time we had. Boy was it exhausting just walking around all day with a pack on your back and running from ride to ride so we could enjoy as many rides as we could in our short day. Actually, by the end of the day we weren't running so much any more but just dragging our tired feet closer to the car. It was really nice to visit. We have the chance to return in 2 weeks when we attend California Adventure except this time we will be short the 2 older girls since they will be at school. Oh, and since this was Southern California, the weather was beautiful, bright, sunny, but not to hot, just the right temperature.