West Coast or Bust

So Darryl and I were given the opportunity to go to San Diego to attend the Youth Specialities convention this past October. It was a wonderful trip that involved me leaving the East Coast for the first time in my life! This trip also became our replacement 1st wedding anniversary celebration. Yes I know we got married in September but if you want to know where we went the weekend of our real wedding anniversary then stay tuned.. I'll be posting some pictures for that sooner or later. Lets just say it involved a rented RV.. the Bibbins family.... football.... and Baton Rouge. enough said.
















We were so blessed to get away from "working" at church for 5 days in sunny California (until the fires broke out!). We learned so much from all the wonderful speakers and couldn't get enough of the worship sessions. How could we not when David Crowder Band, Phil Wickham, Shane and Shane, The Desperation Band, Lost and Found... and so many other talented artists where there leading us in worship? It felt like it had been way too long since I'd sang my heart out to God like that. I certainly miss being in a town where churches have a place in their heart for young adults and college students... I'm afraid that's one thing Blacksburg is dearly missing. Anyway I won't go down that road and ramble :) Back to music... So this CRAZY insane band played a few songs.... I'd never seen so much energy and crazy antics on stage. This band, "Family Force 5" is some strange Punk- Beastie Boys-ish type group... They said it best at the end when the lead singer (screamer/rapper most the time) said... "don't let anyone say you can't party for Jesus, cause that's what we just did"... I'm pretty sure they left to go play their crazy hyped-up energy-packed Jesus party at a bar after that... awesome!

We stayed in a lovely hotel right outside of San Diego... nice digs huh?Ok not really this was a historic house in Old Town but I can dream can't I?
Ok so this is where we really stayed... our room was sweeeeet... and our hotel was far enough away from the crazy city that we could relax. - workout room, gym, pool and hot tub included! -- I suppose the only bad part involved being close enough to the wildfires that the pool turned black with ash and our hotel was evacuated -- thankfully they never reached that far and we had already checked out of the hotel and hung around downtown the rest of the day until our red-eye flight home.

Earlier in the week we went to the San Diego Zoo.. which was fun and sad. Every animal was listed as endangered or close to it. I was a little depressed after the hot trip around the huge zoo and knowing most of the animals there close to being gone from the face of our planet. I cheered up a little knowing the San Diego zoo has a great wildlife preservation/education program -- the precious panda bears where amazing -- and i was able to really cheer up after watching the hippo poopok ok... I know I'm a 5th grader when it comes to talking about "poop" but I'm telling you what.. these "beasts" of the earth know how to let it out. Not only do they poop and not care who's looking.. they twirl their tail around like a helicopter so that the pooh goes everywhere! I'd seen this on the Animal channel as one of the "10 extreme - grossest animals" and it was even better in real life! All chaos and poop broke out... all the kids screaming and mothers looking away... I was right there with the kids.. "DARRYL DID YOU SEE THAT?!?" It was awesome.

We did alot more sight seeing and touring around the city. I don't know what Darryl would have done without me since he couldn't get use to the coast being to the West rather than the East... he got us lost all over the place. He finally started listening to my amazing navigation skills and we were good after that -- I am part Lumbee Indian you know.. I suppose it's just natural instinct. ha. :)

On the last two evenings we were in California we attempted to drive up the Pacific Highway and watch the sunset -- both of which we failed at. The Pacific Highway was completed crowded with people evacuated their homes (so terribly sad) and the sunset was cut short because the amount of smoke hanging down around the horizon. The sun would get to about 30 minutes away from setting and go completely behind a wall of smoke. While we were at the convention two groups of youth ministers and volunteers lost their home churches. They stood up and 1,000 + of us put our hands on them to pray.


All and all it was a wonderful trip. My heart went out to the people there as I knew I couldn't understand the fear they felt. I had the luxury of grabbing my suitcase and getting in our rental car and knowing we were safe. I do hope to get back to the West Coast and watch the sun set over the ocean... i suppose since we missed that we have a good excuse to go back. That Pacific Highway is still calling my name....

Here we are out at some cliffs waiting for the sun to set over the ocean -- I'll catch a glimpse of it someday!