I’m excited because I got several packages this week.

The packages from my mom included a new flash drive, some books (including Adventure Motorcycle Touring), a couple Frisbees, yo-yos, some games, and a bunch of magazines.

The package from my grandfather was primarily food stuff. I got a great big Sam’s Club size container of hot chocolate mix, a big thing of Country Time lemonade (which split open and spread its powder all over the box), brownie mix, strawberry jelly in squeeze tubes, and a giant container of peanut butter.

The last item on that list poses a huge dilemma. Peter Pan peanut butter just announced a big recall. 300 people have become ill after eating salmonella tainted peanut butter. I’m supposed to through it away but that has proven difficult. Consider the following

• 300 people got sick out of the probably hundreds of thousands that ate it.
• No one died and only 20% had to go to the hospital.
• I haven’t had food poisoning since I’ve been here and I’ve eaten some interesting stuff. What better way to get it than to eat food coming from safe America
• I must consider the subject of my post last week in deciding to eat it.
• It is rather cold outside.

The consensus around the volunteers at the office this weekend is that I should either A) just eat it or B) feed it to my host family first, or C) give it to them.

Laptop Update: I found a volunteer with a similar model. She is going to let me swap cards next weekend to verify that the problem is the video card. For now I’m using a “spare” laptop my organization has. The only problem is that it is the Russian version of Windows and the CRTL and FN keys are backwards (geek friends can feel the pain.) I can’t seem to highlight text without turning my music off.

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Business Shop

I’m done with the learning portion of Staging and am now ready to leave for Moldova. The bus leaves tomorrow at 11:00 and we fly from JFK in NYC at 5:00.

So far things have gone very well. I’m really excited and am meeting a lot of cool people.

Probably won’t here much from me until I get settled in unless I can’t sleep in Istanbul during the layover (free wireless at the airport.)
Ryan

The bike is packed, polished, and ready to go. I’m walking out the door to head to Natural Bridge, Va for a weekend of riding and meeting other ST1100 owners. Watch my flickr feed for pictures.

The pictures from the trip have been showing up on facebook. I’m putting the pics that are sent to me up here for the benefit of those without Facebook accounts.

• Karryn’s Pics
• Whitney’s PIcs
• Ryan’s Pics (Camera didn’t get out but one time.)
• More as they are submitted to me.

I think I promised more details on the Gulf Coast portion of my motorcycle trip. Here is a better write up of what we observed. I wish we would have had more time to spend there a really get a good feel what is happening and to help instead of just doing our fly by.

Bayou La Batre has many of the boats are back in the water, some of the processing plants appear open, and lots of trailers are setup. That “normalcy” contrasts sharply with other boats still sitting on dry ground in remote locations with no signs of getting any closer to water, with factory building missing walls, and homes and businesses sitting vacant.

Pascagoula has a more middle class population than Bayou La Batre but they are still facing the issue of spending tens of thousands of dollars in home repairs. Volunteers are saving homeowners thousands upon thousands of dollars while showing the love of Christ through serving. The Jackson County Baptist Association is still hard at work. Helen said 400+ volunteers were working in the community that week. The demudding and gutting of houses ended in early December and the focus has transitioned to rebuilding. God has been good and supplied their needs. They have a licensed carpenter from Indiana volunteering his leadership and expertise. Work crews have been coming in at just the right times and God is just plain good in general and specifically has been blessing people in Pascagoula. The current focus is on drywall, painting, roofing, and flooring. As of the morning we visited 17 houses had been painted, which means 17 families will soon be moving back into their homes. That is great, but, there are still hundreds left living in trailers.

US 90 along the coast is a still a path of destruction. Most of the buildings along the beach are either leveled or so damaged they will need to be torn down. It is amazing to thing about all the devastation left ever so many months.

New Orleans is a place of contrasts. We didn’t know our way around the city so much of our time was spent driving in circles. Sections of the city are a ghost town and eerily silent and lack traffic. I don’t think we saw the worst of the damage but what we saw was pretty bad. Some places down in Jefferson Parrish and the French Quarter are fine. The French Quarter didn’t get flooded but is suffering because there aren’t many people visiting. I was really young when I was last in New Orleans so I don’t have a good base of reference but it was really slow. I just heard on the news that they aren’t even going to touch some neighborhoods for several months while they try to decide what to do.

Hancock County I thought I had seen enough that there couldn’t be much worse. I was wrong. A quick shot south of I-10 to get a picture of the bikes by the state sign landed us in yet more destroyed homes. This time in a rural setting instead of the urban.

The Future
There is a group of about 15 CU students and staff heading down over spring break. We are going to be working through Volunteers of America in either Bayou La Batre or Pascagoula. Please pray that our trip will continue to come together smoothly and that we will be able to show God’s love through our actions and tangible deeds.

Here is a run down of the last half of my trip.

Day 5 – Friday
After an evening of reminiscing and going to the Roaring 20’s where we had pizza and watched/listened to an old Wurlitzer theater organ being played I had a fairly early bed time. Friday morning we hit the highway heading south. We branched off and took the Tamiami trail across the heart of the Everglades. It was a nice two lane route where we saw alligators lounging beside the road.

Traffic was heavy and backed up heading from Homestead to Key Largo and it was slow going. Once we got through Key Largo the road cleared and it was smooth motoring across the series of keys, towns, and bridges. The towns weren’t any too exciting but there were lots of mobile homes and travel trailers. I was surprised by the number of people living on the keys. I have always pictured them as being small and only a handful of people where in reality there are a lot of people there.

Key West is fairly large and includes a section of “regular” town and then the tourist district. We spent a little bit of time in both. We stopped for a burger on Duval Street and met a guy from Grand Rapids and who happened to have a cottage about 10 miles from my hometown. What a small world. He went to Florida three years ago for Daytona Bike week and never left.

We didn’t want to get stuck in traffic heading out of the keys in the morning so we left just after dark and rode north east toward Miami. We rode through downtown Miami at 11:30pm toward Dad’s sister’s place in Ft Lauderdale. Traffic was moderate but moving fast. 

We arrived at Debbie’s around midnight after a series of wrong turns as Dad was talking to her on the phone and she was trying to guide us in. We stayed up and chatted until much too late.

Day 6 – Saturday
We woke early again because Debbie had an early appointment. We packed geared up. I turned the key on my bike and … nothing. Strange, must be a dead battery. Push starting didn’t work so we tried a jump start. Still nothing. Dang it. Must be something else. I checked all the fuses, wiggled connections, and scratched my head. Finally I wiggled once connector and the lights all came on. I figured it must be a fluke and we went on our way. We stopped for fuel and the bike wouldn’t start. This time the connector was melted. Some cobbling and it was fixed good enough to complete the trip.

We went up to Loxahatchee to visit an old tractor pulling friend. He wasn’t home but was up in Okeechobee so we went up there. It was good to see Marty we visited a while and then grabbed lunch at the Golden Corral.

We made our way north toward Daytona Beach via two lane cutting through cattle and citrus country. Did you know there are a lot of cattle in Florida?

We got to Daytona just as it was getting dark and the beach was closed to vehicles. We drove around, got a motel for the night, and had a good dinner at the Bubba Gump Shrimp company, and walked around. We went back to the room and I took a nap while Dad and Aaron went out to the block party and fireworks. My nap ended up turning into a nights sleep. I wasn’t feeling well because I had a killer cold and the sleep was much needed but I did miss ringing in the New Year.

Day 7 – Sunday
We got off to a late start this morning and enjoyed an IHOP breakfast where we got to observe one of the cooks walk off the job. The beach was still closed because it was too soft for vehicle traffic. We rode north along the coast for a while before heading west on two lane. In Lake City we hopped on I-10 and headed back to Dothan.

We got the bikes loaded up just as it was turning dark and started to rain. Aaron headed toward North Carolina and we headed back to Michigan. Just as it started getting light we rolled into Grand Rapids.

2500 miles and 4 states had been covered on the bikes and 2100 miles in truck in exactly one week. I’m tired but I think I’m getting over my cold. It was a good trip. In hindsight our route was too ambitious and didn’t have enough time to stop and see the sights. The short days of the winter really limit the number of miles that can enjoyably be covered. The weather was great with only a few sprinkles on Sunday. We saw everything from the devastation along the Gulf Coast to the hedonism along Bourbon street in New Orleans. We passed through Laurel Hill where the Hobo Festival is held every year as well as the home of speed in Daytona. It was good to spend time with Dad and Aaron. The bikes performed well with minimal problems. I even reached my goal of over 10,000 miles in 2005.

Only 4 more months of PMS: Parked Motorcycle Syndrome.

I haven’t had the time or motivation to keep this up to date on our trip. This is a just a rough draft of the trip report. Hopefully I will make the time to rewrite it better later. We’ve covered 1200 miles in three days on the bikes. We’ve seen much devastation along the Gulf Coast and now we are in the great retirement village of Florida. The weather has been good and the trip has been great.

Day 1 – Monday
We hit the road at about 8:30am. 1050 miles, three stops, and 16 hours later we rolled into Dothan, Al. We had Aaron’s and my bike in the back of an F-350, Dad’s bike in the back of Aaron’s truck, and Aaron’s bike on a trailer. Everything rode well. At the end of the trip Aaron will load his bike in his truck and head for NC.

Day 2 – Tuesday
The goal for today: Get the bikes unloaded, look at some trucks at the dealership in Dothan, and head for the Gulf Coast. The bikes unloaded without incident. The work stuff was taken care of and by 10:30 we were heading for the gulf via rural roads in southern Alabama. It was nice running but took a while so we hit I-10 for a while of slabbing it.
We visited Bayou La Batre, Pascagoula, and Biloxi. I’m not sure what to write about those cities. They are pretty bad. Some parts appear back together but other parts are an absolute mess. We didn’t spend much time in any of the cities or talk to many people so it was just a “fly by.” I did stop to see Helen in Pascagoula. She is organizing the groups working with the Baptist’s Association in Pascagoula and we worked with her on the CU trip. I feel a bit guilty being on a pleasure trip while I could be working…
We spent the night in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Driving through the dark sections of town with no traffic lights was wierd. The French Quarter was undamaged by Katrina and the flooding but was without power for a month. There weren’t many people there but most of the places were open.

Day 3 – Wednesday
We explored New Orleans and drove to Tallahassee, Fl. I will write more later (maybe) about New Orleans. It is a mess, but there are sections which appear mostly better. It is a big city and parts of it appear to be back to normal. There are many signs talking about hope.
On the way to Tallahassee we drove through parts on Hancock County. When I thought I had seen all the destruction there was to see I saw yet more.

Day 4 – Thursday
We hit the road hard and made it to Bradenton and a visiting with Grandma and Grandpa.

Thanks to Pfitz for this site!

Sites Visited in the last 12 months. create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

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Also check out the Google News Map and Collective Proza,

I’m back…

The trip down south was a success. We ended up working in Pascagoula, Mississippi instead of Bayou La Batre. That was a bit of a monkey wrench in our goal of adopting a community. We were obedient though and gave our all to the new assignment. Some of the logistics of the trip and student perspectives can be found over at http://cukatrina05.blogspot.com.

The trip was enjoyable and probably the most fun I’ve had in a while. It was a great break from my routine and helped me refocus. My job tends to have me locked in an office and it is easy to forget that there are good students out there.

The thought of the awesome potential of the people on the bus is humbling. Each of those students did a fantastic job and proved to be outstanding individuals. I’m curious to see what will become of each one in 20 years? What impact can they have on the world and the kingdom? There will be pastors, teachers, youth leaders, business owners, missionaries, and who knows what else. How will this trip affect their plans and futures? I think back to how my trips to Redbird Mission with my youth group served to enable me to lead this trip. How will they take this experience and use it?

I learned a lot about leadership on the trip. It is hard for me to have enough trust to delegate. I was forced to do that a lot on this trip and it was good. The group was much more productive when I appointed leaders to lead projects and I worked to serve those leaders. This also gave the students opportunity to grow their leadership abilities. The staff on the trip were amazing. None of us really knew each other well before the trip and we were forced to pull together and figure out how to work and lead together. It was work but the end result was great. It was amazing to see how each of us had different strengths and ideas which complemented each other.

I have other thoughts rattling around in my brain but I am tired and ready for a good nights sleep. This is the first night in an actual real bed in 5 days.

God is truly good. It was great to be used by Him on this trip.