This is the leg of the trip that I was most looking forward to. The dirty south. The southwest was neat, but I was most looking forward to seeing the Louisiana to Georgia coridor. Sweet tea and humidity!
I was hoping to find some remnants of segregation even though Spencer from Birmingham assured me that I wasn't going to find that anywhere save for the civil rights museum. I had my doubts, but I'm about to leave Alabama and he was right. Although, he talked of schools in his area having segregated proms. We got to hang with native West Alabamans in Livingstone. It was fascinating that dropping the n-bomb was nothing, but holy mother of jesus if someone said "god damn!" I'm truly sad to say that I observed the "porch monkey" stereotype. I wish that I could explain the phenomenon, but I suppose that's just how it is. I grew up in Iowa where I think there were possibly 3 black people in my entire school and the soccer coach got excited when a couple thousand Bosnian refugees moved in. I had more minorities on my freshman dorm floor than I did in my entire high school. Driving through this area has been fascinating for me.
We're at Camp ASCCA. We pretty much have had the day to relax and catch up on things. I spent a good hour or two wading in the lake and than I organized and cleaned out my van a little bit. This is one of the camps that Push America has invested a lot of time and energy in. Push Camps, Gap Weekends, and Build America have come through here several times. There are lots of accessible equipment that we've built and I would've loved to have had at WCF. They have some pretty neat facilities. I checked out their web site and found the application. I'd love to have another camp summer here, but sadly my camp days are over. I love camp.
I had my first road visitor. My wonderful dyad that crewed Journey of Hope in 2005 and graduated from Mizzou with me visited us in Fort Worth. Thanks for stopping through Mike!
To repeat Wilbourn's famous line, "Enjoy the summer 'cause it'll be over before you know it." I can't believe that DC arrival is in 14 days. Two weeks. This has been a great way for me to spend my summer in between schools. Of course, it's made things somewhat difficult that I'm so pumped about joining the Sooner Nation. It's hard to explain to people how amazing it is to have the career goal that I set in December 2005 be actualized 20 days from now. Especially with how difficult my Missouri State experience was.
The next two weeks will be tough. We lost two crew members in Dallas and lost another one yesterday in Birmingham. Poor Kankles came down with some sort of unexplained illness. His side hurt and he was running a 101 fever. His mother came to be with him in the hospital. I think the hope is that he can figure out what's wrong and than rejoin us in Atlanta or Charlotte. Hope is always at a 10, but he was definately not feeling well. At the least, we'll see him in DC for arrival.
Once again, thanks for everyone's support. The extra mail in Alabama was much appreciated!
We have one week left of the Journey of Hope. Next Saturday, we'll arrive in DC among all of our family, friends, and loved ones. Everything is amazing. Everyone is having so much fun and we get along so well. The frienship visits are a blast. No one wants the summer to end. I wish we could just keep on going past DC into Canada. There is zero end of summer negativity. This all sounds hard are to believe, but that's just the magic of the Journey of Hope. I hope to do six more JOH's and couple of GUFs. People may think I'm crazy, but I just love being on the road.
