West side

Cali
Well, the Grey pilgrim has made it to California. Two nights ago we drove south on the 101 from Salem. Just before the border we branched on to a little road called the Redwood Highway. The drive was amazing. It was about 6:00 when we got to the redwoods and it was getting dark. The strange light added to the already mystic feel of the trees. While we were driving I couldn’t help but get a certain Willy Wonka song out of my head: “come with me, and you’ll see… a world of pure imagination.” (the best song in the movie) We pulled out onto a little side road, and began to drive through utter blackness to a campground that was 6 miles into the redwood park. Going about the speed of molasses in winter, we finally got to the campground. It was perfectly nestled between the redwood forest and the cali beach. The campground, filled with your perfect blend of Patagonia wearing yuppies and young Asian people, was pretty nice. My dad had done a little research into the place before we arrived and told us it had showers. After going to the bathroom that night, I confirmed that it did have showers and I eagerly was looking forward to washing up in the morning. I rolled out of bed at the modest hour of 11 and walked down to bathe. The shower ended up not working. To make it worse the whole time I was figuring this out, trying to twist knobs this way and that, some lady kept trying to open the door. After knocking once, I replied, “occupied,” and went back on my way twisting random knobs. She tried again and again, and each time I could hear her yelling to her husband, “I think someone is in here.” Now thoroughly annoyed, I got back on my dirty cloths and retreated back to the car. The day did get better though. We all read on the beach and got our tans on and then cooked a nice stir-fry meal. I’m learning quickly in life that it is worth every penny to buy chicken that is not FMV. For those of you that are not familiar with FMV, it stands for “ For Maximum Value,” and is the Fred Meyer’s equivalent to Costco’s Kirkland brand. To put it plainly, that chicken not only didn’t have “maximum value,” but it had little to none. (Peter is feeling a little ill, and we’re blaming it on the chicken) We drove south to Eureka, CA, and slept in the Denny’s parking lot. We woke up and went to the small OCA church just down the way a little. The service was classically OCA. It was very nice and at coffee hour we quickly became the hottest attraction. It seems like whomever (look dad, I used the right whom) you meet, everybody has some story about Alaska. After further spreading our Alaska fame, we pulled out and headed on a small road across northern California to meet up with the 5. I called fr. Silas to see if there was any chance we could stay at Platina monastery and after a brief chat he told me he would do all he could. He was like the Deacon Pat of northern Ca, and after about an hour or two he called back and told us that he had got a-hold of the monastery and they were expecting us Monday night. So right now, we are in the Food Maxx parking lot, and we just got done watching a movie. Continuing on the X-men streak, we watched the first x-men with a brief break of ninja Assassin and then chased it with X- men two. We played Catan in the Barnes and Noble earlier and bought a new book on tape. Unfortunately be drank the good wine first in listening to the Lord Of the Rings the first week, and now we have moved on to the bad wine . SO in the morning we’re off to Platina and the hills of northern California. Continue to pray and think of us and we will write again when we come down from the monastery. On the 15th we are meeting Mathew and Anastasia in Sacramento at Fr. Steven’s house.