California Dreamin'

I know it's been a few days since I last blogged about the trip and probably because I felt like I hit a bit of a wall. The trip has been very rewarding so far but it's also been very fast paced and I've never traveled for this long of a period of time. I'm having a great time and it has been very rewarding for me, just haven't had the normal chunk of quiet time I'm accustomed to that helps me deal with life's bumps and bruises. Chip has also been doing a great job the last few days of really detailing out our days and even the things we've been tasting.

Today I'm writing from Sunny Santa Clara University, which is at the southern part of the bay area. I'm staying here with my friend Bryan Schamus that I met through the Newman community at Virginia Tech. Bryan was the music minister my last couple years at Tech and we got to do ministry together and he's a great guy and very talented. I really appreciated the work he did with the Music Ministry program, so if anyone out there is lookin for the real deal let me know and I'll pass that along.

We got to walk around campus this morning (B E A - utiful) before he had to go check in for Resident Minister training. They have one kind of weather out here ....NICE. The campus is on the same piece of land that Jesuits founded the Santa Clara mission. The campus is about 5000 people all together and Bryan figures it could probably be squeezed into the Drill field at Virginia Tech. As Bryan was giving me the tour all of the buildings he told me about he would draw a reference back to Virginia Tech (I love it!) so I could connect with him. I also got to go to mass today at the Mission Chapel, which is very well done itself.

Tomorrow I'm going to be heading up in to San Francisco and check out the sights and spend all day walking around and seeing what all the fuss is about, so stay tuned in for that.

As far as the last couple days I guess the things that pop out to me that I want to remember is first the peaches that Chip bought at the market in Seattle. It was THE best peach I've ever had...it was so juicy that I had to litterally eat it over a trash can because there was just juice overflowing and it will now be the mark that I measure every other peach I ever eat against. The doughnut at Voodoo doughnuts in Portland was also very good...I got the "Dirt Doughnut", which consisted of a vanilla frosting on a risen doughnut and topped with crumbled oreos.....mmmm!

Well I need to go out and play now, so I'll cya tomorrow or the next morning if I end up getting back too late.