Travelling With Hope

For a finale in Thailand I flew down to Bangkok to visit a friend so we could do fun stuff around the city. It was quite an experience. Growing up in upstate NY and living in Chiang Mai was no preparation for going to a massive 3rd world city. There was so many things to see and do, so much that I enjoyed just walking around and staring at things. I visited a wat because it was at least 4x bigger than all the wats in Chiang Mai and I ended up talking to a Thai man for about an hour. I think he just wanted to practice his English, he was enjoyable to talk to.

The two days that I spent in Bangkok were very fun filled, although not necessarily relaxing. On my way into the city I had some confusion as to which guesthouse I was supposed to be meeting Vic at, so I didn't get to the guesthouse until 1:30am. Then I wasn't tired and I figured I could sleep in late so I stayed up to 3am to write emails, followed by an early 6:30am breakfast, a couple days of heavy tourism, and now flying to the other side of the world. My body should be sufficiently confused by the time I arrive.

As I left Bangkok, I boarded my flight with 90 seconds to spare. Things have fallen into place unusually well, despite unfortunate situations. All this continually reminds me that I'm completely in God's hands; all I can do is trust Him. If I get to see Kerianne safely, I can consider it a blessing and a gift from God. If I find a decent job in a timely fashion, I will have no one to thank but God for watching over me. I've found a lot of comfort in this.

My Luck

If you are familiar with my past experience with flying you should know to be worried for me right now. The first time I flew, I was alone and I lost my luggage and on the way back the plane broke down and I had to spend the night in Pittsburgh. Last Christmas I was flying with Kerianne's family on a separate flight (and fate qualified this as flying alone) so my flight got bumped too much and I had to spend Christmas alone in Kerianne's house.

Basically the point is that whenever I fly alone, something goes wrong without fail. Since I know something is going to go wrong I can at least hope and pray that whatever is going to go wrong isn't going to be a big deal.

Visa update

Today the word is that I'll have my visa the next business day after Friday (so Monday). I'm not really sure what the hold up was, but the good news is I'll have it.

We started our Independence day by moving rocks under the scorching sun, then went to a parade in Spearfish, hoping to see the outhouse races which never happened. Later we drove through Spearfish canyon and hiked up over the bridal falls. Then we hiked to little Spearfish. After that we were all so tired we didn't even watch any fireworks.

Still Here

Unfortunately I'm still in South Dakota. I was supposed to be in Denver Right now going through security, but my visa hasn't yet arrived. My flight has now been moved back a week to July 10th. In the meantime I've been experimenting with software art. In my last entry I included a link to Don Relyea's blog, an artist who writes code to generate art. The picture I'm including is my own failed attempt at creating a Hilbert space-filling curve, but the botched attempt actually turned out pretty neat. If you're interested I can send you more information, if you ask.

I don't have much to do from now until next Tuesday except wait for my visa, call people to tell them to work faster, and entertain myself with my computer and guitars. Currently I'm working on generating a bigger and better picture like the one here, so my computer is lagging pretty bad. Pray that everything works out well and in time

Harney Peak

This morning we woke up at 5:00am to hike up to the top of Harney Peak, probably the most hiked trail in the Black Hills. It comes complete with a stone and concrete watch house at the summit used for spotting fires during the summer. Since we woke up so early there weren't much in the way of tourists, but on the way down (even at 8am) we passed another group about every 200yds. While we were up there we had the chance to hike around and check out the pregnant mountain goat and see an amazing view. We also took a billion pictures, so hopefully you can enjoy some of these.

I'm attaching one of me making friends with a US president that was frozen in bronze by the white witch, and another of Kerianne because she's beautiful. Of course the one of me isn't on Harney Peak, thats because we took some time the other day to walk around downtown Rapid City.
While we were down town we took a stroll through "art alley", as they call it. To some it might seem like the city is honoring their homeboys for graffiti, but in reality these works were placed here very intentionally, and its quite fun to walk through.

In other news, I haven't gotten my visa yet for Thailand. It was supposed to come late last week and I'm hoping and praying that it comes Monday. If it doesn't come in time then it better come by Tuesday, and if it doesn't come by then, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm scheduled to leave from Denver at 4:45pm Tuesday July 3rd and I'll arrive in Chiang Mai in the afternoon of July 5th (my shortest July 4th ever).

For those of you that are interested, I found an interesting screen saver that generates postmodern art on the fly. I'm interested in this because of the computer algorithms involved, but I imagine most of you (my mom especially) are just interested in the pretty colors. here is the link

Lifting weights (Rocks)

The past few weeks I've been working with Kerianne's brother John in moving rocks and making them into rock walls, staircases, and terraces. My mom and dad have insisted that I show them pictures; I decided that since I don't have anything to talk about on this blog yet, I'll just show all of you some pictures. So on the right is a picture of the terraces we've been working on, imagine them filled with rich black dirt and lush green tomato plants (now forget that thought, the Black Hills have been in a six year drought). I was listening to the radio the other day and I heard a deejay say that the thing he likes most about South Dakota is that you can experience the four seasons to their fullest extent. I mean, 110 in the summer, -50 in the winter, summer thunderstorms come complete with F5 tornadoes and baseball-sized hail, winter snow storms often form drifts that cover houses...who could want more?

So when I'm not sweating in the 105 degree heat and hauling large rocks, I'm either reading or playing cards. I don't typically read at all, so when I've read 800 pages in a week purely for leisure, something must be up. I guess I've just been a bit bored and anxious to leave for Thailand.

On the left here is John shuffling a deck of cards for entertainment's sake. I kid you not, we weren't even playing a game but he was shuffling them anyway. I taught them some good wholesome games like Texas Hold-em, Scum (aka scum bucket or Presidents), golf, and rummy (my G'ma's favorite game). I think John's addicted. When he's not satisfying his addiction for reading or cards he's playing the Wii. If you haven't tried it out you should. I find it quite entertaining that rather than make a bigger better faster console, all Nintendo did was create an ingenious new controller and games are suddenly 1000x better.

So I looked at my airline tickets today, I'll be leaving from Denver at 4:45pm and arriving into San Fransisco two hours later. Then I don't leave again until 1am July 4th. So if you know anyone that I know that lives in San Fransisco that I might want to hang out with, you should let me know.

I got shot

Yesterday I went to the travel doctor to get my vaccinations. My shoulders currently feel like I was lifting 300 pounds yesterday, but I keep trying to convince myself it was just needles. I finally uploaded the pictures from the camera to my computer, so you can see them here.

To the left I have one of me standing on a tunnel, bright in all my angelic beauty. This is one of six places where road workers weren't paid enough, so they tunneled through a rock rather than blasting it completely (my theory anyway).

If you walk into the cave and turn around you can see the view in the next picture. Actually, you'd have to get up on top of the rock, like where I am to see this. Actually actually its in a completely different spot on the mountain altogether, but honestly now, who takes pictures of the entire Mount Rushmore? Usually you just see an up-close shot of just the faces.

Kerianne and I have actually considered having the wedding reception up in these parts, by Sylvan Lake. That way all our guests could enjoy a beautiful 6 mile drive in Custer State Park through the mountains and careening around 180 degree corners. We'll see if it works out...

Next we have what I'm certain is a jack-ass on the loose, or a wild donkey if you prefer the more mild approach. I tried to get a good picture of him, but he turned around at the perfect time (or worst time, depending on your point of view). This particular donkey roams the plains but isn't nearly as unfriendly as the buffalo, shown at the end. I also got a good picture of a pronghorn, but who wants to see pictures of animals? I'll save some picture space for the shots in Thailand.

Home on the range

I've gotten all my funding, and I have a ticket for Thailand leaving July 3rd. I'm flying with China Airlines from the US to Taiwan to Chiang Mai. Until I leave I'm staying at Kerianne's house in South Dakota. Since I've seen deer and antelope playing, and skies that are not cloudy all day, its really quite beautiful.

Yesterday we took a drive up through needles highway, a paved road that weaves through large vertical rock spires. Some of the corners are pretty intense, on the edge of a cliff with nothing but a guardrail between you and destiny. We also took a drive through something called wildlife loop. I was entertained by herds of buffalo crossing the road. One particular one waddled into the middle of the road, paused for a few minutes to relieve himself (quite a road obstacle), and then continue to the other side. We stopped to take pictures of a friendly wild mule, and some pronged horns.

The day before yesterday (Friday) we drove through Spearfish canyon. Of course we stopped a few times to take pictures of the canyon. One time I convinced the others to go with time and bushwhack to the top of a rock cliff. I wandered around up on top for a bit and found that there are actually lots of trails, so we ended up taking a trail back down through a deep crevice; it was quite exciting.