San Francisco Diary: On the Road

Summer 2004
The Riot trip began at the church early in the morning. Three cars left in the early morning gloom loaded with sixteen passengers- ten youth, and four adults. Most of us tried our best to sleep in the morning. Myself personally I had only had fours hours of sleep the night before.
To call this a trip to San Francisco is somewhat misleading. Yes, sure that was in many ways the highlight of this trip but you would be surprised by the rich gems unearthed along the way. The most boring time was of course the time spent in the confines of the automobile. There are only so many new jokes to be told, only so many life stories, and only so many political discussions to be commented on.
Thankfully that same road was lined with many attractions.
Bro. Garcia brought an ice chest packed with juices, chips, and other goodies. Every tourist attraction, street corner, gas station, and hotel had all kinds of food to be purchased. Tough beef jerky, soft and salty pretzels, ginseng enhanced energy drinks, calorie loaded sodas, and cookies.
Every hotel in the morning has something called a continental breakfast. This is a code word for squishy cereal, hard bagels, warm it yourself French toast, and a variety of juices. This aside, it’s pretty good for free.
Thankfully at the end of each arduous day we had nice hotels where we could stop and rest. Here we could stretch our legs, get lost in the long corridors, and hang out with our friends. There were outdoor heated pools, and courtyards set with tables. We usually left every morning at 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. and we really didn’t get a curfew until Thursday.
Every night we would meet in a hotel room to have prayer, and devotion. Hotel rooms were not just the place where we laid our heads; they were our prayer room.




Solvang
Visiting Solvang you enter the Danish Capital of America. Quaint Old World architectural styles blend with flower-lined streets to create a walkable village.
--from the Solvang website

On the first day we came to a Dutch community named Solvang. Not your run of the mill tourist attraction, this little town had the weirdest shops that sold wooden crafts, painted art, house pieces, old fashion toys, ceramic statues and all kinds of oddities. There were also ice cream parlors, and bakeries, and a restaurant called the Little Mermaid. We encountered the best sales for clothing that were found anywhere on the entire trip.
Most of the people were actually Dutch. {Surprisingly} The houses and stores seemed to be built straight out of another place in time complete with a built-to-scale model of a windmill, and a functioning old world clock tower. On a personal note I believe that Solvang was the hottest place we visited. Thankfully the rest of the trip was quite cool.

Pismo Beach


Our next location was Pismo Beach. As night began to fall, we walked the crowded streets as the smell of barbecue drifted over the sea air. Past the stores selling swimming apparel, surf boards, sunglasses, and the different seaside restaurants stood the quickly darkening ocean and the long elongated pier that thrust out into the sea

We found supper at various diners that offered sandwiches, fish, barbecued meat, chili cheese fires, hamburgers and everything else. By the time we finished we watched as the sun began to drift down under the darkening clouds and enjoyed the cool air of the coming night. On the way back to the vehicles, we met two Pentecostal Youth on the street . From there we traveled to our first night at a snug hotel.