Day 04 – Salt Lake City, UT to Zion National Park, UT

Sunday 06/17/12

(Editorial Note:  Thank you for your patience in waiting to vicariously finish our trip!  It was difficult finding both time to write and an internet connection during our travels, and it has been a busy summer for me since we returned home.  As a belated thank you, I have gone back and edited the previous entries to include photographs as a special treat for you, dear reader! -lm)

Morning came gently to our log cabin haven.  Folks who hadn’t showered last night did so this morning, and meanwhile our Macalester-student hostess cooked pancakes for everyone — and when we’re looking at a total of eighteen people, that’s a lot of pancakes!

We had to get on the road, though — and so did our host family, because they were leaving on vacation!  We cleaned up our areas and said our goodbyes.  I’m discovering the main problem with homestays is that you have to leave so soon after meeting new friends!  I know there were many of us who wished our return trip could have included another visit here to Salt Lake City, as well as to our friends in Rapid City.  Alas, I guess the only solution is to do this trip again someday!

Now that we’ve made such a significant amount of progress toward our final destination, we’re able to slow down and enjoy the stops a bit more.  Therefore we decided to take  a slight detour and go explore the shore of the Great Salt Lake!

Day 03 – Yellowstone National Park, WY to Salt Lake City, UT

Saturday 06/16/12

COLD!

Oh, so cold!  For all of us, our sleep was fitful through the night as we huddled, shivering, in our sleeping bags.  The temperatures continued to drop through the night, until at dawn it was 30 degrees outside.

The funny part is that for some reason we each thought we were the only person who couldn’t sleep.  So rather than getting up and doing something about it (like climbing into the vans and turning on the heat), we all laid there trying not to wake everyone else up with our private misery.  Craziness.

Striking camp in the freezing cold at Yellowstone

As it was, we creaked out of our sleeping bags at about 6am, fumbling for the zippers with numb fingers, sniffling our runny noses.  I took one bleary-eyed look at my zombie-like companions and suggested that we strike camp, pack up the vans, and go get some hot breakfast at the Old Faithful Visitors Center.

There were no objections.  The vans were loaded in record time.

Field of Fumaroles, Yellowstone National Park

 

As we headed west around the Grand Loop on the north shore of Lake Yellowstone, we saw some pretty amazing geothermal activity.  We stopped briefly for a photograph at a field of fumaroles, and then again

Day 02 – Rapid City, SD to Yellowstone National Park, WY

Friday 06/15/12

The boys’ homestay in Rapid City, SD

I’m sitting in the large van, en route to Sheridan, Wyoming.  In the back, the youth are chattering and laughing, largely because Nolan, Bas, and Conner are playing “King Kong,” pretending Nolan’s head is the Empire State Building and using little plastic toys as the “airplanes” that are attacking Nolan’s face.

I take this as evidence that we all still like each other.

 

Brotherly love at the Pacatola Reservoir

We’ve been through some beautiful landscapes so far.  Yesterday, we drove through grazing land, with large herds of cattle dotting the lush green fields.  The prairie rolled forever in every direction, with only the occasional tree to break up the flat, linear view.  The prairie then folded into the Badlands, stark spires of stone erupting in bursts of white and tan, red and gold.  This morning we eased into the Black Hills, the sharp peaks softening into rolling hills quilted in pine trees.  Angular cliffs fell away, revealing red and black earth.  We paused for our morning ritual at the beautiful Pactola Reservoir.

Today the hills flattened into the Wyoming desert, trees became scarce, with sagebrush flocking the folds of the land like herds of silvery-green sheep.  Our road has been winding through these arid hills for a couple of hours now.  We came around a bend in the road, and on the far horizon, we just caught our first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains, blue and mysterious against the skyline, shoulders draped with snow.  How many hours yet until we get there?

But first, we will

Out-of-Order Update

Hello from Phoenix!

I have so much to tell you about our travels over the past five days — freezing temperatures, a runaway semi, a gorgeous mountain picnic, another incredibly awesome homestay, breathtaking red cliffs, multiple wild animals, and a hair-raising experience in a parking garage.  Alas, it is after midnight here (which means it is after 2am back home in Minnesota!), and I’ve been awake since 4:30am (local time) and up since 6am (cooking pancakes and hashbrowns for our sleepy-eyed and hard-working travelers).  I am very tired, and I’m not sure my storytelling and/or writing skills are currently up to par.

I just wanted you to know that we made it!!!

Hotel San Carlos, Phoenix, AZ

We arrived at Hotel San Carlos, two blocks away from the Convention Center in downtown Phoenix, just before 4:00 on Tuesday afternoon, 6/19/12.  Of course there’s plenty more to tell, and I have every intention of writing it down for you.  But you will have to wait until I’ve gotten some rest.

For those of you with family members who are on this journey, I can assure you that everyone is in good spirits, excited to be here, and having a wonderful time!

Tomorrow, Justice GA 2012 begins!  Wahoo!

-lm

Day 01 – Wayzata, MN to Rapid City, SD

Thursday 06/14/12

Greetings, dear reader!

Our Pilgrimage to Phoenix is on the road!  I write to you from Rapid City, South Dakota.  It has been a long day indeed.  My alarm went off at 5:45am this morning, and I was at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Minnetonka in Wayzata, MN around 6:45.  We finished loading up the last items around 7:00, and then we

What Is a Pilgrimage, Anyway?

When I first suggested that our youth trip to the 2012 UU General Assembly in Phoenix, Arizona be called a “pilgrimage,” I’ll admit I had to figuratively gird up my loins to even say that word in public — and, no less, in a largely humanist Unitarian Universalist congregation.  I braced myself for resistance, argument, even scorn.  And then I was caught off-guard when my suggestion of promoting the “Pilgrimage to Phoenix” was met with ready approval.  Perhaps you can imagine my bewilderment some weeks later when I mentioned our “trip” to Phoenix, and a congregant gently corrected me, asking if I was aware that the youth were calling it a pilgrimage!

Pilgrimage.  What does that word even mean?

In the United States, it’s hard to mention pilgrims without conjuring up images of our historical ancestors of nearly 400 years ago, dressed all in black with funny hats (and buckles, as any kindergartener who has done a craft project at Thanksgiving can tell you). And for those whose days of construction paper projects are long past, it’s sometimes easy to

Charge to the Pilgrims

Charge to the Pilgrims

The youth were asked to assemble in front of the pulpit, facing the congregation as these words were read to them.  Following the charge, we performed a Laying On of Hands ceremony, where the youth were surrounded by the chaperones, who were then surrounded by the families of the pilgrims, who were then surrounded by the entire assembled congregation as a physical blessing and sending-off on our journey.  -lm

You are about to change forever.
In fact, you’ve already been changing.

Since the moment you agreed to journey,
something has been at work inside of you.
Every time you’ve felt uncomfortable—
anxious, resistant, insecure, angry, challenged—
all those feelings mean you are changing.

For the past nine months together,
we have been planning the external details—
where we’ll be sleeping, how we’ll get there, raising the money.

But
we have only lightly touched
on the spiritual aspect of our travels.
And this is a pilgrimage.

For as long as there have been humans,
there have been pilgrims.
For as long as we have had a spark of curiosity,