Trying To Catch Up In California (Part 1 of 2)

We’ve gotta admit, sometimes writing these blog posts can be a daunting task. It’s not that we’re not excited about writing them—it’s that so much happens between each post that it’s hard to put it all down into words. But we will continue to do our best nonetheless.

After leaving the awesome gymnasium of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Camino, CA, we journeyed over to Pollock Pines, CA. Thanks to our friend Barbara from Foothills United Methodist Church in Rescue, CA, we made a connection with John Blank from Pollock Pines Community Church  who offered to let us stay the night there in Pollock Pines.

We got there on Friday afternoon and were excited to find out that the church puts on a meal every Friday—which they’ve been doing for over 21 years—for anyone and everyone in the area who might need and want a tasty meal. While we waited for dinner, Linds and I were able to catch up on our blog and Facebook posts (and—more importantly for Lindsie—catch up on sleep).
Once dinner had ended, John came by to pick us up. He and his wife, Pam, actually wanted us to come stay at their house so we could take a much-needed shower, sleep in a comfortable bed, and grab breakfast in the morning.Then, at dinner time, Lindsie and I had our first sort of presentation/interview in front of a larger group of people. Pollock Pines Community Church Pastor Dave Morrison (who was actually retiring the following Sunday, interestingly enough) typically shares some scripture before dinner is served, and he was kind enough to call us up to share our story, ask us some questions, and tell the dinner guests about our adventure. Then, when we were finished, he gave us a very unique New Testament Bible that he had been given over 30 years ago which we were incredibly thankful for.

Basically, the stay was incredible, and we were blessed to have had the Blanks extend so much kindness to us.We arrived at their house and were blown away. For starters, we were blown away because the house was gorgeous, and we found out that John had actually designed the house himself. Keep in mind, he’s not an architect. But, professional architect or not, the house was, as mentioned, GORGEOUS. Then, we were treated to seeing some of Pam’s amazing paintings. Similar to how John isn’t a professional architect but designed a ridiculously cool house, Pam isn’t a professional painter but paints ridiculously beautiful paintings. After the tour and some conversation, we slept like rocks and they gave us breakfast and prayed with us in the morning.

From Pollock Pines, we headed along Highway 50 toward Kyburz, CA, which is so small that the sign hanging on the main building says “Welcome to Pollock Pines. Now leaving Pollock Pines.” About 2 miles before we got there (and after 17.5 miles of walking for that day), we decided to set up at Sand Flat Campground. It was by the river, which was nice, and I got in the river, which was less nice because it was very cold water. Lindsie did enjoy videoing it though, so we’ll embed that video as well just in case anybody else enjoys watching it.

Before we get too far along, we do have one thing to mention. Before arriving at the campground, we met an awesome guy named Kevin Lindholm. Kevin was taking his son and his son’s friend fishing in the American River, which pretty much follows all along the road we’re traveling on. He saw us and struck up a conversation (we’re hard to miss with our bright yellow safety vests, big blue push carts, and adorably cute dog).

When we explained to Kevin why we were walking, he was just astounded and inspired, and his excitement was contagious. Lindsie and I found ourselves feeling even more passionate about this journey when we saw Kevin’s reaction to what we were doing and why. Kevin mentioned that he’d offer us a ride but his car wouldn’t have room, and we had to explain that our goal is to walk the entire journey step-by-step. Then Kevin went above and beyond and asked if there was anything at the store he could drive down and grab for us. Keep in mind that Kevin had just arrived to this spot in the river to take two kids fishing and was willing to pack them and their gear back up, turn around, and drive 20-ish miles (each way) to get us something from the store if we’d needed it.

Even though we didn’t need anything, we were absolutely, 100% blown away by Kevin’s willingness to offer help. It’s people like him who make us so thankful that we’re doing this walk. Even though he wouldn’t have gotten anything out of it (at least, from our perspective), he was ready to go WAY out of his way to help us out. He also spread the word by telling his church about us and our mission. I wish there were other ways for me to talk about how thankful we were for running into Kevin. His excitement was encouraging and motivating, and generally just a reminder of why we’re glad we’re making this journey.

In the interest of keeping this post at least a little bit short, I’m going to cut it off here for now. We’re still not really caught up to our current location, blog-wise, but we should be covered by the next post or two down the line (I hope). Future posts will include answered prayers, beautiful views, and fireworks.Anyway, we left the aforementioned campground in the morning and continued heading toward South Lake Tahoe, which was just around the corner.

Thanks for reading and thanks for encouraging us with prayers and words of support in blog comments and on the Facebook page. Hooray adventure!