The Grand Canyon

What does one say about the Canyon that is Grand?  A camera is so inadequate to capture the awesome beauty that God has provided for humanity in the north of Arizona.  We drove to the main visitor centre, and walked straight out to Mather point, which is everyone's traditional first look at the canyon.  So what if I have been there three times before?  It is still mind blowing and....breathtaking.

We then caught a shuttle bus that travels from viewpoint to viewpoint, allowing you to see things from different perspectives.  At the Yavapai viewpoint, there is a geological museum.  Completely disregarding the millions of years rubbish, I noticed that the names of the rock formations have been changed from when I was here in 1978.  Back then they were named things like Angel's Landing, God's throne, etc.  Now they are Isis' Temple, Buddha's temple, Cheop's pyramid.  God has been banished from his own creation.

Oh well, it doesn't take away from the beauty.  It is just disappointing.

So we went back to the car and drove 7 miles west to a place called Hermit's rest, where it turned out that God had not been completely banished.  This plaque was mounted on a rock there. 

Again, a camera was inadequate, but I took a few (dozen) photos anyway.

While wating for the shuttle bus, a resident of the park came by.






I never tire of astronomical viewing.  This is the moon at about 11 AM over the canyon.

 A lone Scrub Pine on an outcropping at Mather Point.

 The Indian Watchtower.

From Hermit's Rest we drove back to the main centre, and then south to a place called Desert View, where there is a very old looking watchtower built.  It was built by one of the native American tribes of the area, and affords views all the way back to the San Francisco Peaks north of Flagstaff, and well north and east towards Lee's Ferry, the start of the Grand Canyon and the Little Colorado Gorge.  Of course you can see the Grand Canyon better.

From there we headed south to Flagstaff, where we had lunch at Arby's.  I didn't frequent Arby's much as a kid.  I think that might have been the fourth time in my life I have been to one.  It was okay as fast food goes.  Better than Maccas or Hungry Jack's (Burger King).  I am looking forward to cooking something when I get back to Seattle with my dad.

East on I-40 from Flagstaff is the result of a collision of two of God's creations.  One is the earth, and the other was a 150 tonne meteorite that left a 4000 foot diameter, 570 foot deep crater in the earth.  Again, it was an awesome site, but the best photos to be had of that are for sale in the gift shop.  I took some photos, but they were inadequate.

This was from the internet....credit to (http://maravilhas-naturais.webnode.pt/english/usa/meteor-crater-arizona/)

The photo below is from my camera.  That is as much as I could get in one shot.  I will try to stitch a few shots together when I get back to Perth.






From there it was back to Flagstaff and then 
south to Phoenix, where I am now, ready to head for church at Maranatha Baptist Church, where Greg Iehl, the pastor of Faith Baptist Church in England where I attended from 86 to 90, is now pastoring.  Haven't seen them since 1992, so really looking forward to that.

More tonight or tomorrow perhaps.

God Bless,

Jonathan

Getting our kicks on Route 66

Friday Morning, the 5th of January, we awoke in Barstow to the tuneful whistling of freight trains as they headed east and west on the tracks opposite the motel we were in.  I slept like a baby, awaking at 12, 2, and 4 am.  I wasn't crying and wanting to be fed though so I guess it was okay.  It was -11 C.

We headed east on I-40 to Ludlow, California, where we exited and joined old Route 66.  we spent the majority of the day on the old highway.  There are dozens of abandoned businesses along the mother road, overgrown with weeds and covered with rust, grafitti and boarded up doors and windows.

We crossed the border into Arizona at Needles, California, and headed up into the hills to an old mining town called Oatman.  When the gold mines tapped out, the prospectors released their burros into the wild and they have survived.  Now Oatman is a thriving tourist town based around the wild burros that have descended from the beasts of burden released by prospectors long forgotten.  They come right down into town and you can feed them carrots or cubes of hay.  It's pretty quaint and it keeps the locals in business.  There were probably 150 to 200 visitors there, and the lady at the Popcorn stand where we got our feedbags says there are 13 burros that come into town, and hundreds live wild in the hills, foraging for their food.

From there we headed further into the hills, up a steep, winding grade with plenty of blind switchbacks and sheer drops to a pass that was literally a crack in the hillside and then down the other side with seemingly steeper hills and more switchbacks and sheer drops.

This section of route 66 was realigned in 1953, with a longer but MUCH safer route connecting Needles and Kingman, which is where we next found ourselves.

From Kingman we headed east on Rt 66 to Williams, Arizona, which is the gateway to the Grand Canyon.  I tried to do a couple of geocaches, but it was getting dark, and I was only able to find Old Route 66, in the general store belonging to John.  He was just closing up, but allowed me to sign the log and drop a couple of travel bugs that I picked up in Western Australia.

So we arrived in Williams at around 8 pm, and there was snow on the grass and in the forests, but the streets were bare and dry.  and it was COLD.

Class of 1984 reunion...on a smallish scale

So tonight finds my dad and me in Barstow, California.  We are staying in a motel on Route 66.  Of course it isn't called that anymore, but it is the old Mother Road of Cars, Get your kicks, and Route 66 fame.

It has been a day of firsts for me.  I ate my first ever In N Out burger today.  It is streets ahead of anything McDonald's or Hungry Jack's puts out.  And today is the first time I am aware of having driven on Route 66. (Whee!)

Tonight I had dinner with two old friends from High School, Craig Nystrom and Rick Efting.  We had lots of laughs and reminiscing of good times and bad times at school.  I haven't seen Rick since 1992 and Craig since 1984.  It seemed like after a few minutes of warming up the conversation that we were just like old times, only with the 'wisdom' that comes from marriage, parenthood, and growing up to make us see things from a totally different Paradigm.  We must have sat at the restaurant for three hours.  We even had to sing happy birthday to Amber at a nearby table. Then we discovered that one of the other girls at the table had been Rick's student not too many years ago.  Small world.

Short post tonight.  Very tired and thinking I might get a good nights sleep tonight.  More to come.

God Bless,

Jonathan

Left to right...Rick, Jonathan, Craig.

Arrived in San Francisco safely.  Met my dad and my cousin Tom and his wife Pam and headed downtown to Pier 39 for lunch.  Had Clam chowder in a bowl made from a big sourdough bread roll for lunch.  To be honest, I think I could make better chowder at home, and the bread was not super fresh.  It was nice to see Tom and Pam again.

If possible, Tom is a more obssesive Geocacher than I am.  After lunch we wandered down the waterfront to find a cache there.  Tom eventually located it, because he was just a little more tenacious at sticking his head into shrubbery in front of hundreds of people walking around than I was, but I did log my first find in the USA.

Then we said our goodbyes and headed back to the motel in South San Francisco.  There it was on the side of the freeway.  Missed the exit.  Drove to the next exit, circulated through the airport again, back on US 101 north, missed the exit again.  Took San Bruno exit. Headed west towards somewhere on I-380, took El Camino Real, turned the wrong way.  Went around the block, back onto 101, and...................nearly missed the exit because even with his indicator on no one seemed to want to let my dad in.  But we made it and checked in.

The flight from Dubai.  We took off from this massive mecca of human indulgence and flew straight north.  After crossing the Persian Gulf we made landfall at Bandar Abbass and flew straight North over Iran, Turkmenistan, the Aral Sea, Uzbekhistan, Kazakhstan and Russia.  I fell asleep just about the time we hit the Aral Sea. 

Iran.  I wonder if there is a correlation between the physical geography of this place and the hearts of the people that live there?  I honestly don't think I have seen a less inviting terrain anywhere - even the red centre of Australia has colour.  Iran is just brown.  I didn't see a single patch of green.  Not one.  I know desolation has beauty in its own right, but this was...well take a look at the photo above.

When I woke again it was dark as we were well into the Arctic circle.  In my previous post I mentioned daylight all the way, well I forgot about the permanent night over the north pole during winter.  By the time it got light again, we were well into Canada, and there was snow.

In fact the snow was unbroken until well into California.  I saw the San Andreas fault, which is quite obvious from the air. And then like magic, the terrain was green again. 

This is me on final approach to San Francisco.  I thought this was a pretty cool photo.

God Bless,

Jonathan

Road Tripping...

On January 1 I am flying to the USA to spend two weeks with my dad. I am looking forward to this greatly because it will involve several firsts for me.

First I am flying Emirates. So I have layovers in Dubai. On my way to the states it is short but coming back I have time to go visit the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building.

Secondly I am looking forward to eating at In 'n Out Burger for the first time ever.

Dad is meeting me in San Francisco and we are doing a road trip into Arizona. Ever since the movie "Cars" came along, I have had a fascination with all things Route 66. I have looked a thousands of Google images, read forums, and pored over maps of the Mother Road. We are going to drive the section of the route that remains in Arizona, and see some of the remnants of the old places along there.

We went to the Grand Canyon two times as a family when I was a kid. Both times were in late Summer and it was difficult to enjoy in the blazing heat. I have always wanted to visit there in Winter. So we are. It will be interesting to see the different ways the colours will be affected by the winter weather.

After that it is down to Phoenix, to visit some members of my mother's family, and to visit the church where Greg Iehl, my salvation pastor in England, is Pastoring.  Really looking forward to that.

I really wanted to avoid Las Vegas. Of all the places I have ever been, it is the only place I can honestly say I hated. But that was 1992, and by all accounts they have cleaned thigs up. But my dad has an old work colleague tht lives there, so we will go visit them. I might hire a Harley Davidson for a day and do a desert ride, or we might take a Grand Canyon heicopter ride. After that it is back to Seattle for a week of visiting sisters, nieces, nephews and grand nieces and nephews, and a few old frends from school.

If Salvation is a gift, why do so many people works so hard to keep it?

I have a friend whose church teaches that one can lose ones salvation. He qualifies the belief by saying that one would only 'lose' their salvation if the sin they committed was deliberate and habitual. Firstly, every sin is deliberate. We don't sin by accident. Further, being born sinners sin by our very nature is habitual. They go further to call it backsliding. That is where, say, a person gets saved, goes to church, becomes involved and active in the church, suddenly decides that this isn't the way they want to go, and leaves it all behind. My question is, why would anyone who had received Jesus want to do that? I mean, we have just received eternal life, been rescued from the maw of hell, and promised a home in heaven eternally. You would be mad if you threw that away. But according to the Bible, at least the way it speaks to me, one can't throw it away once one has received it. First of all, it is a passive receiving. In Ephesians, in the whole armour of God passage, all the 'takes' are active verbs, ie take the sword of the spirit, the shield of faith, the shoes of the gospel of peace, etc, EXCEPT for the one where it says "take the helmet of salvation". That is a passive verb. In other words the helmet of Salvation is placed upon the head of the one who receives it.

Romans 6:23 says, "For the Wages of Sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." It is a gift. When I was a kid, and I got a birthday gift or a Christmas gift, these were not gifts I picked out. These were gifts that were given to me. Free. And do yo know, my parents never came to me and said, you know, you don't deserve that gift anymore, I am taking it back to the store. (There was the one time where I was given a really nice Tonka VW Beetle for Christmas, and I smashed the roof in with a rock, and then told my mom it had been in a bad accident...that time I lost all my trucks and cars for a month I think) But what kind of father would take away a gift he had given his child. Furthermore, no matter what I say or do, I will always be the child of my parents. There is nothing I can do to change that. With God, not only are we Born Again (John 3:3) into His Family, we are also adopted as his heir (Galatians 4:4-8). So not only were we born, making us family by blood, but we were adopted. When a family fosters a child, they are looking after that child, meeting his needs practically, but when he comes of age, he goes out and is not part of that family. A family who adopts a child, however, has stated that not only do they wish to meet that child's needs practically, they want to make him one of their own, to meet his needs emotionally as well. So how can that be undone.

When Jesus met the woman at the well, he told her that "...He who drinks of the water I shall give him shall never thirst..." (John 4:14) To me, never means never. No matter what I do.

In another place Jesus says,

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. John 10:27-29

No man, means NO MAN, (Not even myself)

So what about backsliders? Good question. I went through a crisis of Faith for ten years from 1999 until 2009, when my mother died. There were many reasons for it, which I won't go into here, but at no time did I ever stop believing in Jesus. I knew when, where and how I had gotten saved, and I knew that this malaise I was going through was not permanent. It was my mother's death in February of 2009 that jerked me back onto the road. I felt perfect peace in my heart even as I sat there and held my dad's hand as she took her last breaths. She was gone, but I KNEW right then and there that she was in the presence of Jesus. So being backslidden, to me means that we stopped or strayed from the path He has us walking. But HE is always right there, and as soon as we turn our eyes on him and repent, bang, he forgives us. When the prodigal son returned to his home, and asked to be a servant, did his father say, "No you left me and your brother (and presumably his mother) and went and did what you wanted, and no way am I letting you back in this family."? No. He saw him from far away, and ran to him. This is of course a picture of Jesus waiting for his straying child. The lamb who strays still belongs to the flock.

I come to the conclusion that God is more powerful than me. If I am in His hands, how on earth can I get away? If I am His child, is He going to deny me? As He IS my Father, why would I ever deny Him? I would never tell someone that I don't know Wallace Gene Burchard. No way. That is my dad. My Daddy when I was little. And When in Galatians God says we cry "Abba Father" the meaning is the same. God wants to be that loving Daddy to us. Why on earth would he ever take that away from us. To my friends out there toiling to please Him and keep their salvation, take heart. He has given you a gift. HE isn't going to take it away, and you don't have the power to throw it away. So stop working to placate God, (because Jesus already did that once for all) and work because you LOVE HIM.

Something that really Bugs me

In this day and age when everyone is supposed to be "going green", there is a tred taking place in the retail area that is really disturbing to me. It is packaging and labelling. Yesterday I bought clothes. I bought 8 items of clothing and removed a total of 14 tags from them. Whenever we buy an item of small to medium size, it is packed in plastic (usually heat sealed Polyethylene) which will still be around for the next new millennium. I was thinking about the clothes though. If each item has an average of 1.4 tags on it, and a billion people buy an article of clothing every day, (random number, no statistical backup on that) that is that many pieces of cardboard that gets thrown in the trash. Hopefully people use their recycle bins. When I think of how much trash we generate as a family in a week, I feel okay, as we recycle a lot of things. But manufacturers of consumables should really work on cutting down on the packaging they use. The other day I opened a Little-est Pet Shop toy my daughter was given as a 'hope you feel better' gift after breaking her arm. It was in a cardboard box (1) sandwiched between two molded polyethylene sheets, (2 and 3) with another pet sheet wrapping each individual toy (4, 5 and 6) each one of them was tied to the cardboard box by two of those plastic twisty things that bread bags used to be closed with. (7,8,9,10, 11 and 12) So in a box 3 inches square by in inch thick there were 3 toys and 12 pieces of packaging. I don't think this is evil or insidious, but it is unnecessary and a waste of resources. It may not seem like much when looked at by itself, but imagine the millions of identical packages in toy stores all over the world....the mind boggles.

The thing is, we CAN do something about it. Go to the websites of the manufacturers of things you buy that you notice have excessive packaging. Every company has a feedback function on their site, or should. I once read that one letter received equates to 20 thought of but not sent, and companies do pay attention to that.

So let's get on them.