follow the Leader

From the beginning.

Doug and I left Spencer at 3:40 Friday afternoon, we made it to Sioux City by 5:15. We picked up Emily and headed south. We stopped in Whiting, Iowa. Sketchy town. I really had to go to the bathroom, that's why we stopped. But, there was a laundromat that was in a tiny white painted brick building with a flickering open sign and a small convenience store/grocery store/gas station/pharmacy where we stopped. It was probably the size of my apartment. I think the entire town stopped in while we were there.

Anyway... We stopped just north of our turn to the interstate for supper. We were still about 4 hours from Bethany and we talked to Kelly, she was just getting into town. She had to wait in the motel room/drive around the small town for 4 hours waiting for us. Nothing too eventful happened until about 20 miles north of the Iowa/Missouri border.

Doug drives fast. I am definitely okay with that because I do too. Well, we were in a construction zone...one lane 55 mph on the interstate following a car going 45. We were getting on his tail and he kept putting on his 4 way flashers. We didn't know why. Well just after we went past a sign that said NO PASSING we decided to drive on the shoulder and pass this dude who was definitely crazy. As soon as we went to the right he started laying on his horn and flashing his brights. He didn't stop. We were gonig about 85 once we got past him and he started to speed up and get on our tail flashing his brights and honking... for TEN miles. I could not believe this dude. Just before that Doug's vehicle had been making some funny noises so we were a little afraid it would stall and the psych dude would kill us. It didn't happen though (HA). We finally made it away from him and across the border. It was about 30 more minutes to Bethany. We pulled in around 10:30.

Kelly had scoped out the town... I wish I could fully explain it to you...But, this will have to do. Here's a map...

There was, thankfully, a WalMart across from our Super 8. I needed to get a swimsuit b/c I didn't bring one and we had a pool. We walked over... No one wanted us there.... a dude kept following us with a broom trying to make us leave faster... it was just odd. The cheapest suit I could find was 3X men's trunks...awesome. ha! We went back to the room, watched some tv, talked for a while and went to bed.

Saturday morning... our room was FREEZING. I actually got up at 7 to take a very hot shower because I couldn't stand it anymore. Soon after, everyone else woke up and I decided it would be genius to turn the heat on... OR NOT. Apparently it hadn't been turned on it a while... our room smelled like fire. So gross. I checked the weather... it was definitely on the same as it was when I packed Thursday night. Forecast: HIGH of 63; 90% chance of thunderstorms ALL day. ...awesome.

We decided to go to Country Kitchen for breakfast, it was pretty good. Then we decided to go to walmart and get some rain gear so we could head out to the concerts. We all got umbrellas or ponchos and sweatpants and stuff and went back to go swimming for a while. We went swimming.... and the hot tub in the hotel only went to 80 degrees!!!!! the woman claimed it was because she just put water in it. Yeah right. It was so cold. We took turns standing next to the hot tub at the shower with the hot water going throwing the hot water in. We got all showered and dressed and ate some Wendy's and went out to the Lifelight grounds.

We got to the road that took us out there and there wasn't a car in sight. Another moment where we thought that if we were in a movie everyone watching would be telling us to just turn around. We should have listened.

We got there as some people were leaving. We had to park in a very muddy field about a mile away from where the bands were. It was thundering, lightening, and SO windy. When we got to the main stage there were 2 other people there... that made 6 once we sat down. Rachelle Hope started playing, she was pretty good... but it was pouring... the sound board tent snapped and blew away, so did the replacement... it was crazy. The best part was Alan Green (the founder of Lifelight) was standing like right by us the entire time we were there. They announced that they were going to put everything on hold until the storm passed. Well, we had seen the radar and we were soaking wet and freezing cold. We decided that we would just go back to the motel. We got back, dried off, warmed up and took a tour around town trying to find a church for Sunday morning. Also... the sun was shining.

We drove around the entire town probably 5 times... Found the church we wanted to go to and went back to the motel. We ordered some Breaddeaux pizza, watched Cell Block 6 (hahah) and went back to the Cold Hot Tub. We made it fun. Afterwards we played some cards, I taught Doug how to shuffle and watched TV and Youtube videos. It was a nice relaxing evening.

To add to it, the pastor had laryngitis. He was a burly probably usually very loud man with a lot of Baptist gusto. Too bad his voice sounded like puberty.

As we were leaving he coughed into his hand, shook ours and told us goodbye.

awesome.

Okay. That's all I think I have to say. If I think of more I'll add more.

If you made it all the way through this you deserve MAJOR PROPS!!