Dallas!!

We made it back to Dallas... Yesterday we went to Houston. Our purpose when we set out was to go all over town shopping. We did a detour to the Johnson Space Center, and wound up doing 5 hours there. I've now been to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Next stop is space...
So we were afraid we goofed up and lost our shopping time. Just a little further down the highway, we found all the stores we were looking in one spot, and Christy got most of what she was looking for. Yea!!
So, we did the rehearsal in the 100 degree heat. I don't believe I've ever sweat that much before. The back of my fingers were sweating. And tomorrow I get to do it in a black tux. Kill me... Kill me now. Oh well, Matt and Adina are worth it.

Two more pictures...

I'm not sure about a ferry named "deadman."

The view from where we are staying.

The Pictures...

Some pictures of our road trip...

The TBN studios in Dallas. Found them totally by mistake...

The Texas/Arkansas border runs through the middle of Texarkana.

The state line goes right through the middle of the federal courthouse.
















The Mississippi River from downtown Memphis.
















The gates of Graceland. We were too cheap to pay to get in.















Cotton in a field in Mississippi

St. Louis Cathedral in Louisiana in the French Quarter
















State capital, Jackson Mississippi















Pastor Scott's home in Louisiana

The place where they make Tabasco Sauce. We took the tour.

Sittin' by the dock of the bay...

We are sitting on the tip of the Bolivar Peninsula, waiting for a ferry to take us across the bay to Galveston. We drove clear across the southern part of Louisiana today. We made a cool stop at the place where they make Tabasco sauce.
Went through some great thunder, lighting and heavy rains storms. It's crazy... We are going along and it's 90 degrees. In less than a minute it drops by 20 degrees. Massive lighting. One went off right over my head while I'm out in an incredible down pour. I was sure that I was going to get hit. There are those of you who have been saying for years that I'm due to get smited by God. I thought this was it...
P. Scott, I've got some pictures I'll post for you later...

A lllloooonnnggg bridge...

Last night coming into New Orleans, we crossed the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, the worlds longest bridge. It's 24 miles long. We were moving along at 60 miles an hour, and it still took 25 minutes. It was dark, so you couldn't see too much, but it was still cool.
In the picture below, the thin white line crossing the lake is two, two lane bridges.



Here's the weather for today in New Orleans...

Made it to New Orleans...

We made it to New Orleans. Last night we were at the Heartbreak Hotel in Memphis. We left there this morning. Now we are at the Hilton, right on the Mississippi river. If our window opened, I could throw a rock and hit it.
Our rental car has a thermometer in it, and the outside temp has been right around 100. We were coming down, and it started to look like rain. The temp dropped from 100 to 86 in about 45 seconds, and then it began to rain HARD!! Later it dropped from from 86 to 75 in a few seconds. Crazy...
So, all things are going good. We were suppose to head to Galveston tomorrow morning, but we decided to spend another day here in New Orleans, and check into Galveston on Monday.
At some point, I'll try and get some pics...

Almost forgot... Financial Peace University...

We did our final preview, and have about 26 couples signed up for FPU.

On the road, in Texarkana...

We are on day one of a 12 day trip. Tonight we are in Texarkana. We flew all night to Dallas, just sleeping a couple of hours on the plane. Of course, it's much warmer here than Alaska. Almost double. Yesterday at home it was 55; today here at one point the thermometer was reading 108. Traffic in Dallas was miserable. One cool thing: we hopped off the highway to hit a Wal-Mart and wound up right next to TBN's big facility. We drove around and took a few pictures. Didn't feel the anointing, but had a huge urge to empty my wallet.... Just kidding.

A revolutionary new way of thinking...

Okay, here's the deal: if the genius's at SNL can figure this out, why can't we? What am I talking about? Click here...

Not much fun...

This started out as a beautiful night of caching. We did an easy cache in Settlers Bay, and then headed out past the Goosebay Airport for a cache on the Knik Arm. The view from where we parked above the beach is incredible. Christy and I came out here a few times early in our relationship.
So, we come down the beach, and head into the woods when the arrow swung that way. Got within 40 feet of cache, and GPS was jumpy and didn't haven't much accuracy. No problem, that was to be expected in the trees. So, we begin the hunt. About five minutes in, with the GPS reading 20 feet, Christy goes "Ouch... Ouch... There's something on me..." I turn around, expecting a thorn, maybe a spider. At first I don't see anything, and then I realize we are in the middle of a swarm of extremely unhappy bees. Apparently we stepped on their home. I've only been stung one other time in my life, so the first sting was a surprise. The second sting hurt, and then I realized this wasn't going to stop, we had to get out of there. We started running through brush, killing the bees as they stung. I took between 12 and 15 hits, and Christy took almost 20. We stinkin' hurt. Ice helps, but we only have two ice packs, and we are stung all over. We tried a baking soda paste, but it didn't help. I'm headed to the store to see what sort of help they may have.
Simply put, that sucked.

FPU is coming soon...

This week is the first preview night for the Financial Peace University. Our Pastor believes in it so much, he's given me the entire main service for the preview night. I'm thinking we've are going to have a good sized group.