The Great Road Trip Day 9 - Jax, FL

Several weeks ago I had told Danielle about how a few of the singles in MoCo and myself had gone down to the Lincoln Memorial early in the morning for a sunrise prayer. I told her it was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen, and that when she came up here, I'd love to show it to her sometime. Well, that must have gotten the wheels in her brain turning, because she suggested that when I came down to Jax, she and I should have a sunrise prayer on the beach! I was all for that...except for the whole early rising thing. I woke up around 5:30am-ish to get ready for her to pick me up around 6. Somehow, waking up at 5:30a while on vacation just didn't sound right...


Dee came to pick me up a little after 6 and we headed down to Neptune Beach, which was several blocks down from where myself, Nick and Minh were staying. We were both a bit blurry-eyed, but happy to be meeting up to pray. I wore my UM hoodie and she was wearing her Arkansas hoodie; good thing we were unified through the blood of Christ. Otherwise, there might have been some fighting. :)

We got to the beach and I was expecting it to be virtually deserted (Dee said it was one of her favorite beaches because it's usually less crowded than the other ones). To my surprise, there was a large group of people huddled up on the beach doing something (praying, maybe? Why else would a group of people be up that early on a Saturday? They didn't sound loud and obnoxious, like they had been up all night getting wasted), but they were too far away for me to tell. There were also various people walking and running along the sand. Guess I'm not the only morning person in the world after all! We looked for a place to sit, and eventually nuzzled into a sand dune.


Dee started the prayer off, and as she did the sun began to rise right in front of us. It was breath-taking. We stopped mid-prayer to take pictures and praise God for this incredible display of beauty. Those who make sacrifices to seek God like that are sometimes rewarded in very obvious and immediate ways, and this was one of those times. After she finished, I prayed. I remember thanking God for new beginnings: a new day, a new life in Christ and a renewed relationship with Danielle. I was truly grateful for all three of those things.

After I finished praying, I knew it was time. I was a bit nervous as my thoughts raced to put into words what I wanted to say. Finally, I spoke. I told Dee how I was grateful for the new beginning between her and I, and I wanted to start another new beginning right here and now, with her as my girlfriend. She was more than happy to accept, with her exact words being, "of course." Woohoo!!!

The next 30-45 minutes were a blur...I don't remember what we talked about...I just remember holding her close and her hand in mine. With all that had gone on over the past several months, and especially over the past month, I was very happy that God had brought me to this place. He truly does work all things out for the good of those who love him, even when what He's doing doesn't seem to make sense at the time. Thank you, God. Thank you!

Eventually, we left the beach and went to a local diner where we had a yummy breakfast. Again, I cannot remember all of what we talked about, but I do remember staring into her eyes (with, I'm sure, a big goofy grin on my face), smiling and laughing. For me, it was memorable in all the right ways.


After breakfast, Dee dropped me back off at the guy's place, where Minh and Nick met me and congratulated me (I had text messaged them that Dee had said "yes!"). We got cleaned up and met up with Dee and Sissy a while later to take a day trip to St. Augustine (the oldest city in America).

St. Augustine is a small, quaint, historically rich town about an hour from Jacksonville. We drove down there and spent the afternoon exploring it for all it was worth. We took a tour of a famous fortress, in whom many battles were fought. Amazingly, none of the occupants of that fort ever lost a battle! The fort was right on the water, giving it a clear tactical advantage over any approaching ships. The tour guides were dressed up as the fortress soldiers of the past would have been dressed: in full military uniform with hats and guns. They even performed a cannon-firing demonstration for the crowd! They shot a blank, of course, but it was as loud as the real thing!

After touring the castle, we explored many of St. Augustine's little shops and businesses. We stopped for smoothies and pretzel-dogs (a hot dog covered in pretzel coating...surprising tasty) along the way, as well as stopping at a hammock store to try out the "merchandise."

After coming back from St. Augustine, we came back to Dee's place where we would all hang out and play some games. Some of Dee's friends came over and we all started watching the NCAA basketball semi-finals instead of breaking out the games. I wanted to enjoy the game and talk to the Jax peeps, but my allergies were starting to act up. Although Dee had vacuumed several days ago, Oreo getting to rome around the condo for two whole days gave him plenty of time to put back the dander that Dee had cleaned up. So I started to go into full wheeze mode, and had a terrible time breathing. I tried popping some Benadryl, but they didn't work; they just made me sleepy. Nick, Minh and I ended up leaving earlier than planned, because I was just dying. Despite that, I'd have to say it was a pretty great day. :)

The Great Road Trip Day 2 - North Carolina

After a fairly good night sleep, I woke up around 8:15am-ish and felt the need to take a walk. I was thinking about working out, but I was still feeling some of the effects of being around Caitlin's cat, so my breathing was still slightly labored. So I took a walk around Edwin's apartment complex, praying as I went along. It was a great walk and a great prayer...not even the little Chihuahua that ran out to attack me could get my spirits down!


As I came back in, the guys were starting to stir. They eventually got up, got cleaned up and we headed out around 10 to pick up some breakfast and meet Caitlin and some of her friends from yesterday at her house. We scooped up some food from Panera (ask Nick how good his sandwich was) and drove to Caitlin's. When we got there, Caitlin wasn't ready, so we chilled for a bit. When she was finally ready, she came downstairs wearing the t-shirt you see in the picture. Craziness! These two were definitely cut from the same mold.

We were scheduled to take a tour of the Lowe's motor speedway around 11, but since it was raining, it got pushed back to 1:30p. In the meantime, we went out to eat at a local but popular diner. I wasn't that hungry since we had just eaten a couple hours ago, but I had a little bit of something. You don't think I'd let something like being full stop me from eating, did you? Wow...that sounds really bad...

After eating, we came back to Caitlin's house and watched some Jeopardy episodes they had on DVR. It's amazing how love for Jeopardy is universal!

The Lowe's motor speedway is one of the most popular NASCAR speedways in the country. With stadium seating combined with the people that camp out on the in-field, the stadium holds over 160,000 people! The race scenes from Taladega Nights and Days of Thunder were both filmed there, as well as numerous NASCAR commercials and television spots. I never realized just how huge NASCAR was, not only as a sport but also the tracks where they race; I was definitely impressed. When we arrived at the speedway, we went inside to meet our tour guide. As we milled around the building lobby, a man called out to Nick, "Hey Nick! You're Nick, right?" None of us knew this guy, so we were all a bit confused. But it was all pretty simple: The guy knew Nick's name because of Caitlin's t-shirt! We all laughed about that.


Our tour guide loaded us up in a van and took us inside the speedway. We could tell she loved her job, as she was very excited to tell us all the facts about the speedway. The coolest part of the whole tour in my opinion was when she drove us around the speedway track. At it's highest point, the track is banked at 24 degrees! She actually stopped the van on the bank, and I was just waiting for our van to roll over! Thankfully, it didn't. She said that the race cars fly around the track at over 170 mph, and when they're going that fast, they don't even feel the elevation in the bank. I wish we could have done that in the vans, but she only got up to 70 mph.

After the tour was done, Caitlin revealed the next part of our agenda, which she had kept secret from us: We were going to go Geo-cacheing. If you've never heard of it, basically you are given the GPS coordinates of a "treasure box" hidden somewhere in the woods, and you're to use a GPS to find the treasure cache, which will have clues to another cache. Inside the cache are things that other people who have found it before you have left, and you're supposed to leave something in it as well. We spent a few minutes figuring out how the GPSs worked, and then we hit the road! We were able to find the first one without many problems, but the other two that we tried to find wern't there! We looked and searched and dug but found nothing. It was a bit frustrating, especially since it was raining the entire time, but we made the best of it. We figured other people must have moved them or taken them away completely. Ah well...

We came back to Caitlin's and dried off, watching more Jeopardy and old episodes of The Office. Our dinner plans changed a bit, so myself, Minh, Ben, Paula and Corie went to Panera to catch some dinner, while Nick and Caitlin went to see a friend of hers. They joined us a bit later and we all went out to Coyote Joe's, which is a country/western club. This was absolutely a new experience for me, and I was looking forward to doing a little line dancing.


Coyote Joe's was a trip! Imagine a huge warehouse of a place with a two levels, pool tables, a couple bars, tables, a mechanical bull, a huge dance floor and a live band! People were line dancing and square dancing all over the place, and there were plenty of guys and girls in cowboy hats and boots. Our group got on the dance floor and tried to keep up with the line dancers, but those dances were hard! I thought most line dances would be fairly simple, and a few of the dances I managed to pick up, but all in all, I was lost trying to keep up with those guys. Now, I know you're asking yourself, "Did you ride the mechanical bull, Russ?" Do you really need to ask that question? What you should be asking yourself is, "How long did you stay on the bull, Russ?" I'm not sure...I saw the video of me on the bull (yes, there is a video floating around somewhere of me on the bull) and I don't think it was that long...maybe about 20 seconds, if that. It was fun though! Both Nick and Minh rode the bull as well...great times!

The rest of the night was spent on the dance floor. I gave up trying to line dance and just did my own thing for the rest of the night. It was great fun and Minh and I made it back home sometime around 1a. Nick got in about an hour later. Another good day in the books.