I recently got back from an amazing two week trip out to California with Soul Survivor. We went out mainly to work at a conference called 'Urban Renewal' and then a few other events, a few of which got cancelled for different reasons. The trip was awesome - spending two weeks traveling around a beautiful part of the world with some of my best friends. We started with a few days off filled with shopping, LA sightseeing, Newport Beach, Balboa Island, Huntington Beach and Santa Monica. The conference ran for about three days at Southland's Church in Brea. It's focus was on the vision of combining the ministry of the Holy Spirit with preaching the Bible and the power that comes from that. It was such a privilege to travel to another part of the world and see that essentially God is moving and inspiring the same things as He is in Europe. We then went on to visit Rock Harbor Church in Costa Mesa. I loved this church and would love to spend some more time there learning from them.
Newport Beach
Santa Monica
In'N'Out Burger
The road trip began the following day. We piled into three minibuses and drove for hours through the desert in California and Nevada to reach Las Vegas. The hotel we stayed in for the night was insane. It looked like a castle, had a huge casino on the ground floor, had a beautiful pool and was right on the Strip. I've never been anywhere like it before.
After hanging out at the pool for a while and getting ready to go out, we hit the Las Vegas Strip. Las Vegas to me felt like a theme park. Fake, bright lights, only there for entertainment. We saw all the important sights and hotels and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, which was so good! We walked the whole length of the Strip and back again which was a mission! We stopped for the Bellagio fountains which was amazing! I love fireworks and the fountains were like a sort of water fireworks so I was a fan.
All in all I wasn't a massive fan of Vegas. There was such a taste of sin in the air and it was an uncomfortable place to be. You see things you don't really want to see and would not see anywhere else. It's a surreal place. A city built in the desert purely for human desires and sin. I'm not convinced I would go back...
The day after experiencing Vegas, we carried on towards the Grand Canyon. On our way we stopped in a tiny town in the middle of the desert on Route 66 that looked like something out of a film.
We ate at a little restaurant called Roadkill Cafe which had massive stuffed snakes and animal heads on the wall, but served good food!
I particularly liked the drinks out of jars! Yummy raspberry ice-tea!
We finally made it to the Grand Canyon after many hours of driving. It was more than worth it. We looked out at the vantage points and then found a little trail of rocks you could climb down to get a different view. It was breath-taking. We said it was like after seeing Las Vegas the day before, the Grand Canyon was and amazing comparison of God's creativity building skills compared to man'. There is nothing even near a competition.
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