California Days

Labor Day weekend for me was spent with Tucson Wesley in California! I was given the exciting opportunity to join the Wesley group as a chaperon for their weekend trip to the San Diego area. 

I was so thankful to have the chance to go to California--especially so soon! I love traveling and seeing different parts of the country, but since I don't have a car here I have expected that to be challenging. Thus, it was an amazing blessing for me to get to visit California my first weekend here. 

A lot of people were surprised to hear that I had never been to Cali or the Pacific Ocean before! San Diego is a common vacation destination for Arizonans. (I was also told that people from San Diego don't like Arizonans much.) 

Here are some main points from the trip: 

• Friday afternoon I left  the church with a group of 9 others in a church van. With a few stops, it took us 6 or 7 hours to get to the church we were staying at in San Diego (which, fun fact, is the biggest UMC in the Western Jurisdiction.) 
• The drive, though long, I enjoyed a lot because of the scenery: cacti, mountains, enormous piles of rocks that seem like mountains but probably aren't, seemingly endless desert sand dunes (where apparently Star Wars was filmed?), border patrol vehicles, and the fence marking the US-Mexico border. 
• After the second van and car arrived late in the night, we had a group total of 28 people. 
• We spent our first day at the beach on Coronado Island. It was my first time seeing and swimming in the Pacific! The beach has always been a special place for me, so it was wonderful to smell the salt water and feel the sand on my feet. I reached my personal goal of leaving without a sunburn, and the water was so warm! It only felt cold to me for a few minutes; it was far warmer than any of the Great Lakes or the north Atlantic. 
• In the evening, we visited the Arizona State Wesley at a nearby church to have dinner together as well as a short devotional time.  (Also a rivalry exists between ASU and U of A. Anyone surprised? I wasn't but I still had to ask.) 
• On Sunday morning, we had a beautiful worship service at a public park in the Mission Bay area. The ASU and U of A Wesley Foundations were there, as were the Lutheran student groups from both schools. A group from Northern Arizona University was there as well. The scenery was beautiful, and I loved seeing members of different groups all lead the musical worship together. (Some songs I really love, too. 
• After this, most of our group went to Mission Beach. I went with the other chaperons to Balboa Park, a historic part of San Diego with many museums, older buildings, and beautiful architecture. Unfortunately we couldn't spend much time here because we were hungry and the restaurants had high-price menus. 
• After a short walk in Balboa Park, we drove into downtown San Diego to try and find somewhere to eat. Sidenote--driving a church van in parking ramps is a bit scary. Even though the height limit is posted when you drive in and a bar hangs down, our van was so close to the cutoff that we were constantly flinching as we drove through the garage. 
• That evening we went to a restaurant called Stacked. It allowed for nearly endless customization. Each table is given an iPad, on which they can go to any menu area and either "start from scratch" or start with a pre-made menu item. You can drag and drop different items to either add them or remove them from your order--and watch the price change accordingly. You can even pay at your table using the iPad and easily split your bill. 
• We also went to Yogurt-Land once. This was a win-lose situation for me. On the downside, it was late and I was exhausted, and they didn't have taro-flavored frozen yogurt. :( On the upside, they did have mochi as a topping. 
• The last night, we had a short outdoor devotional time. One of the Wesley members gave a short talk that I loved. What stood out to me from it was the idea that if we tell our friends about movies/sports/foods that we love, why wouldn't we tell them about the God that we love? If God is so important to us, shouldn't we be sharing Him? We also sang some of my favorite worship songs, Cannons and Revelation Song. 

Overall, the whole weekend was a great experience. It was fun to get to know some of the Wesley students and learn more about Tucson Wesley's group culture. (The things I think about after being in IV...) The songs we sang for worship had very solid, Biblical lyrics and I appreciated that a lot. I learned more about Arizona and California and specifically the University of Arizona. I had some great conversations with the Wesley students and I'm grateful I was able to spend that time with them. My first California trip was a success!