Day 1 Journal

We got up early this morning (5:20am) and showered and packed the van. We actually got on I-40 at 6:30. That’s a little late, but it was okay. We hit Memphis at 9:30 and Little Rock a few hours later.

We were thinking about lunch in Little Rock and realized that our friend Dax lives in Arkansas, the nations wasteland. So we headed on to his mansion in Fort Smith. James said it was big, but we didn’t realize that it was the house that they use on Arkansas information booklets to make people think that there is actually something redeeming in Arkansas. It was a giant cobblestone house on a lake. While he was giving us a tour his dog pooped on his carpet. We took a picture.

Other interesting things about Arkansas.

• It is the natural state. Nate particularly enjoyed this.
• We saw several frozen rivers and thought, “Boy, that would be a pretty picture.” But the digital camera wasn’t working yet. So just imagine frozen rivers. They’re great.
• Gas was $1.15 when we entered the state.
• We saw a Scottish Rite Temple and Eric exclaimed, “What the heck does that mean?”
• We were worried about the roads, but they were fine thanks to all the people that wrecked their cars before us. We tried to take pictures of the wrecked cars, but not many of them came out. The best wrecks were of an RV, a semi-truck, and a giant dumpster. “I wish more people would wreck, so that we can get more pictures.”
• Eric gave his “official” don’t wreck my parent’s van talk. Here are the rules: 1)Set Cruise control to at lest ten over the speed limit. That way we get there fast. Every six hours we save an hour. 2)Hard liquor, then beer. We want to make sure the car smells as clean as possible when we return it to Nashville. 3)Always play the music loud enough so that you can’t here any sirens. 4) Seat belts? We don’t need no stinkin’ seat belts.

As we drove into Amarillo we saw the lights from 40 miles away.

Maybe the best thing about today were the ice trees. The ice from last weeks storm still wasn’t melted and the trees in oklahoma were beautiful. We didn’t think that there would be anything about Oklahoma that was beautiful.

Clint Hagen is a beautiful, beautiful man. When we came into Amarillo we called him and he met us at the church. But we went to the wrong building and played in the snow as he just waited for us. Thank you Clint for hanging around. The couches were great. Have a good time on your trip.

During the Christmas break during our junior year at Belmont we went on a trip to the Grand Canyon with some friends.  Teresa and I liked each other, but didn’t start dating for another few months.  We also recorded the trip on our first website together.  I’ve wanted to reproduce those journals here for some time.  So here it is.

Welcome to Our Trip

Introductions

As you know we are spending twelve days going to the Grand Canyon and other western sites. This web site is a way for you to go with us, even though you will never know about Eric’s stinky feet for yourself, and you can enjoy this time with us indirectly from your own home. But some of you only know one or two of us so this is who we are. Clayton Ingalls is a junior religion major and uses Crest Tarter Protection toothpaste. Eric McLaughlin is a junior biology major and loves the television show Ally McBeal. Nate Ragan is a junior music business major and the last book he read was How Stella Got Her Groove Back. James Park is a junior literature major and once killed a hamster with sarcasm. Shannon Witty is a junior literature major and was actually a cheerleader in high school (I still don’t believe it, but it is apparently true). Teresa Cutter is junior religion major and did not eat a single dog or rat in Hong Kong.Gnash, our fearless mascot is a ‘playa’, and tries to steal kisses from both Teresa and Shannon every day.

I sure hope this doesn’t happen to us!

And last but not least, your fearless webmasters:

Adventure Nate and Big Head Clayton

I have to post things like this that brag on the site! This is where I was this summer doing archaeology. This guy, History BIll, came by to film us for the kiddos of Tennessee, and we found him hilarious. I feature prominently. Or not. You can spot me in the beginning a couple of times in a dark blue t-shirt. I wield a bucket and later I am screening. You can tell my professors (Smith and Peres) are trying to figure out how to explain things in a way 4th graders will understand. Tanya Peres has basically been my mentor and friend, and taught me all about the animal bone stuff I have been working on. Aaron is from the state department of archaeology, and is awesome. I’ve been working on another site with him and need to finish writing the site report actually! Anyways, this explains things I have not really gone into in previous blogs. (And notice at the end his bad example to the kids of how to hold a shovel. What was he thinking?!) Hope you enjoy!