17.1.12

California Road Trip

We just finished a one week road trip to southern California.  It was a lot of fun, but after 1100 miles and multiple nights of sleeping in the same room, we'll all need some time (and sleep) to recover!  It was just another week where we were reminded how blessed we are to know such wonderful people. 
The first thing I remembered after crossing the state line is how expensive gas is in California.  Fortunately this was an above average price by about $1.40 (this gas station was up in the mountains and the only gas for a long stretch), and even more fortunately we did not have to fill up here!

 
We spent a night visiting Rachel's med school roommate, Becky (Doherty) Leenheer and her family, and headed to Loma Linda the next day to see some friends and tour the new buildings.  A lot has changed--it looks really nice!  And I was reminded how much I enjoyed being at that school...  Then it was up to the mountains to visit Rachel's mentor from med school, Cherry Brandstater.  We stopped for a brief hike in the woods on the way.

Then it was west to Burbank where we stayed with Rachel's aunt and uncle for a few nights.  We got to speak at a chapel service for about 50 kiddos.  It was fun and we got some awesome thank you cards out of it (stay tuned for a future post).  We also got to see Carlan (our teammate working at LA County) and Eric's friend Sarah Parker, from college.

 Thursday we headed down to the OC area for dinner, but killed some time at a fun playground on the way.
 And then Friday, we got a wonderful surprise--Rachel's best friend from med school, Kim (Arledge) Page, was able to fly down to her parents' place in Fallbrook and hang out for a day with us.  Maggie and Wilson reacquainted themselves (they last met when they were about 4 and 6 mo old) and seemed to enjoy each others' company.

 We fed the ducks at a pond by Kim's parents' home.

 And then, finally, it was up to Rancho Cucamonga to visit some friends of Eric's from residency:  Hobie and Tonna Lee, and Jeff Kim.
They cooked us a tremendous Korean feast.  Awesome!  Ben especially enjoyed the miso soup.  Thanks, all, for helping to make our trip a success.

3 comments:

Carla said...

WHY did I miss you???

Heidi said...

wow, the smallness of the world these days never ceases to amaze me :) This is one of those random blog comments that maybe you'll read and maybe not, but in any case - I'm Heidi, a nurse who works with WHM (3 years in Uganda with the Myhres, and headed to South Sudan in a couple weeks). I was perusing all of your McCropder blogs, reading this post re. your California trip and did a double take when I read re. Eric's friends from residency, Hobie and Tonna Wu...wait wait wait, there can't be too many Hobie and Tonna's in the world...and then the picture with Tonna in it confirmed my suspicions. I went to undergrad with them at Penn, and they both lived in my dorm at various times I think....small world. No idea if they'd remember me, but kinda crazy! (and wow did that Korean food look tasty!) And this is after another one of my college friends, Jen (Hall) Fenton tells me that her husband, Greg, did residency with John Cropsey at Will's Eye....I suppose when you're Christians in the medical field also in missions, your paths are bound to cross in crazy ways.

Well, just thought I'd say hey and let you guys know I'm praying for all of you McCropders and excited about your journey together and that you've decided to journey with the rest of us at WHM too! :)

I leave for Africa in 2 weeks, headed to the CMDA conf. at Brackenhurst before I go on to South Sudan, hard to believe it was 2 years ago that Scott and Jennifer and I met with some of you over a quick lunch one day...time flies!

Blessings to you,

Heidi Lutjens

Unknown said...

Looks like some delicious Korean food!! Let me know if/when you make it to the DC area!!