1600 Miles, 12000 ft Elevation, 1 Diamond Ring

Well, friends, vacation '08 has come and gone, and I think you could call it a success.

The Drive:
Normally, I wouldn't include the details of the mind-numbing, not to mention butt-numbing, drive across the vast wasteland of Kansas. Lindsey and I set off from KC to Limon, CO after church on Sunday and, on the way, experienced the most exciting thing Kansas has to offer-tornados. You know that storm that destroyed towns in Iowa last week? Well, we drove through it. Even pulled off the road and parked under a bridge, because that's what all the cars with KS plates were doing. Under the bridge, we were aided by a nice and nervous young KS man who really took us under his wing, updating us about the status of the tornado, scaring the heck out of us with his nervous energy, telling Lindsey to "put the notebook down 'cause hell on earth is coming our way", and then relaying that his Mom said if we were driving west we'd be ok. We did, and we were

Day One:
Thanks to Mom and Dad for the recommendation of Grand Lake, CO for our pre-National Park day. Ignoring that suggestion, we instead decided upon Winter Park, which, as it turns out, is pretty much dead when the ski resort closes. The locals call this time of year "mud season", which is aptly named, but to us it was "cheap and private season." We had the Vintage Hotel, the resort hotel of Winter Park, absolutely all to ourselves. Nobody even at the desk. Highlights: Hernando's Pizza with over 20,000 dollar bills with messages written on them taped to the walls and tables and great pizza. Then, drinks and cigars in the outdoor hot tub as the cold rain sprinkled our heads. Oh, and a very informative sign on our hike that explained, complete with bronzed representations, the difference between moose, elk and deer scat (poop).

Day Two:
Into the wild. Instead of going around, we went to our campsite at Moraine Park campground in Rocky Mountain National Park, by taking the highway through the park and over the pass. It was a wonderful drive, complete with an up close, safe-in-car, sighting of a young bull moose and plenty of elk. We wound our way through the park, up to the continental divide and back down. We were driving through clouds for a while and then we broke through and could see most of the CO part of the range from the top. This is when we started to realize that in May, there's still A LOT of snow on the ground in the mountains. We got to our campsite, set up Andy's "no-trick-to-it" tent, finding out that the only trick was that it takes four adults to set up the thing easily. We had a perfect site, across from bathrooms but behind rocks as to hide us from other campers and back up against a valley that was full of elk. Elk 20-30 feet away. Well, that night was cold, a little wet, and cloudy. But we had a fire, the best one I've ever built by the way, cooked s'mores, played guitar, went to bed covered head to toe in sweatshirts, pants, socks, stocking hats and gloves. I have to say that through all of this, Lindsey was awesome. I love camping, and even I was pretty miserable. It was too cold. But she was a trooper.

Day Three:
I woke up on the ground. I went to sleep on an air matress. Aparently, 225lbs is the limit for this thing. To start our first full day in the park, we went to Estes Park for breakfast, shared an awesome omlet, brushed our teeth and washed our faces with a group of Korean vacationers in the McD's bathroom. Then we went to Bear Lake trailhead, where we spent most of the day. I can't really explain hiking across mounds of snow, but where it wasn't snow-covered the path was muddy from melt. But it was a beautiful morning, Bear Lake was gorgeous. We hiked to Alberta Falls, Nymph Lake and Dream Lake. This part of the park really could be the most beautiful place on earth. Dream Lake has a tree on the bank that is bent in such a way that it is the perfect chair and we spent a lot of time there. For those of you who know, we couldn't go to Emerald Lake because the entire trail was covered in snow and we couldn't even find it. As we got back to our camp, we made the difficult decision to not camp another night. FYI, Lindsey didn't wuss out, it was my suggestion. Rain was coming, I didn't want to wake up feeling fat on the deflated air matress again, and it was just too cold. So, we went back to Estes and got a little cabin. That night we enjoyed White Russians (THE DUDE ABIDES) and silver casserole, a dish introduced to me by my father of hamburger patties with carrots, potatoes and onions all wrapped up in foil (silver) and thrown on the fire. It was a wonderful night and we definately made the right choice.

Day Four:
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. We decided to hike to Bierstadt Lake in the morning, partly because it's called Beer Place and partly because I'd been there before and knew how beautiful it was. The hike was 1.2 miles, not a bad haul, but in those 1.2 miles we climbed 650 feet in elevation. Exhausted, we reached the top and took the wrong fork in the trial "around the lake". We figured that it would be around the banks of the lake, but it wasn't. Finally, we found the trail to the waters edge, broke through the trees and were standing 25 yards from a cow moose standing in the lake and walking toward us. We were awed and amazed by the closeness and size of her and then we saw her two kids following her in the lake and our amazment went to fear. A mother moose is one of the most dangerous animals on earth. I have to admit, I probably scared Lindsey more than the moose did, but I wanted to get out of there. So, with the moose moving in toward blocking the trail, we went off-trail keeping the lake to our left and pounded slowly through the forest getting away from the moose who had sensed our presence by then. It was stupid, we could've gotten lost, or hurt but it was better than encountering an angry mother moose. Eventually we found the trial again, and started back. Passing a few other hikers, and one family asking mysteriously "did you see two boys up ahead?" which we did not and one family from Nebraska that knew someone that Lindsey knows. On the way back down the switchbacks, as I looked across the valley to our left and up at four peaks to our right, an idea started to blossom in my head. About three/fifths up the mountain side, we stopped for a break, I saw a bottle dangerously off the trail down the slope and, of course, went to retrieve it. Pictures of my friend Justin sliding down the mountainside in Steamboat Springs came to my head, but only briefly. (He was fine, btw). I got the bottle and came back up with a smile on my face that Lindsey had never seen before. She said she almost cried at that moment, thinking that I just loved CO so much and was so proud of myself for getting the bottle. I put the bottle into the backpack, and brought back out a little red box with a diamond ring inside. And so, on the side of a mountain, with the valley to our left and the magestic Rocky peaks to our right, I got down on my knee and asked Lindsey to marry me. She giggled. And giggled. And teared up. And giggled. And said YES! At high noon, mountain time, Thursday the 29th of May, 2008, in one of the most beautiful places on earth, I asked the most beautiful girl on earth to be my wife and became the happiest guy on earth.

Day Five:
The rest of the trip really doesn't matter. We spent some time in Estes Park, then drove to Boulder, one of the coolest cities ever. We stayed at Boulder's waste-free hotel that produces, clearly, no waste and minimal carbon emissions. Our first meal as an engaged couple was at Walnut Brewery, steak and unbelievable asiogo cheese dip and a beer that was the perfect middle ground between Newcastle and Guniess, so yeah, I was in heaven. Spent the next morning on Pearl St. in Boulder, a world famous prominade and outdoor shopping/dining area. Then we decided to make the drive all the way from Boulder to KC. I highly recommend getting engaged a day before having to spend 9.5 hours in a car, 'cause we have a pretty freakin' awesome wedding planned already!

Well, there you have it. Bradley James Bryan and Lindsey are engaged! Pictures of the trip will be on Snapfish and Facebook if you have the time.

Next up, Mustoe's big day-June 21st!

Peace, Happiness, Colorado. B

In Case You Missed It...

Well, I've been gone for awhile, friends. Lost in a world of pages and pages of theological discourse and end of semester seminary busywork. So, here's some things that have been on my mind lately.

Good show, John McCain, for rejecting the endorsment of Hagee and that other pastor. Let's say one thing, these guys, who claim that the Koran (english spelling, not traditional) mandates that all Muslims (who Hagee calls Islamics) kill as many Christians and Jews as they possibly can, are just as crazy as Jeremiah Wright and much more dangerous. Hagee believes, in clear conflict with Jesus' words, that the end times are immenant and that Christians should be actively working towards starting a war between the Iranians, the Russians and the Israelites; that it is only after Israel regains its pre-Roman empire power, at the expense of countless innocent Palestinian lives, that Jesus will return. Of course, all true belivers will be raptured and miss out on the carnage and agony of the war of wars. Believing this is not crazy: calling on Christians and the American people to work towards, hope for, pray for, war is absolutely insane. Good work, John. I'm not going to vote for you, but good work.

While we're on politics, I want to say one thing to the democratic candidates: STOP IT!! When this whole thing started, getting a democrat in the White House seemed as easy as some funny reference that's really easy to do. Now, because of Hilary's never-ending scratch and bite for the nomination, the party is divided and THE ONLY THING that she's doing is taking votes away from Obama. What kind of presidential candidacy platform is, "I'm still in it"? You missed your chance to bow out gracefully; now you're just going to lose. There is another thing in which Hilary is succeeding: white people are racist. I know not everyone who votes for Clinton votes for the white chick. But, come on. Clearly, there are a lot of ignorant people out there who still, in frakin' 2008, won't vote for a black person. Sad. Just sad.

On to church politics. Another General Conference and not all that much has changed. Some little stuff about retirement, candidacy, who can serve communion where, and a list of other stuff that really means nothing to ministry at the local church level. Not that anyone's listening but here goes. The words, "all people are of sacred worth" and "incompatible with Christian teaching" can NOT go together. They don't cancel each other out; the latter cancels out the former. Isn't reason one of the quadralateral. Well, these two sentences don't make sense together.

Here's some AWESOME stuff:
1. Iron Man...awesome. Unbelievable.
2. Looking forward: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Incredible Hulk, Prince Narnia, The Love Guru, Sin City 2. Gonna be a good summer for movies.
3. Next week, Lindsey and I head to Colorado and Rocky Mountain National Park. Can't wait. Haven't been in the mountains in a long time. The forecast is for cool weather, and might get a little wet, but Wednesday, the day we're planning on spending all of in the park hiking, is 68 degrees and partly cloudy. Perfect.
4. On the 13th of May, in Kansas City, MO, I saw Elvis Costello and the Police. It was amazing. Highlights: Elvis and Sting singing Alison togther, the multi-instrument percussion of Wrapped Around Your Finger and the encore performance of King of Pain. Amazing.

Looking forward to this summer. Gonna read some books, write some devotionals based on rock songs (maybe for a book someday), play guitar, working a camp, going to Musty-Must's wedding, getting together with the ENTIRE Bryan clan, preaching for that clan at Missouri UMC and just being and doing awesome.

I'll be back periodically. Peace.

BB

If you don't have anything nice to say...

I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm not blogging because I'm smack in the middle of finals weeks, not because of my pledge to be more positive.

I have a lot of things on my mind and a lot of positive things going on, just don't really have anytime to blog.

Once my marathon of assignments is complete for another semester, the Bustle will return in regular fashion.

Thanks for the patience,
BB