Category: Travel

Oh man it’s good to be back home.

Sure, I travel a lot. But on average I only go away two weekends a month, which really only adds up to 6 or 7 days a month away from home. Contrast that with my last few weeks… I was gone from July 4th until late last night (July 19th).

Whew! It’s good to be home in Sacramento. I really like it here.

People always ask, “If you could live anywhere…”

Funny… when my wife and I were tooling around Maine, we really liked it, and even pondered the idea of, “What if we moved here some day?” (We always look around- wondering about the answer to the question, “If you could live anywhere, where would you live?”) We even loved New Brunswick CANADA and saw some cute houses near the small town of Quispamsis that were really nice. Near the ocean, peaceful… not bad. And New England was cute- from the small tourist trap of Freeport Maine to the more urban streets around Harvard in Boston (no, I didn’t kiss the statue’s foot!). Fun.

But bottom line… I love Sacramento.

My ten second pitch: 90 minutes from San Francisco, 90 minutes from Lake Tahoe, Far enough away from Los Angelos (6 hoursish, depending on your definition of LA), but close enough to visit. Nice and hot during the summer, but not humid! No natural disasters (no hurricanes, Tornados, etc. Earthquakes are a good 90 minutes away, fires 45 to 60 minutes away. Flooding happens, but not often, and not near my house).

So if you could live anywhere… where would you live?

I’ve finally got a moment to breathe here in Canada. Although I’m not sure whether this moment is measured in miles… or kilometers! I’m so confused! 

Let me back up.

We flew into Boston on Sunday. Lori and I (yes, just me and the wife on this trip- very cool!) ate a deliciious taste of Legal Seafood in the United Terminal at Boston’s Logan airport. If you’ve never had Legal Seafood, it’s a great chain with a very tasty chowder.

An hour later we were exiting Mass. and into New Hampshire. Everyone pull out your U.S. maps. The N.H. shoreline is only like 14 miles. We were by the shore, so our NH experience was about 15 minutes, then onto Maine.

Maine: allow me to quote my wife. “This place is adorable!”

My wife loves Maine. Please, no one in Maine should offer me a pastoring job, because my wife would make me take it!  🙂 We stopped in Freeport, Maine… a cute little town with outlet malls and (again quoting my wife) “adorable little houses.”

I really did like it. We’re gonna try to stop there on the way back on Saturday. The town’s McDonalds was even this old colonial house, but with a little McDonald’s sign out front. Hilarious. Very cool little town.

Monday morning as we winded our way through Maine we saw some very pretty terrain. My favorite little street: Cow Patty Lane. I kid you not!

Heading NorthEast, we finally hit the Canadian border. The border crossing was simple, we showed our passports, answered a few questions, “no, we don’t have any drugs, plants, pets or children tied up in the trunk,” and were merrily on our way. This was my wife’s first time in Canada.

I stopped at the first Tim Horton’s (Canada’s version of Starbucks mixed with Dunkin Donuts) and we got some Canadian coins for the tolls approaching. Within an hour we entered St. John (by the Bay of Fundy in New Bruns.)… beautiful little seacoast city. I had to speak that night, so we didn’t stop, but proceeded about 15 minutes further to Quispamsis, a small town on the outskirts of St. John. I spoke to about 400 kids at the Tidal Impact event (I already told you about that event here) then we ate dinner with all the event’s leaders. Great group of people. We really enjoyed them.

This morning we SLEPT in for the first time in a LONG TIME. I decided to go on a run, so I did my normal routine of measuring my route with the car before I ran it. This was funny. Lori came with me and we noticed that the miles seemed to be flying by. But I measured the route, parked, then I embarked on my 5.5 mile run.

At 2 miles and couldn’t figure out what was happening. Something was wrong. Either this Canada air had given me a speed boost, or we measured wrong. At 2.5 miles it hit me. “Freaking Kilometers!!!” So as I continued my run, I started adding how much more I had to run to get even 5 miles. By the time I ran up a hill that lasted a kilometer and felt a little of the NB humidity, I ended up only running about 6 kilometers which I think is about 4 miles. Bah!!!!

Tomorrow I’ll have to reset the car back to miles and take a reading of my course again.

Lori and I ran to Tim Horton’s again this morning so she could get her morning coffee. We were there at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday… and that place was PACKED! What the heck were all these Canadians doing in this place! Don’t they have jobs! i mean…this place was full of adults, kids… you name it. It was kinda cool. It looked like a British Pub on Friday night.

I asked Lori how she liked her “Timmy’s” (that’s what the locals call a Tim Horton’s coffee) Lori said she liked it better than Starbucks. Not bad.

I like Canada.

This weekend I’m doing an adapted version of my CONNECT training workshop here in Northern California (yay, only two hours from my house!) … I’m training both student and adult leaders to reach the other students they encounter in their everyday lives.

This has been a really fun training to put together. In the last six months I’ve trained several groups of student leaders with a similar training. I review the six types of kids they’ll encounter and how to reach each one. I bring six kids up front and put a sign on them (No Way Kid, Stagnant Kid, etc.). After describing each kid, I point to a kid and ask the group, “How do we reach him?” “How do we reach her?”

This is where it always gets fun. It seems that 90% of kids simply reply, “Invite them to youth group.”

Two of the six types of kids I describe -by definition- don’t want to come to our stuff. So I say that. “They aren’t interested in coming to our stuff! So now how do you reach them?”

Silence.

Hence the need for this training.

I’m looking forward to the workshop tomorrow. It’s a 9AM to 2PM workshop. I’ve got a ton of video, media, and interaction. Fun stuff. If you’d like, it would be great if you prayed for the training.

My CONNECT book comes out at the end of this year.

The Looney, the Tooney, the Canucks, Much More Music, and “Let’s go get a coffee and Timmys!” These are the just some of the everyday things that we American’s don’t know about Canada.

In all actuality, there is A LOT we don’t know about Canada. Funny… it’s our largest neighbor, yet so many of us know so little about the country. (No, you can’t buy beachfront property in Saskatchewan, and no, Tim Horton is NOT their Prime Minister!)

My first surprise was when I passed the first gas station and saw this!

Check out that price!

Yeah… I thought, “Holy Crud! I’m moving here if gas is only 97 cents a gallon!” Then someone explained to me that that was 97 cents per LITER.

Oh… that’s not so good then.

Their TV takes a little getting used to also. It seems to be a little bit less censored than American TV (if you can believe that). They don’t have MTV on cable, just a show called Much More Music. Satalite subscribers can get MTV, but the Canadian MTV can’t play music videos because Much More Music has the rights (so it was explained to me).

Tim Hortons is the Starbucks of Canada. Yes, they have Starbucks also. But when someone says, “let’s go get a Timmys,” they’re referring to Tim Hortons. Tim Hortons is probably a closer match to a Dunkin Donuts. They have good coffee and a bunch of mediocre donuts.

The money up North isn’t that different, but it requires a little thinking. I went to buy a burger and it was 7 bucks. That required math on my part… because 7 bucks is about 5 bucks American… very rough math. At least they take American money- that was cool. I never exchanged money on the whole trip.

The news said the temperature was going to be 20 degrees. Again… it took me a second to realize, “Oh, Celsius.” Someone there told me to simply add 15 and double it and that would be close to the Fahrenheit. (that’s a lot easier than the official way: subtract 32 from the Fahrenheit number, divide the answer by 9, then multiply by 5.)

Cross a bridge? It only costs a Tooney, or two Looneys.

Yeah…that’s what I thought!  🙂

A Looney is a 1 Dollar coin with a picture of a loon on it. So guess what they called the two dollar coin? Yep. There you have it.

I always have a good time in Canada. This was only my third time across our great Northern border (I’ll actually be traveling there this summer also to the East Coast in New Brunswick where I’ll speak at a conference). Matt and John at South Abbotsford Church (an hour East of Vancouver) were great guys and it was fun to spend the weekend with them.

Saturday I taught my CONNECT workshop to a small network of youth workers from surrounding churches. Saturday night and Sunday morning I preached at their church. Sunday afternoon I did my parenting workshop– really neat group of parents. That was probably my favorite time of the whole weekend (I really love doing parenting workshops. Parents seem to be starving for information and ideas helping them understand and connect with their kids). Sunday night I spoke to their high school kids, about 90 something kids. (because the Canucks game ended… if not, there would have been less than half of that!)

The whole weekend was fun. Thanks to my Canadian brotha’s for bringing me out. I look forward to working with you again.

Monday in my blog I offered a free book to the first person who could give me a little history on the Canucks riot. Dan Kish- contact me (use the CONTACT US button on the top of my blog) to get your free book. Good job. (So did you look it up on the web? or did you know it already? Comment below. We’re all curious.)

I just walked in the door from my trip to Canada, a great time ministering with a church about an hour east of Vancouver in a small town called Abbotsford.

Yes… I was actually in Vancouver last night… not a great time to be in Vancouver. Why, you ask? Because their hockey team won! (I know… I know… it doesn’t make sense). But everytime the team wins, the surrounding towns go crazy! In Abbotsford, it’s a giant “cruise” up and down the streets. I was speaking Sunday night and the pastor asked, “Honestly, if the game was still in overtime, who WOULDN’T be here?” A huge amount of hands went up.

Wow. I’m no match for hockey! These guys accepted the Canucks into their heart at age 5!

I was in a pizza place for dinner when the game started. Everytime the Canucks scored the place errupted. It was like being in Oakland during a Raiders game. It was like being anywhere in WI during… during the entire football season!!!! (let’s be honest… Cheeseheads are a little obsessive about the Packers!)

If you think that’s bad… feel free to research what happened when Vancouver’s Canucks lost the playoffs years ago in game 7. (Okay… quick contest for us Yanks. First American to comment on my blog with the answer gets one of my books free. Your choice.)

I’ll blog more about my Canada trip later. I’ve got a pile of work in my inbox and barely any time to do it.

Gotta go! Off to help with my daughter’s track team!

WINNER NOTE: I approve all comments before adding them. I’m just approving them now, 10 AM Tues morning. So you’ll see them added now. Looks like Dan won- I’ll be emailing him. Funny… most people just did an internet search!  🙂