Jim & Al's Excellent Adventure Pt. I

Day 1

Well we got away from Edmonton several hours later than originally planned, leaving the city at about 3 p.m. Shortly into our epic journey we both knew we would be in trouble, as fatigue quickly set it. The crazy thing is that both of us, for completely separate reasons, only got 3 hours of sleep the night before; so off we go for a 28 hr. drive, on only 3 hours of sleep! Coca-Cola classic and Red Bull all the way baby!

At about 1:45 a.m. we successfully crossed the border. Given my level of exhaustion I struggled to successfully answer the border guards question about how long we would be staying in the States, and needed to ask Al for clarity! I was slightly concerned that my expired passport and AB drivers license would not have been sufficient, but all went smoothly.

It’s currently 3:46 a.m. and Al and I are hurtling down highway 85 in Montana. As we enter a small town called Alexander, Al lurches the car to the right to avoid the extremely large dead animal on the road. As we come into town we pass a motel called ‘The Ragged Butt Inn’! How classic is that! We decided from now on to stop and take pictures of these places because you simply can’t beat the ‘Ragged Butt Inn’

Al and I have been talking about issues of faith, spiritual authority and territorial spirits. Looking at the story of Jesus calming the storm, was the storm an attempt by the devil to prevent Jesus from going somewhere, or was it simply an act of nature? Is there far more going on spiritually around us, expressing itself in natural means, than we are consciously aware of? What does it mean for us to walk in the same authority that Jesus walked in? In Matt. 10, Christ gave the disciples the same authority as He had. Many of us would agree that according to the Scriptures we have the same authority, but practically speaking we don’t really know how to walk in that authority. And how does faith intersect with our ability/inability to walk in spiritual authority?

It’s now 5 a.m. and the sun is beginning to rise. We are looking forward to getting to the interstate where we can make up some time!

This morning I decided that extreme measures were needed: I would try to have one of those fancy coffees at Starbucks; one that has some much other stuff in it you hopefully couldn't really taste the coffee. I needed the caffine! WOW was it gross!! I gagged several times. It was awful! I have no idea how people can drink it... Luckily, Al liked it, so he finished it.

Is it a different day yet? I can’t tell. It’s 1:24 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon. Al and I are in South Dakota, about an hour from Sioux Falls. We’ve each had about 6 hours of sleep in the past two nights combined and we’ve been on the road for about 22 hours. We have been playing the cow game. (that’s when you see cows and be the first to say ‘those are my cows’ and then count them, keep track and the one with the most cows at the end of the trip wins) I’m at 220 cows and Al has 174. It’s a tight race. We’re at a rest stop now and I nearly fell asleep on the lawn. Wonderfully humid weather here. Zzzzzz…..

3:30 p.m. We just finished having lunch in Sioux Falls. We have about 5 - 5.5 hours to go to Kansas City.