Spring Break

 

Bethel’s Spring Break was last week. It was a really nice break from studying and the semester, and students were definitely ready for it. Midterms had been occurring for the week prior to break, and many seniors were working hard on their seminar project. Everyone was pretty stressed out, so it was good to get off campus and away from homework (mostly) for a week.

I and three friends left on Friday evening for a 30 hour drive to Fresno, California. Our friend Seth had lived there, and they were going to see his family. I was planning to take the Amtrak train on up to San Francisco to see my boyfriend, Ben. We drove through Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona to get there. Aside from a flat tire in Albuquerque, our trip was relatively uneventful. We got to see the stars in the middle of New Mexico at 3am, sunrise over Albuquerque, a snowstorm, a sandstorm, and a lot of beautiful scenery. Once we arrived in Fresno, we hung out with Seth’s family and visited their church. My friends stayed with them for the remainder of the week while I hopped on a train to San Francisco on Sunday afternoon.

I arrived in San Francisco at about 8pm. Ben met me at the station and we headed to his house. Ben is a Mennonite Voluntary Service worker. Part of his program allows him to stay in a house with four other members of the same program, as well as volunteering at an organization – in his case,a homeless housing group. For the next four days, I visited Ben at work, met him for lunch a few times, hung out in a couple of different San Francisco libraries and toured the city. I also worked on my seminar, but that’s not really worth talking about. We got to see Crissy Field, the beach, the Palace of Fine Arts, and several magnificent vistas from different hills in the city.

On Friday, my friends drove up from Fresno to pick me up and we headed home. This time, we drove through Nevada, Utah and Colorado. Once we got out of the Bay Area rush-hour traffic (horrible!) we made pretty good time. Somehow I was conned into driving for 200 miles through central Colorado. The roads there are SO twisty and more busy than I would have liked. A little nerve-wracking. Other than that, it was a good trip, and we made it home at about 1am on Sunday morning.