Baofeng Nights

"You're driving recklessly"

"Of course I'm driving wrecklessly"

Me and Josh are in my 91 Toyota 4runner motoring up a logging road on what I think is state forest. It's the woods in mid February of 2023, there's snow on the ground and anywhere you can get around a gate is fair game. I never was much of one for following signage, anyways.

Why am I recounting this?

I miss that 4runner

Hang on, I'll upload and link a video

https://youtube.com/shorts/nULlh-cTJIU?si=EitKAZBQt7Ww6kcj

I don't think it's the 4runner that I miss, so much as the time in my life.

I love winter.

Days working, nights spent playing. Me and the boys equipped with cheap Chinese Baofeng radios winding our way up mountain roads... Usually in pursuit of snow, often finding gravel, Sometimes making fantastic time (Sorry Owen for clipping your Jeep with my bumper) and other times lazing our way back downhill to civilization amidst a tired, thoughtful radio static.

Snow drifting is exhilarating, night wheeling is comfortable, and driving home is so, so sweet after you've been stuck or broken down. Every trip home in tow has made me appreciate every trip home under my own power just a little more.

I left the 4runner parked out of sight from the gate and the main road, and Josh and I drove his car back down to the valley floor... We returned in the afternoon/evening. This in and of itself is a testament to my personal development... change? Would I still leave a car that is not registered to me (or at all) up on public land? It wasn't even for very long, but I feel like hard lessons that I've learned would have me thinking twice before I jeopardize anything valuable that I own, especially a car. A truck lost to a tow yard auction, a warning from a sheriff about cars parked on my street, a ranger I never should have gotten rid of, three different warnings by law enforcement and one ticket (no rear light on the sand dunes, deferred and didn't go on my record), close calls saved by my radar detector (It has paid for itself multiple times over), etc. Now my Audi is registered and I don't want to ever go back to driving an unregistered vehicle... I'm not as immune as I once thought I was and the risk is often not worth the reward.

I don't think I'm getting boring, but I think I'm growing up.

Maybe it's not that time in my life that I miss, maybe it's the carefreeness that I had.

I miss snow.

Why am I writing about this at YWAM? I think there's a couple of different reasons.

First, I got a call from Eddie the other night.

"What's up, brother?"

"Guess what I'm about to do?"

"I dunno (I almost guessed snow drifting, I'd seen that we'd gotten snow back home and the fomo was already coming on strong.)"

"I'm gonna go play in the snow, brother!"

"Shoot, yo I think Tyler is already up on Larch (local mountain and Tyler had sent a picture of his truck in the snow to our group chat), you should try and link up with him!"

"Alright bet, k I'm gonna go."

"Drive safe don't die"

"Deuces!"

"Deuces!"

I miss snow drifting and brother do I miss the boys.

Eddie is a very good driver.

The second reason was the video I linked at the beginning.

I was looking through my Google Drive for a specific set of videos we'd shot shortly before I left, I was trying to make an Instagram reel and had searched for files owned by Josh. Lo and behold, there was that file just sitting there. I watched the video, and I was sitting in my 4runner once again, sliding up the road, chatting with Josh, feeling the response through the wheel and the 4wd work. My hair was short and I was altogether a more collected version of myself the way I remember it, which is likely flawed and rose-colored.

I think I'm just sleep deprived and a little homesick at the moment.

YWAM is going well. The speakers are good and thought provoking, the food is good, the people are easygoing.

I'm a little behind on homework but I'm not too worried about it.

One of the ministries we get to do here in Lynden is called Adventure Club, and I touched on it briefly in my last post. Every Wednesday night we go help out with a local children's program that is up to 3rd grade. Matthew and I (along with a twinkle-eyed grandfather named Gary) are assigned to the 3rd grade boys when we split by grade and gender for question time at the end, and we've had a number of wild evenings doing our best to keep them in line. One of the weeks the plastic? rubber? dinosaur stuck to the drop ceiling of our small room became the primary object of the boys' focus. The 15-odd young gentlemen were throwing hats at it trying to make it fall, standing on chairs, and devolving into a mayhem even William Golding would hesitate to recount.

Another point of immense fervor amongst the troops over the last two weeks has been the War with the Third Grade Girls (TGG). I'm frankly not entirely sure how it started, I think there was a note of dubious origin put on a ministry supply cart that strongly advocated the Third Grade Boys' (TGB) superiority. As an unaware, though heavily biased party, I was blindsided, along with the rest of the TGB, by the arrival of a note at our door two weeks ago saying something along the lines of "Girls Rule Boys Drool".

The reaction in the ranks was immediate, overwhelming, and frenzied. The three folding tables in our room became the desk of a great military general, crowded around by advisors in a heaving think tank with very little regard for personal space. As soon as we opened it up for suggestions, Matthew, Gary, and I were bombarded with ideas of what to send in return. The throng quickly turned violent in their ideas, and we had to veto countless shouts of "...girls are weak, throw them in the creek!" and the like. Eventually, we settled on "Jesus forgives you, and so do we." or something similar that I don't recall verbatim because of how far we have since progressed in the conflict. Also, unable to be completely merciful, an Among Us (popular video game) character was drawn on the bottom along with "Girls are Sus[picious]" We obviously won.

Last Thursday night we went swing/waltz/line dancing at a local church/barn thing. My suspicions of all the other participants being homeschooled (like me and some of my classmates) were confirmed when my partner at the moment lifted her arms to join me in the appropriate hold for whatever dance we were doing and I smelled Tom's of Maine. No heavy metals in those armpits, no sir. The instructor is a well intentioned, albeit old fashioned, character, for the first hour we learned the box step painstakingly (which I was already a carrier of).

There's lots more I could talk about, but frankly I'd rather publish this.

Thank you for your continued support in prayers.

This post is less of an update letter and more of a blog post for the sake of writing and reliving that which I cannot right now (no car to go snow wheeling with.)

Cheers!