Seven years of waiting. Seven years...and I finally was on my way to California. More specifically, I was finally going out to a Bethel conference in Redding, CA, by way of San Francisco. Along with my friend Miranda, we were ready for our short four-day adventure October 3-6. I couldn't believe that I could get to Guatemala faster then I could California. Seriously, what is up with that? (At least the way home was a 1/2 hour shorter than the US-Guate flight.) We arrived at San Francisco airport, got our rental car (a much fancier one than either of us owns ourselves), and set the GPS for La Quinta Inn and Suites, Redding, and started driving. The landscape along the highway fascinated me. Such dry, golden-brown hills with dark green trees that stood out like little black dots from a distance and looked out of place up close. When we got to a stretch of very flat land for a good hundred miles at least, varying between dusty dry grass and some sort of tree farms (were they al