Growls by Sprouls: Haunted Churches and Church-going Gangs (Part 2)

So as I said in the previous blog, I was in Colorado for a week.

You can see that little introduction by clicking here.

And then after you click here, you can just look to your left and look through my archive because I'm too lazy to make it a link.

Anyway, there was a slight problem with being in Colorado for the week, being that I live nowhere near Colorado. So I got there, in a group of twenty kids and six supposedly responsible adults (this was a mission trip, by the way), via three fifteen-passenger vans.

Talk about classy.

Anyhoo, the trip from my podunk little suburbian paradise (yeah, I rarely combine those two words in a sentence) to this neat little city in Southwestern Colorado is about twenty-two hours of driving, providing there are no bathroom stops, eating stops, refueling stops, or stops to get out and stretch your feet. I can tell you right now that we stopped. Many, many, many times. Our entire trip to this city was a total of three days.

But this was a mission trip! Where could we possibly spend the nights?

A hotel? No, that's too logical and apparently too expensive. Plus, the showers suck. But that's a whole other blog.

Maybe a hostel? No, this isn't Europe. Here in America, we like to avoid cheap places to spend the night where you can meet interesting people.

Actually, come to think of it, knowing the people in America who would classify as "interesting," I'm pretty happy there were no hostels.

No, that first night we stayed in this little church in Hastings, Nebraska. It looks a bit like this.

Pretty cool, huh? Yeah, I took that photo. I'm selling prints of it for $80 each.

So yeah. This church had everything. It had a gigantic kitchen, a gigantic eating room, a sweet youth center, sweet stained glass windows, another sanctuary just in case you got bored with the first one, about eight miles of hallways, and a good ten rooms that looked like they hadn't been used in about six years or more. Usually more.

The best part? The lovely people at this church had unlocked a good 95% of the doors, so we could explore.

But we didn't, because we were all teenagers and were completely famished. So we went to pick up some pizza first.

And that's when my supposedly responsible adult leader got a brilliant idea. We would buy some car paint and draw on the windows of the vans! Yeah! Exciting!

I actually wasn't being sarcastic there.

So before we could get some delicious, greasy, Americanized Italian food, we drove to Wal-Mart. Wearing matching pink shirts. Somewhere along the drive, my leader let's just call him Drew (because that's his name) got this fantasmigorical idea to get some bandannas to tie around his head.

And as if we didn't look suspicious enough walking into the Wal-Mart, matching shirts like bosses, we certainly didn't add to the suspicion by walking up to one of the sweet old lady greeters and asking curtly where the bandannas and window paint were.

She helped us out though, for whatever sick and twisted reasons. Seriously, I would have kicked them out of my store.

Maybe that's why I don't have a job.

I should make a mental note to be nicer.

Anyway, we got our paint and bandannas, and I got a sweet pack of gum, and we headed back to our van to go get some delicious pizza.

Or so I thought.

Turns out the only cheap place to get food that was close was Little Caesar's. So much for my delicious meal.

I still ate five pieces.

Anyway, while we were waiting for our Pizza (at Little Caesar's? Yeah, things really are backward in Nebraska), we decided to paint our golden van, which we nicknamed "Rubber Ducky."

Yeah, I did that too. Prints for this are only $40, in case you're interested.

Anyway, after eating back at our church, we split up in groups and explored. here are a few shots of just how amazing this place truly was.