We were back on our way. I had decided that a 9 hour drive was too long to just listen to music. I had with me a copy of the audio book version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that I had downloaded for free from Audible.com. It lasts about 5 hours so we started it when we left Subway and listened to it all. The book is just plain hilarious, but parts of it are boring - especially when you need the entertainment desperately. In the last hour of our trip, we noticed a sign by a corn field that said "Ethanol Kicks Gas" which we thought was funny. We finally made it to Bushnell at around 9:00 p.m. a little ahead of schedule. After resting at my house for a few minutes, we went to go visit Charity Weiss because Josh hadn't seen her in almost two years. We called her on my cell phone while walking to her house

When we got there, there were some other people around. After a short while, we got in Charity's car and took a trip to Macomb about 15 minutes away. Our first stop was at Hy-Vee where Charity had to pick up a few things. I saw some people I knew from WIU while I was there and found out when they were going to be out at Cornerstone. Neither Josh nor I had had food in a while so we stopped at Taco Bell. I got the chicken bowl thingy which was some sort of salad with rice and stuff in it. On the way back (and also on the way to Macomb) we listened to a taped copy of Relient K's The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek CD. I finally reached my friend Lindsay Hess by cell phone and found out when they were going out to set up her campsite. Every year she brings out her camper and a few people camp around it as well. Her dad comes out and grills and it's an all-around utopia. I call it Hesstopia. She said that they were leaving EARLY. She asked me to show up at her house at 7:30 a.m. on Monday. We got back and went home eventually. It was late when we finally went to sleep - after checking e-mail and all…

Now that we found the perfect spot, we dropped off some of my stuff and we drove back to the parking lot. One of the reasons we decided that the spot was so perfect was that our Ohio neighbors to the west had LLAMAS4U on the license plate. It made us all think of poor Charity Queen who had to stay home from Cornerstone again. She’s a good friend of Natalie W., and Natalie is Linday’s cousin. Josh, Keith, and I got in the truck with the camper, and Keith drove. I kept leading us down one-way streets and we got trapped past the food court for a while. When we finally got on our way, Josh and Keith started singing a new song.

Three guys in a truck - woohoo!
Three guys in a truck - woohoo!
Three guys in a truck,
We're goin' to Cornerstone.

I loved the song, but I didn't feel like joining in. After we got the camper and my tent set up, we went back to Bushnell again. We found some cold pizza in the refrigerator and heated it up. We planned to go to the grocery store in Bushnell (Ludlum Food Mart - Josh and I have both worked there) and then to Macomb for ALDI (cheap food!) and Wal*Mart. At Ludlum's, we bought cheap meat & cheese for sandwiches along with some bread. We bought shredded cheddar and taco cheese too because the Kraft 8 oz. shredded cheeses were on sale and we thought it would make GREAT sandwich cheese. At ALDI's, we bought some really cheap stuff. We planned to buy our pop there because it was so cheap. We left with only 48 cans though. We thought we had enough food so we went to Wal*Mart. I can't remember what we needed there, but we were there. We saw a few people we knew while we were there - which was a big deal 'cause Josh hadn't seen any of them in two years.

Finally back to Bushnell again, so we went back to Ludlum's for ice. Then we went back to Cornerstone with all our food packed in ice. This time, we walked even closer to the stage at the end of the parking lot to take a look. I’m not sure who was playing. We passed by another new place at Cornerstone. They now have a 24-hour coffee bar. They called the place Gathering Grounds. There was also a stage under that tent. When we got back to the campsite, everyone was relaxing. We played a game on a vehicle window. One person would make a scribble in the Cornerstone dust and the other person would have to make a picture out of it. Fun! We decided to share our pop, and so it began to dwindle away… Josh and I had some good chat time with Pam and Clarisa, our Ohio neighbors. We found out that they had come on some of the same roads as us and they too noticed the very same “Ethanol Kicks Gas” sign, which they wouldn’t have noticed if they didn’t miss an exit! I go off by myself for a bit and do some Bible reading and then write in my Cornerstone Journal. Did I write down every detail? No way – I’m too lazy for that. Here, let me just show you what today’s journal piece looks like:

Tony showed up after that and he and the rest of us went back to the Rotary tent because Natalie and Joel were supposed to be done. We passed by the ice cream stand just a few feet from the Rotary tent because our friend Mitchell was working behind it. He said he had to work at that stand from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every single day of Cornerstone. We shared our sympathies with him and then made our way back to the campsite. Natalie, Joel, and Christin were already there and they were finishing up lunch, so we visited with the Michigani’s a little bit. Then after lunch, the group had a little Bible reading/study time together. I was a little too sleepy to participate in it, but it went really well. I think while we were sitting there, after the Bible study time, I was getting delirious and started saying stupid things. One of them was that I said that the place was a “hip joint” (joking about the fact that it sounded like a part of the human body when I said it – see? I told you I was tired!).

Steve showed up (Linny’s dad). We unload the grill and set it up and then get the jacks out to level out the camper. Lindsay, Jensie, and Keith show up again and Keith brought some old road signs with him. I can’t remember what they all said, but I know he had a stop sign, and a few others. We had a really long talk time with the Michigan group. We all ate dinner. I put taco cheese on my hamburger. Yum! I learned how 3-people could fit on the two-person folding seat thing. Todd Rodeffer (Bushnell YFC Campus Life director) and Justin show up. Todd was the one who organized a lot of the local people for volunteering positions at Cornerstone.

Justin and I have a weird habit whenever we see each other. I met him during Homecoming in 1999. He was Christin’s date, and I was Linday’s. We were all at Lindsay’s house and I knew everyone but him. Christin’s mom took some pictures of Justin and I meeting. One good picture was taken of us shaking hands. Next thing I knew, he was carrying me in his arms while Christin’s mom found the best angle to shoot a photo from. Since then, each rare time we see each other, he picks me up and we have someone take a picture – never our own cameras. A few times, we picked up strangers’ cameras and had someone take a picture of him holding me. This time, I handed off my camera to get my second photo of him holding me. The first photo I actually got on my camera was at Lindsay’s graduation party.

I talked to Todd for a while about my summer and how life was going. Then I also tell Linday and Natalie that I’m trying to transfer to Greenville College in the fall. We all went to the Bleach concert at one of the Encore tents. Amanda, Stardust, and Kipp from the Michigan group came with us. Lindsay had little Allison with her who was about two years old. We start throwing the Frisbee around when we got there and kinda forgot about the concert halfway. The Ohio girls came up to us and said hi. There are two of them – Pam and Clarisa. I got into a good convo with them about Cartoon Network. After the bleach concert we went back to the campsite. Allison was riding on Josh’s shoulder and she kept saying “go away mud” cause she didn’t like the mud from the tractor pouring water on the dirt to keep the dust down. We left at the same time that Linday did that night. We hitched a ride in their cramped van, which was already crammed full of the people who asked for a ride before us. Josh called home with my cell phone when we got to my house again.

Watch out, here I go on another tangent. In March, I met a girl online named Angella. She just randomly stumbled on me on Yahoo and started chatting with me. I started calling her on my cell phone ‘cause instant messaging isn’t really that great. We found out that we both have 11-year old cockapoo (half cocker spaniel, half poodle). That was weird enough, but listen to this – hers is named patches, and mine is named peaches. Anyway, she wanted to come to Cornerstone, but couldn’t. She was a little sad, but then she found out about Freedom Fest. It’s a little all-day concert thing put on by WONU Shine 89.7 FM which is a radio station near Kankakee, IL run by Olivet Nazarene University. This year’s performers included Relient K, Bleach, and Pax217, who were all Cornerstone performers this year also. In addition, they also had Paul Colman Trio, LaRue, Jake, and Daily Planet. Josh and I told her we would love to see Relient K twice, so we said we’d go there too! It was on Wednesday, July 3rd. A few days later, I was talking to both Angella and my friend Kayleigh from Bushnell (who was in South Carolina for the summer, except Cornerstone). I mentioned Kayleigh to Angella, and she said “I know a Kayleigh…” AAAHHHH!!! Another weird coincidence (er, God-incidence, excuse me). Angella had met Kayleigh at Go MAD in Peoria last fall (a Campus Life event). They had been keeping in touch online since then. I couldn’t believe that.

Ok, anyway…where was I? Oh, yes…. We drove along to Angella’s house. It took about 3 hours. We listened to Relient K’s first CD on the last part of the trip there. When Josh, I, Angella, and her friend Megan left, we listened to Relient K some more – this time, some of our favorites from The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek. We decided it wasn’t fair for them to go and not know what to expect! Freedom Fest was held in the parking lot of a mall. We went into the mall when we got there because it was still early. We stopped at Sbarro’s and I couldn’t resist the urge to buy something. They had something that looked really good. It was some thing stuffed with spinach and cheese. I didn’t have a clue if I even liked spinach. I had never tried it. What better way to try something than to try it surrounded with melted cheese? Mmmmm…. It was very good. We went to Taco John’s after that to wait for Brian. When he showed up, we went outside and listened to LaRue play. It was very HOT!!!! There were no clouds, the sun was beating down, and we were standing on hot pavement. We gave up – it was too hot outside. We went inside to go to the ice cream place. We all got smoothies. Very good. I got strawberry-bananna. We also waited for Brian to meet up with a friend. Well, ok…Angella and I both went back outside because she had called home and she was waiting for her mom to drop off a blanket for us to sit on. She came by and dropped off the blanket and we sat it down near where we had been standing before. Josh and Megan made it back outside by the time the Paul Colman Trio had started.

The week before Cornerstone, I went to the Paul Colman Trio web site to find out what they sounded like and I recognized one of the songs, “Turn,” from the radio. Later, on Tuesday, when we were telling Linny and Keith about our Wednesday plans, Keith sang part of his favorite PC3 song, called “Run.”

The songs “Turn,” and “Run,” and also a song called “Fill My Cup,” became my favorites. Josh and Megan went inside for something and then came out for Relient K. They were talking about how they were doing stuff with VeggieTales and that there was going to be a tape released to Christian book stores of them singing “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything” and of Larry singing their song “Breakdown.” I didn’t quite believe them at first, but – I don’t know. Then they sent out their crowd-surfing buffalo. Only Relient K would take a buffalo with them to their shows and crowd-surf it.

Angella and I volunteered to go inside to get everyone’s dinner. Basically, that meant that Angella was ordering Megan’s food, because Josh didn’t want anything. We got in line at the A&W place in the mall. I wanted to get my food at Taco John’s after waiting in line with Angella. Instead, it was taking too long. There were a lot of people coming in to buy food at the last minute. The place was only a half-hour from closing time. We heard it – the fireworks had started without us. I got chicken strips, fries, and a root beer float, which I shouldn’t have done because I already tried the bathrooms and they were locked!!! Then we came out and watched the last 10 or 15 minutes of fireworks. After that was Bleach and PAX 217. After that, we drove Angella to Megan’s house and Angella and Megan handed us Code Red Mountain Dew for our long trip home. I made a quick run for the bathroom. Josh and I got some hugs and left. I think it was about 1 a.m. when we left. We were so tired that we started going delirious. We had been watching Who’s Line Is It Anyway together a lot this summer. We started doing stupid improve about Cornerstone. We did the Cornerstone hoedown. I think we did an album collection commercial about Cornerstone. We ended up with a pretty neat country song about Cornerstone. I missed the I-474 exit, so it took an extra hour to get home. We got back to Bushnell around 5:00 a.m.

Relient K did nearly the same concert as at Freedom Fest. When they set out their crowd-surfing buffalo, something different happened. I think some guy from some other band came out on stage, walked slow motion down the walkway in front of the stage and then fell onto the crowd. One of the members of Relient K made a stupid joke and said he was “slowly going the way of the buffalo.” I thought that was funny, though I have only heard that phrase once or twice in my life. I also found out later that it was the name of MxPx’s new CD. Maybe it was a member of MxPx who walked out there. Other than that, everything was mostly the same.

Five Iron Frenzy was next on stage. They started out their concert with Reese Roper walking out dressed as Elvis. His belt kept falling down. I regret that I never had the chance to learn their new CD, so most of the concert, I was trying to catch the words and I enjoyed most of it. Once they finished and MxPx started, we headed back to the campsite, cause I don’t know their music that well at all and I could hear just fine from the campsite anyway. The last thing I did before going to sleep was going to the midnight worship, which was the first one I made it to that week.

Here I go again on another off-shoot. Remember all the coincidences I’ve mentioned with Angella? Just a few days ago I had been talking to her and she mentioned that she’s only heard a few different speakers before. One of them was Reggie Dabbs who had spoke in her school. I was so sure he had some phrase he always used or something. I kept asking her but we couldn’t figure it out.

I was thinking to myself – could this be Reggie Dabbs, the one who was the main speaker for DC/LA 2000? It was him!!! In just a few minutes, I found out what that phrase or whatever was. He gave his mini-sermon that basically said “Skinny people! Stop buyin’ the fat man’s clothes!!” He is the funniest speaker I’ve ever heard who gets a point out so clearly. Umm…some band played after that. I was supposed to meet up with my friend Mike Smith at the Subway by main stage at 10:30. I had reached him by cell phone earlier and went down to the Subway at 10:19 and waited until 10:45. He didn’t show. I started walking toward the other subway up the hill and didn’t see him. I started walking toward the main gate while trying to call him. It’s really hard to get a decent cell signal out there. I finally got him and he said that he made it down to the Subway at about 10:45! Grr…he was on his way back to his car to leave. We met up and talked a while, but then he left after the fireworks were over. The fireworks were pretty good. I went to sleep.

I decided it was finally time to make room for some seminars. I was going to go to three of them. They were very good, but the last parts of their respective weeklong series. I won’t talk too much about the first one or the second one. I was ready to go to a third, but it was just hot. I decided to go swimming instead.

Keith was just finishing swimming when I got back to the campsite. That meant that I’d have no company with me. I swam anyway. A friend, Nichole, who I hadn’t yet seen at Cornerstone showed up in the water. She saw a group of people being baptized, and she asked me to walk over with her to be baptized. Because of her situation, she has been trying for months to be baptized, but she never found a chance. She was baptized – awesome. I had to go back to the campsite after that so I could eat dinner.

I passed by a group of people singing. There were a couple guitars, some hand drums, and a few singers making beautiful music. Their song? It was a song descriptive of their campsite. The words are as follows: “Free hot dogs, hamburgers, and corn,” repeated over and over. I stopped and talked to a girl standing by the singers. She told me I should have some food. I said maybe and went back to Hesstopia. I had a bowl of spaghetti there. Then I ran back to get my free food. Someone there had taped the band playing that awesome song. I would love for that person to e-mail me the recording! Instead of hot dog, hamburger, or corn, I had some of the chicken they just got. People kept giving them leftover food to cook up. I went back the the campsite and then went with Danelle and Carley to the merchandise tents so they could get something. When we came back, we saw people who we hadn’t seen in a while, so we dragged them back to the campsite to visit Josh. When we got back, we said goodbye to the Michiganis who were leaving.