Guess Who's Bleeding from the Eyes!
The Adventure Continues
In Sac-town, CA

After four days of livin' it up in Portland, we took a relaxing Greyhound ride to beautiful and Ann Arbor-esque Eugene, Oregon, where we holed up for a few days to recover.

We boarded another Amtrak train, this time riding it to Sacramento. Josh's highschool buddy Jon picked us up from the train station. We have been staying with him and his wife Nicole (and their cat Wallace).

Our first full day in Sacramento, Jon took us to see a statue of the Virgin Mary at the Vietnamese Martyrs Catholic Church that had inexplicably begun to cry blood two weeks earlier. It was a sunny day, and the statue was surrounded with a wall of flowers and candles. According to Jon (who'd gone a week earlier to see it) the crowds and intensity had diminished. The parking lot in front of the statue was full of folding chairs. We sat for a few moments in the viewing area. The wonder of the thing was not the fluid seepage from the statue's eyes, but the intensity of calm faith the people embodied as they came to experience the "miracle". Over the wafting flower scents and blaring of a loudspeaker in Vietnamese, people thumbed rosaries and prayed in a variety of languages.

On our way back from the periphery of the obscene Sacramento exurbs, we stopped at Safetyville, USA.


Now, I'm not entirely sure, but from what we gathered, this little universe was created as a place where kids can skateboard without the ever-present threat of getting hit by automobiles. The town is complete with storefronts of banks, McDonald's, a Church (though it was roped off with caution tape because of the broken stained glass), crosswalks, traffic lights, and advertisements--all in miniature--and enclosed by a chainlink fence topped with barbed wire.

We were enjoying ourselves immensely until a gentleman in a mullet with a Big Gulp stormed out of the capitol building and politely informed us that it was a private party, and we would have to leave.

For the remainder of our time in Sacramento, we have been attending to our plebeian needs--procuring food, and sewing thick plastic and mosquito netting together to rig a super-hammock for whatever the jungle has in store...