Home Again

Since we had put in a long day yesterday, today would be quite a bit shorter.  We planned it this way so we could pick up some things in Shipshewana, Indiana, which we always seem to do when coming home from a trip.  Works out well as the fridge and freezer are usually almost empty so we stuff them with all the meats and frozen stuff we pick up in Shipsee

Cold night last night.  41 degrees when I got up this morning.  The furnace warmed things up inside.  Took a while, but it eventually got comfortable.  I checked the amount of propane left.  The gauge read zero.  I guess we figured this about right.  Run out of propane on the day we come home.  One tank lasted six weeks.  Not bad.

This rest area was bigger than I expected.  I launched the drone to see just how big.  That’s us in the lower center.  Many of the truckers had left by this time, but there was still quite a bit of space left last night.  And we were sort-of off by ourselves, so it was a quiet night.

It was about an hour to Shipshewana.  We took some back roads just to get off the Interstate for a while.  In Shipshewana we visited the usual: E&S Sales for discount groceries, Yoder’s Meats for some of the best brats around, and Forks County Line for more groceries and another big hunk of mystery meat that we just finished from the last time we were here.  We’ve sliced this stuff thin and used it in fajitas and in other dishes.  Worked well and was cheap.  Looks like we’re doing it again.

We got home at about 2pm to a cold house.  I turned on the heat remotely a couple hours ago but the temperature didn’t budge so I was afraid we were going to need repairs.  When I went down to check it out I found out I had forgotten to turn the gas valve back on after I fixed the furnace a couple months ago.  Turned the gas on and it fired right up.

It took us a couple hours to unload six weeks of living from the RV and put it all away.  Deb started a load of laundry, I unloaded the bikes and kayaks and put them away.  We ordered a pizza for dinner because neither one of us felt like making anything.

After dinner Deb went to put the pillows back in the bedroom and came back shuddering and making unintelligible noises.  She told me I needed to deal with a chipmunk that died on the bed.  So I went out there and, sure enough, a dead chipmunk on the bed.  From the bad smell and the large stain on the bed, it had been there for a couple weeks.

I got rid of the chipmunk and all the nasty creepy crawlies that accompanied it, and took the comforter off the bed.  The stain was limited to the top layer, but the smell permeated all the bedding, including the bare mattress.  The comforter will go in the trash, it will probably take a few days to run all the remaining bedding through the wash, and we hope we can get the smell out of the mattress.

Meanwhile, we were looking forward to sleeping in something larger than our small RV bed, but it looks like it’s the spare bedroom for us for the next few days at least.

Welcome home. 🙄

So, looking at some trip statistics, here is a map off all the movements for the last six weeks.  I had a tracker going on my phone the entire time, so it recorded everything, including walks and bike rides.  It seems we put on nearly 400 miles walking and biking, in addition to the miles we drove.

Miles Driven: 3687

Total miles moved: 4038 (includes walking and biking)

Back in the Midwest

You know you are back in the Midwest when the skies turn gloomy and it rains on and off all day long.  Such was the weather that greeted us all day today.

Last night's sleep was pretty quiet.  This rest area we stayed in has a separate parking area for "camping vehicles", so it was isolated from the truck lanes by some land and the restroom buildings. However, as it got later at night and the truck lanes filled up, the truckers just filled the camper lanes so it was like a mini truck area.  The ones near us didn't leave their engines run all night long so it was peaceful.

We were commenting as we were driving that it probably was beautiful country that we were driving through.  This was the Appalachian mountain range and just before it got pitch dark I could see that we were entering a fall color zone.  This morning we drove through more of these mountains and the colors probably would have been amazing if the sun was shining.  As it was, the fog and the grey day muted the colors considerably.  You just had to use your imagination.

We wanted to stop at New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia, since we were driving right by it, but we really didn't know what we would be doing in the pouring rain, so we drove on.  We'll have to catch that next time we're through here.

Stopped for lunch in a park in Chillicothe, Ohio.  Chillicothe is known for its Native American earthen mounds, however, there’s not much left to them and it was raining so we didn’t put forth much effort to go see them.

We were passing right through Dayton, so we stopped at the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historic Park, where the Wright brothers did most of their work for their bicycle shop and their airplane development.  North Carolina may have the tagline “First in Flight”, but in reality, the Wright brothers did most of their work in Dayton, Ohio, and only went to North Carolina seeking large areas of sand (to soften the impact of crashes), steady wind, and privacy.  They didn’t want anyone else to know what they were doing.

We arrived around 3pm, the buildings closed at 4pm, so not a lot of time to check things out, but we did get in on a tour of The Wright Cycle Co., their fourth bike shop.  Mostly replicas and pictures, and the building was rescued from demolition after going through several owners, and then restored to its condition when the Wright brothers owned it.

This bike is a replica of one of the Wright Brothers own models, complete with wood rims.

Not much has changed in basic bicycle design since then.

Leaving there we continued working our way towards Fort Wayne, Indiana.  The landscape completely flattened out and the rain continued, and we knew we were back in the Midwest.

Stopped at a Culver’s in Fort Wayne and had a concrete mixer, something we haven’t had in six weeks.  They just don’t have ‘em in the south.

We drove north for another several miles and stopped for the night at a rest area along I-69.  We’ll stop at Shipshewana tomorrow at the Amish stores to load up on groceries before taking the final leg of the journey home.

472 miles covered today.  That's more than we usually cover in one day.

On The Way Home

And just like that, it’s over.  We are now on our way home.

For devotions this morning, Marc Murphy, the CEO of the Boys and Girls Home spoke on 1 Corinthians 12 on spiritual gifts.  One thing about the kids with difficult backgrounds is that they are often told that they are worthless, that they don’t amount to anything. One of the aims of BGH is to let them know they are valued, and they do have gifts, just like the rest of us.

Then he opened the floor to questions.  He remarked that there are two notable things about the SOWER groups:  They get a lot of work done, and they ask a lot of questions.  We didn’t disappoint him on either count.

One of the aims of the SOWERs is to see the gospel proclaimed and we will support ministries that also have this as a primary goal.  So we grilled Marc on this topic.  If there was any doubt, his answers removed that doubt. It was good to see the passion for the kids and the staff and the commitment he has to see that these kids are exposed to the love of God and know about His saving grace for them.

The women worked in the thrift store today while the guys finished up some touch-up painting in the Lake House and the cafeteria.  Deb spent the time sorting and pricing fabric and was told there is one woman who will periodically come in and buy a few hundred dollar’s worth of fabric for quilting.  Most of the stuff she had priced and put on the shelves for the last couple of days was already gone.  The good stuff doesn’t stick around long.

After lunch our group leader, Ron, told me to do a little drywall fix-up in the Lake House so they can install some base trim.  The two other couples are there next month also so they are setting up for projects to do during the next month.  It took me about 20 minutes to get some drywall mud applied and smoothed out, then I biked back to the RV.

The rest of the group gathered around and we had a time of prayer before the two other guys returned to their work.  It’s always a little hard to say goodbye to these friends we’ve worked so closely with the last few weeks.  Perhaps we will meet them again on another project or maybe not until glory.  It will be ​here, there, or in the air​.

I loaded the bike, disconnected the electric and water, and dumped the waste tanks.  One last thing we did on the way out was to throw the blue jeans I was wearing in the dumpster.  We take the older clothes for use on projects like this and will simply leave them behind if they are no longer usable.  These jeans had a knee ripped out and paint all over them so they didn’t have to come home with us.

We rolled out at about 2pm and made very good time heading north on I-74 and I-77.  I normally don’t like traveling the Interstates, but they are appropriate if you want to get from here to there in the fastest way possible.  We shut down in a rest area near Rocky Gap, Virginia, having put on 315 miles.  A good start to the trip home.

Winding Down

One more day left.  Tomorrow at this time we’ll be on the road towards home.  One of the things that makes it hard to leave this area is the beautiful weather.  Sunny, about 70 degrees today. Sunny, 73 degrees tomorrow.  Looking towards Michigan it seems it’s been gloomy and rainy for the last couple of weeks.  Our fellow SOWERs think we’re crazy for returning to Michigan in November.  Both of the other couples are staying on here for another month and then heading farther south after that.

I probably won’t miss the painting, however.  It is a necessary thing on many projects, however, it is not my favorite activity.  I’ll do what needs to be done, so if it’s painting, I will paint, but I’m ready to put down the paint brush for a while.

Today was more painting.  I finished the cabinets in the kitchen in the Lake House.  It will probably need another coat, or two, or three, as the color from the underlying wood is bleeding through the paint, giving it almost a dingey green color, but we’ll leave it up to the staff to make that decision.

We also had to clean up some ceiling A/C vents in the cafeteria.  Took them down, sand blasted them, and spray painted them. We’ll put them back up tomorrow.

The women worked in the thrift store again today.  They need a lot of help.

At 11:30 we knocked off and changed clothes and met at Dale’s Seafood for lunch.  Lee treated us all to lunch.  It was a good time of fellowship and the breaking of fish.  The meal was delicious, just like the other day.  Dale’s is the one place in Lake Waccamaw for a good meal and they do a good job.

Talking with Lee afterwards, he told us to take the rest of the day off.  So Deb and I hopped on the bikes and rode to the dam at the Waccamaw River.  From there we hiked the trail that circles the lake towards the State Park.  A very pleasant hike on a picture-perfect day.  Lake Waccamaw may be a puddle by Great Lakes standards, but the surrounding swamp and the differences in the flora and fauna give this a whole different brand of beauty.

That’s one thing cool about doing the SOWERs thing.  It puts us in some places where we would not otherwise go, and leaves us there long enough to explore the local area and the beauty and variation it offers.  Lake Waccamaw would have otherwise never crossed our radar screen.

SOWERs also puts us in the company of some pretty awesome people.  Backgrounds and experiences vary widely, and you spend enough time with these other couples to learn what makes them tick and to appreciate them for who they are.  We’ve made quite a few friends on these trips, people we otherwise would have never met, and you spend enough time with them to go beyond just casual acquaintances.  It’s something we plan on continuing to do.

As long as it doesn’t involve too much painting.

And tomorrow we leave for home.  Right after work, we will make sure the water tank is full, disconnect the electrical umbilical, and say goodbye to our new friends and our campsite behind the horse barn.  Then it’s pedal to the metal to make it home by Sunday.

This Will Be Short

Not a whole lot to write about today.  We painted.  And painted.  And painted. Tomorrow we will be painting some more.  The women worked in the thrift store.

We knocked off about 15 minutes early because we had wet paint all over the place and couldn’t do much more until the paint dried.

So we turned our attention to a problem which cropped up when we last had to move after all the horses left.  When Ron went to hook up his fifth wheel trailer, the latch mechanism that holds it to the truck was in the wrong position.  When he backed into it, the latch and and adjacent gear got knocked off by a couple of teeth, and the trailer would not latch properly.  We took it apart and, between the three of us, figured out how to realign things so it would work properly.

Just one of those things that can happen on the road.  It’s nice to have help.  Put a nuclear engineer, an electrical engineer and a truck driver together and we managed to solve it pretty quickly.

Describing the Mundane

There’s really only a few ways to describe a rather routine or mundane activity like painting.  And after that it starts to sound the same.  We were back in the Lake House today for another round of painting.  This time it was the cabinets in the kitchen.  The painting activities may have been the same as before but there was one thing of note this morning, and that was Deb using power tools.  The cabinets had to be cleaned and prepared for painting and that involved the use of an orbital sander.  So here she is, orbital sanding...

We had to make use of the women while we could, as tomorrow they will probably be working in the thrift store. Then we will probably be doing the painting.  So Reenie cleaned the cabinet doors and Chris also worked on sanding the cabinets.

The guys ended up in the cafeteria building, where a bathroom needed some love. The doors needed to be painted but we discovered that the existing paint could be peeled off the door in large ribbons with just a fingernail.  So this project got a bit bigger than originally intended because now the existing layer of paint had to be removed by scraping it off before priming and painting.

We learned during devotions this morning that we were all gathering in the chapel at 1:30 to describe what we do and to give our testimonies to the staff and the residents of the Boys and Girls Home.  So the painting was put on hold for an hour or so for this gathering.  We were privileged to speak about these projects and about our motivation to serve on these projects to a group of about 20 kids, most of them in their teens.  Hopefully some seeds were planted in their lives.

We finally had a chance for a group picture here in front of the chapel.

Sunday

When the sun came up, I launched the drone and took a few pictures from about 1000 feet in the air of the whole event area.  The result really doesn’t do justice to the pandemonium on the ground because a bunch of people had already left by this time and because most of the significant crowds of trailers were packed in under the shade of the pecan trees, so they can’t be seen from the air.  If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see the trailers scattered all over the place, particularly near the exhibition barn.

Last night was like some big party with people driving back and forth in their golf cars and quads until late at night.  We could hear the horses occasionally.  Despite the no-smoking policy, smoking and vaping were common.  Must be that the policy isn’t enforced all that much.

We walked to First Baptist Church again.  What a blessing to worship with this congregation at a church which holds true to the gospel.  We could definitely go here if we lived here.  The walk to and from church was also pleasant, as today dawned clear and cool and turned out to be a fantastic day.

When we came back, we had lunch at Pure Taste, an on-site restaurant run by Chef Kue.  We ran into him the first day we were here.  He loves to talk and was describing how he was a lineman for the telephone company for many years and felt called to go to culinary school.  Then he made an arrangement with the Boys and Girls Home to have this on-site restaurant, so he’s here during all the events that go on.  He took a big pay cut to come here, but he is able to be home with his family a lot more.  He was describing his chili-burger so today we ordered a chili-burger, which is a traditional hamburger with chili.  The burger was fantastic.  We’ll have to try this at home.

The afternoon was low-key, it’s nice to have a day to catch up on things, to watch the sermon from church back home, and even take a nap.  The horse trailers were streaming out during this time, and by about 4pm, the place was nearly empty and eerily quiet.  About the only thing left were piles of horse poop left all over the place, overflowing trash cans, and beaten down grass.

We moved back to our original campsite behind the exhibition barn.  And here we were introduced to another job that was perhaps unanticipated: scooping poop.  Several piles of the stuff were scattered around near our campsite, so we dutifully cleaned it all up and rinsed off the grass so we wouldn’t walk through any of it.

This evening was spent connecting with family, via video calls with siblings and phone calls with kids and parents.

Tomorrow it’s back to work.  Last week here, then we head towards home starting on Thursday.  Time has gone quickly...

Living In A Rodeo

Somehow on this trip, it is always warmest at night when we don’t have shore power.  Last night was warm and humid and the rain ensured that the roof vent did not run so it was a rather difficult night.

It was raining when we got up so we took care of some of the necessary things.  We found a small laundromat just a couple miles from where we stayed overnight and camped out in the parking lot, waiting for the machines to finish and making breakfast during that time.

Interesting laundromat.  The building was shared with a hardware store and the parking lot was tiny.  Directly in front of the door was a pickup with the hood up.  A woman sat inside the laundromat on a stool, babysitting two car batteries and a charger.  She was also doing a huge load of laundry and her and a guy worked on the pickup truck for a while, tying a rather large load down under a sheet of plastic.  We just watched all this while eating breakfast in the RV.  

I know, we’re easily entertained.

We hit a grocery store and stopped in a couple thrift stores before arriving back at Sunset Beach. The rain had stopped and the sun was starting to peek through by this time.  We made lunch in the city park and then drove onto the island. A bit busier than yesterday, but we managed to park in the same spot, one of the very few that actually will fit an RV.

After coming all this way, it would be a shame not to swim in the Atlantic.  So swim we did, attempting to body surf and just frolicking in the water.  I gotta say, I prefer the water of Lake Michigan to this.  Salt water feels slimy and tastes terrible.  But I doubt very much I would be swimming in Lake Michigan in the middle of October, so we will take what we can get.

We were some of the very few actually swimming in the water.  There were others wading or sitting at the edge in lawn chairs, but we Northerners have to take the opportunity to swim when the water is this warm.

After showering to get rid of the salt we went back to the city park for a snack and to just sit for a bit.  Nice park, with some swings at the edge of the Intercoastal Waterway.  One could spend a long time here.

We wandered back towards Lake Waccamaw.  After enjoying the tranquility of the beach we were a little reluctant to come back to a rodeo in full swing.  

When we first arrived here, we marveled at the size of this place.  Now we know why it is so big.  Coming back in, all that empty space that we marveled at was filled with rows and rows of horse trailers.  I had to drive in very slowly because there were groups of kids running around, people riding and leading horses all over the place, people on golf cars, quads, Segways, and all manner of ground transportation.  I’m going to try to get an aerial picture tomorrow morning as it was too dark this evening.  There may be somewhat fewer people here tomorrow; we’ve seen several trailers pulling out this evening.  Must be their part in the event is over.

After making dinner we walked to the arena to see what this was all about.  We had to wait for the Zamboni (actually two tractors with rolling harrows), but eventually got to see some barrel racing.

Three horses, one at a time, each racing twice, one loop around each barrel then a sprint back to the starting line.  Total time for each horse, about sixteen seconds.  After two of these sets, the Zamboni comes out again.  So it’s quite a bit of waiting for a few short races.  We watched a couple of these, then walked around outside for a while before returning to the RV.

When we got back we discovered that the farrier had set up shop about ten feet behind our RV space.  So we were serenaded with the clanging of hammer and anvil, and the sound of horses not liking what was happening.  I guess if my shoes were nailed to my feet, I might be a bit uncomfortable as well.

The farrier was a busy person.  She worked steadily until after 8pm when she closed up shop and drove away.  And all was quiet again.  Tomorrow, we get to experience this rodeo all day long.  We’ll have to walk right through the middle of it to go to church in the morning.  With this many horses around, it goes without saying we’ll have to watch our step.

Beach Day

It’s our day off, time to go to the beach. It was starting to get crazy on the ranch, with RVs and horse trailers streaming in from every direction.  Time to get out of dodge.  We headed south, first destination was Holden Beach, one of the barrier islands  on the far south coast of North Carolina.  This one seemed like it would be a little less crazy than the more well-known resort beach towns.

And it was less crazy.  Probably mostly because of the time of year.  Mid-October is probably not the prime beach season.  However, the weather today  was quite nice, almost hot at times so a beach day seemed appropriate.

Holden Beach is composed almost entirely of beach houses, usually three-story, each one, it seems, trying to be a little bit taller than its neighbors.  Some even had a deck on the roof to allow seeing over the others towards the ocean.  Kind of fun to ride around and see all the beach-ey colors on these homes.  It seems that the majority of these are vacation rentals.

It’s always a bit difficult to find parking for an RV in these resort towns, even in the off season, but we found a small beach access parking lot that was nearly empty and I backed the RV into a space that was the least obtrusive.

We took a walk on the beach, enjoying the pleasant day. The beach is big and expansive (perhaps some of this due to the tide), and was relatively empty.  I can imagine in the high season a place like this can get really busy. 

Then after making lunch we unloaded the bikes and biked around the island for a while.  Rows and rows of vacation homes, many of them with their own boat slips opening up into the Intercostal Waterway.  At least it’s not the craziness of lots of high-rises and surf shops.  I find that hard to take.  The bike ride was sane, pleasant, and enjoyable.  We probably would have biked the entire length of the island but the clock ran out on our paid parking space so we had to move on. Plus, it was starting to get a little busier.

Next stop was Sunset Beach.  Same collection of three-story beach houses but much smaller and more low-key.  National Geographic rates Sunset Beach as one of the best 20 beaches in the world.  With that high praise, I expected more traffic and more stringent parking.  However, parking was just wherever you could find a space along the road that wasn’t blocking someone’s beach house (which wasn’t much) and you didn’t need a credit card or an app on your phone to park your vehicle.

Part of the reason the beach-house district is rather small is that half of this island is the Bird Island Reserve, a mostly swampy area with lots of water channels that were not really suitable for boat traffic.  It would have been ideal for a kayak, though, but, due to the lateness of the day, we opted to explore the reserve on foot.  Until we saw someone walking their bicycle back from the beach access.  Here was a bonus: this beach was suitable for bicycles.

So we walked our bikes over the boardwalk access onto the beach.

The Bird Island Reserve is really only accessible by boat on the Intercostal Waterway, or by walking (or biking) the beach from Sunset Beach.  And so we found ourselves doing what we so enjoyed a few years ago on a trip to Hilton Head Island:  riding bikes on the beach.  Better yet, riding electric bikes on the beach.  We both said what we said the first time we hit a beach on an e-bike:

Wheeeeeeee!

It didn’t take long to bike the entire length of the island to the southernmost tip.  We walked around the tip for a while and I found a perfect little sand dollar on the beach.

About halfway between Sunset Beach and the tip of the island, a mailbox sits on a post on top of the dune.  A guy named Frank Nesmith says he and a former girlfriend placed the original "Kindred Spirit" mailbox in a remote location (here) more than 35 years ago. They left a notebook inside, hoping people would leave messages. But they never dreamed it would be so successful.

Over the years thousands have come here to share their innermost thoughts, and to read about the lives of others.  When we got there, we found several notebooks in the box.  We sat on the nearby bench and read a few of the entries.  Anywhere from enjoying the day to pouring out heart and soul can be found in those pages.  And there were a surprising number of entries from today.  Must be a popular thing to do: walk the half-hour to the mailbox to share innermost thoughts.

I put the covers on the bikes when we returned to the RV because of the rain in the forecast.  

Next on the agenda was to seek out something to eat.  The town of Calabash is known for its seafood restaurants.  Deb found one that looked promising so we went there.

We found out that Calabash is also a style of cooking seafood.  Dale’s restaurant uses that style as do many Southern seafood houses and Deb really liked it. So she was wanting a repeat of that meal. We ended up at Captain Nance’s, located right on the waterway and requested outdoor seating.

They had senior specials and they considered “senior” to be 60 or more.  Perfect.  We’ll take the senior platters.  Deb had the shrimp, I had the ocean perch.  And, of course, the first thing that came out was the ubiquitous basket of hush puppies.

Wonderful meal and very fast.  There was no waiting line, even on a Friday night at 6:30, and we were in and out of there in under an hour.

We stopped for the night at a Cracker Barrel in North Myrtle Beach.  So we’re in the middle of the beach-town craziness, but we’re far enough off the road to be relatively quiet.

End of Week Two

It started raining last night and rained steadily all night long.  At the first drop of rain, the roof vent closed cutting off all airflow through the RV.  However, we were now hooked up to electricity so the use of the air conditioning prevented another difficult night like we had this past weekend.

It was still raining when we got up.  Looking out the window, the dirt roads snaking around the campus were now riddled with mud puddles.  And we were supposed to move to a different location today.

The forecast called for steady rain until about 4pm.  But most of our work is inside so we should be able to keep working.  I was sandblasting outside to keep the mess out of the shop, but this can be done inside if necessary.

And that is what we did.  Unfortunately, this project didn’t go so well.  I wasn’t able to finish all the vents because the sand was wet.  Ron painted what I had done and discovered this morning that there were some areas that weren’t covered well enough, so he spray painted them again.  Bad idea.  The new paint wrinkled up over yesterday’s paint and I ended up with all the vents back on the floor to sand blast them all over again.

Austin brought a bag of dry sand which worked much better.  After going over all the vents, I had sand all over the shop and sand in my eyes, ears, nose, and most of my clothing, including small piles in my shoes.  I’ve been digging sand granules out of my ears for the entire day.

Since the remaining paint was still a bit wet, we reinstalled the vents in the cafeteria to get them out of the way and to let them dry over the weekend.  A couple were just too wet to install so the kids will have to live with gaping holes in the ceiling for a few days.

We took a break and while we were sitting there talking to Austin, Lee came in with Amanda, their communications director. She wanted to talk to us about SOWERs and the projects we were involved in for their internal newsletter. So we spent the next hour or so in sort-of an interview.  After that, it was time for lunch.  And the afternoon was reserved for moving the RVs to a different location, so we really didn’t get much work done today.

The women worked in the thrift store this morning.

It was still raining when we finished lunch, so we moved in the rain.  For us it’s a relatively simple matter of disconnecting the shore power and the water hose, hanging the bikes on the RV, rolling up the awning, and driving away.  So it took us about 15 minutes.  The others were a bit more entrenched, having set up a pet fence and more stuff outside, so it took them longer.  Our new location looks like it is in a hayfield. Complete with the hay mowed into windrows.  Yesterday, the grass was 18 inches high and we expressed concern about moving RVs into the tall grass and having to slog through this for the next few days.  They graciously mowed the grass.  Now it is only six inches high with the remainder of the grass laying on top.

So it was a short day today.  We drove to Whiteville this afternoon and walked around town for a while, got some groceries, did some other shopping, and made dinner in the Walmart parking lot.  Whiteville appears to be trying to restore the classic walkable downtown, so there are several interesting shops to browse.  At the end of this stretch was a pawn shop.  I haven’t set foot in a pawn shop in decades and it will probably be decades before I do it again, if ever.  This one looked like a fortress from the outside, with heavy mesh over the windows and doors.  Inside it felt a little like a prison.  The store was largely empty save for a case of guns, another case of knives, a shelf of ancient power tools, and three older televisions.  We didn’t stay long. 

We took a walk at a nearby park before returning to mud-ville.  The rain finally stopped but things are quite wet.  The forecast for this weekend is not looking great, with thunderstorms on Saturday.  We’ll have to see where we end up.

Painting, Or Not

I spent nearly the entire day in the 309 cottage, painting.  Deb got a break from painting today as the thrift store was open. So she disappeared with the other women, the other two guys went to finish painting an outdoor railing and a ramp on the Flemington house and I did the cut-in painting in the back bedroom and the bathroom of 309.  A bathroom has a lot to paint around.  And when the paint doesn’t quite cover the color underneath, it has to be done twice.

I’m not the world’s best painter.  I’ll do a decent job, but it takes me a while.  It is not my favorite activity.  But part of the SOWER song we sing every morning  speaks of doing our best, and it isn’t for me, it’s for the Lord, so I paint on...

Do then the best you can, not for reward,
Not for the praise of man but for the Lord.

I finally closed up the can and cleaned up at 2:30 and declared it done.  The other guys by this time had removed all the heating vent covers from the ceiling of the cafeteria and had taken them to the shop to be sandblasted and painted.  They were starting to show some rust and needed to be cleaned up.  I joined them at the shop and started filling the sandblaster with sand.

Unfortunately, the sand was rather wet and would clump up frequently, requiring the hopper for the sandblaster to be shaken vigorously in order to feed any sand at all.  My arms wore out before the job was finished.  Austin told us he would get some dry sand tomorrow morning. Ron painted the ones that were done so we could have most of them in place when everyone came in for lunch tomorrow.

When I got back to the RV, my back was hurting because of the acrobatics required to paint in a small bathroom and from shaking several pounds of sand for nearly an hour.

Deb spent the morning sorting and pricing items in the thrift store.  She finds that preferable to painting.  She again described it as way understaffed.  As a result, there’s too much stuff in the back room and not enough stuff on the floor.  Patti, who runs the place, has been sick for the last few days and wasn’t feeling all that great today so even those that are there are not operating at peak performance.

We decided to check out Dale’s Seafood today, one of the few restaurants in Lake Waccamaw.  It comes recommended by some of the locals.  Deb had the shrimp special and I had the flounder.  I figured if I go to a seafood restaurant I should at least order some seafood and I’m not real big on shrimp or crustaceans.

Although the presentation could be better, the fish was very good.  It was a little hard to eat as it was placed on a very small plate with all the French fries piled on top of it.  The result was  a very precarious mountain on a small plate with no place to put a dollop of ketchup for the fries.  But it was delicious and a fun time going out to eat.  One thing that came with the meal that’s a very southern thing: Hush Puppies.  Something we don’t see in our parts.  They were quite good when slathered with whipped butter and honey.

So I’m expanding my palette.  Flounder and Hush Puppies.  Two things I haven’t had before.

Now we’re back in the RV and I’m watching a couple people riding horses around in the arena right in front of us.  There’s a couple more RVs and horse trailers parked around here.  The biggest event of the year starts tomorrow: barrel racing. People come from all over for this. All the RV sites here were booked up before we even got here so we will be moving into what appears to be a horse pasture for a few days while this event rages on.

I, Plumber

Me and plumbing, we go way back.  I wrote about this back in August, 2005 (quoted at the end of this post).  I think I deal with frustrations better now, but I didn’t have the option of a redneck fix since this wasn’t my house, so I had to do it right.

Back in the kitchen of the Lake House today.  Lee brought a whole box of miscellaneous drain fittings, so there should be enough to finish the sink.

First of all, I had just completed installing the waste disposal when Ron came in.  “I think that’s on the wrong side of the sink,” he told me. “The disposal usually goes on the sink basin nearest the dishwasher.  You know, rinse the food off the plates into the disposal, put them in the dishwasher.”

I had done such a good job putting it in.  It was pristine. But it was wrong.

I looked at the old sink.  Sure enough, the disposal was mounted on the left basin, I had mounted the new one on the right.  I’ve worked in a left-handed kitchen so long that everything normal seems backwards to me.

So I removed the disposal, wiped off that fresh bead of caulk from the mounting flange, and redid it on the correct side.

Now I had to remove the drain assembly from the old sink for use on the new sink, but it wouldn’t budge.  I finally broke it after using larger wrenches.  Lee happened to come by and I told him what I needed.

I may not have to make multiple trips to the hardware store for this plumbing job, but I have asked Lee for more parts numerous times.  He must think I’m a very incompetent plumber.

Good thing I had a whole box of fittings.  Neither of the two drain kits that I was supplied with could be made to work, and neither kit had the required P-trap. But I managed to find the parts by rooting around in the box.  When you don’t want to make multiple trips to the hardware store, the solution is to have your own hardware store right there in the box.

The last hurdle was the electrical connection to the disposal.  No plug under the sink, just a wire sticking out of the wall.  So the cord had to be removed and the disposal hard-wired.  This required a wire clamp (not included).  I told Lee about it.  He appeared a bit later with the required clamp.  This would have been another trip to the hardware store but Lee found one in their warehouse.

I need a warehouse like that.

I got everything assembled and turned the water on.  No leaks so far.

Now it was break time.  As we sat in the living room, Chris came in and rinsed her paint brushes out in the sink.  Afterwards I discovered a puddle of white water under the drain assembly I had just installed.  So it had to be removed and reinstalled with a better bead of caulk.

I think it’s finally done.  I’m a little scared to see what happens when the dishwasher is started for the first time.

I painted for the rest of the day.

Beginning Week Two

Beautiful day in Lake Waccamaw, started out a chilly 43 degrees, mid-70’s this afternoon.  Not a cloud in the sky.  Started back in 309 this morning where Deb and Reenie worked on painting the bedrooms while I finished up some drywall patching.  The pros can do this in one or two passes, but it takes me several passes.  Slather some mud on let it dry, sand 90 percent of it off, repeat until satisfied.  I can eventually get there, I just make a lot more dust than the pros.

But they get paid a lot more than I do.

Lee had purchased a new sink for the kitchen in the Lake House so I worked on installing that.  First, the hole was too small and had to be cut a quarter inch bigger on all sides.  Then the drain assembly would not come off of the old sink and I managed to break it during the attempt.  Then the drain plumbing didn’t match and there was no trap among the supplies. This is all normal stuff and the reason why these kinds of projects take multiple trips to Lowe’s.  On a project like this, someone else buys the supplies so all this has to be reported to our group leader to relays that to the volunteer coordinator who either checks with their maintenance group or goes to Lowe’s himself.  So it’s not a quick process.

The sink is mounted, half of the drain plumbing is hanging on it, and hopefully it can be finished this week sometime.

I also repainted a bathroom that I had touched up last week.  Seems that the kitchen and the bathroom are exactly the same color, so when I finished painting the kitchen last week,  I took the wet roller into the bathroom and touched up the spots where the paint had not quite covered well.  Once it dried it looked terrible and I found out that the colors may have been the same, but the sheen was different.  The bathroom was painted with flat paint and the kitchen with satin.  So the bathroom now had a very blotchy look that needed to be fixed up.

Life on the road throws us some interesting curveballs.  Technology has certainly made life on the road easier, as a lot can be done online.  Bills can be paid online, I can turn the heat on at home remotely and control the sprinklers remotely.  I haven’t figured out how to mow the lawn remotely, however, I have kids for that (thank you, Zhen).

Sometimes, things require paper.  And that’s where it gets complicated.  I had to transfer some money between accounts.  Since the accounts were titled differently, it required a notarized signature.  On paper.  Everything else could be done online, I just needed a signature.  We don’t carry a printer in the RV so I figured I could go the local library and print out what I needed.  The library in Lake Waccamaw closes at 5:30.  We biked there after dinner.  I was just walking up to the side door when the librarian came to the door and said, “Sorry we’re closed” and shut the door.  I looked at my phone.  It was 5:17.  We walked around to the front of the building.  She was just closing that door also.  Seeing our determination she asked us if we had something quick. 

I held out a USB stick.  “I just need a to print a couple things,” I told her.

“Our computer is shut down at 4:30,” she said, “and I can’t turn it back on.”  With that, she closed the door.

I’m still trying to figure out how time works around here.   The library must work on multiple clocks.  On the front door, it says it closes at 6pm.  Inside, a sign states that it closes at 5:30.  The doors were shut at 5:17 and the computer stops working at 4:30.  I’m not sure the library had a single patron all day so no one will even notice if they shut the doors 15 minutes early.  Except the out-of-towner that needs a document printed.

So the first hurdle is getting something printed.  The second one is finding a notary.  The only bank in this town is an ATM machine at the gas station.  The nearest actual bank is 15 miles away.  Deb found a couple listings of names at residential addresses so we may just have to use one of those.

Meanwhile, Back At the Ranch

We’re back at the ranch.  After a weekend of travel and adventure, we spent a quiet day here, catching up on some things end enjoying the super nice day.

In sharp contrast to the prior night’s warmth and humidity, last night dropped to 44 degrees.  Out of habit we had windows open and the fan running, but had to shut everything in the middle of the night because it was getting really cold.  I do sleep better when it’s cold.

The temperature was 52 inside when I got up.  We carry a small electric heater in the RV, a tip from Dave at Dave’s RVs , and since we had electric hookups, we didn’t need to burn precious propane to warm the place up.

We attended services again this week at First Baptist Church of Waccamaw.  It was a packed house.  This is a growing church and is starting to bust at the seams.  Teaching was on the first four verses of the book of Titus, written to a Gentile minister at a church in Crete.  Paul quotes one of their own people describing them as “liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons”.

Ouch.  That’s setting the bar pretty low.

This church was a mess.  Many churches today are similarly messy.  Titus was charged to train and ordain other pastors and this letter was instructions from Paul to do just that.  A healthy church must be a biblical church and we had some good biblical instruction this morning.

We grilled some salmon for lunch--super delicious and did some bike riding and some walking this afternoon as well as catching up on some Bible study lessons and some conversations with family.

Tomorrow starts week 2 of this project.  I wonder what we will be doing...

Room With A View

Last night was a rather difficult one for sleeping.  It was warm and quite humid and we were boondocking so we did not have use of air conditioning.  The ceiling vent fan that we use almost constantly suddenly closed up and shut off somewhere around 2am, so now there was no air movement.  When I got up at 6am I disassembled the fan far enough to reach the rain sensor and scrubbed it off as dirt plus humidity looks just like rain.  It did seem to improve the operation.  Another one of those things that pop up, needing to be fixed on the road.

After making breakfast we decided to head south to Fort Fisher Recreation Reserve.  I suppose it would have been more time-efficient to just camp out at the state park we were at yesterday and not drive this far north, but we didn’t know where we were going to end up.

Fort Fisher is the location of one of the largest battles of the Civil War, so there are historical markers galore, particularly around the trail that circles the site of the original fort and gun battery.  This area is also a major recreation area, popular with fishermen, boaters, and people who like to drive their 4-wheel-drive vehicles on the beach.  We came there to kayak.

We put in at the boat launch and spent nearly three hours paddling about the salt marshes and to a couple of beach landings, one on Zeke’s Island, and the other on the back of the dune facing the ocean.  Since it was now a weekend, the boat ramp was busy and there were a few other groups of people out on kayaks.  Nearly everywhere we looked as we paddled the salt marshes, there was someone in a boat or in waders, casting their fishing lines.  There were also quite a few people fishing with nets.  Usually these guys would stand waist deep in the water and fling their nets into the water, but some of them were casting the nets from boats.  I’m sure it took some practice to get the net to fan out properly when casting.  They just make it look easy.

Fantastic weather for kayaking although it appeared we were paddling against the wind.  Just like bicycling, where the ride is always uphill and against the wind, so kayaking is always up-current and against the wind.  As we were making for the beach on Zeke’s Island, we had to make a detour around a whole flock of birds, not because we didn’t want to scare the birds, but because the birds were standing in about an inch of water and we would have grounded our kayaks on the sandbar.  It was low tide at the time so there was several sandbars to avoid, and they could be seen by the different color of the water.

It was fun to watch the pelicans do their thing, flying low over the water, then suddenly nosing over and splashing into the water.  They would take off and do it all over again.  I never actually saw one catch anything, they just appeared to be dive-bombing the water at random.  Also cool were the little fiddler crabs that scurried away across the beach when we landed at Zeke’s Island. They are about the size of a dime and are the only creature that appears to run sideways.

We beached the kayaks on the dune by the ocean and walked the short distance to the Atlantic.  This area allows vehicle traffic on the beach, so there were 4x4 vehicles parked as far as the eye could see in either direction.  Most of the people had several fishing lines in the water, and a few looked like they were just there for the day.  We waded around in the surf for a while, enjoying the roar of the water and the warmth of the day.

The wind was becoming a bit stronger on the way back, still seemed to be against us.  Little bit more chop to the water also.  Time for lunch.  We made lunch in the beach parking lot, then took a walk, first down the beach, and then ending up at the Civil War historical sites.  We perused these for a while then moved the RV to the parking lot right along the coast to make dinner.

Many people were leaving for the day, which left a lot of space for an RV, particularly right along the water.  So we had a great room with a view while preparing and eating dinner, looking out over the Atlantic and hearing the surf pound on the rocks just a few feet outside the window.  Probably one of the more memorable meals in terms of the location and the view.  And the ocean breeze blowing through the open windows added to the pleasant ambiance.

Making fresh salsa with the Atlantic as a backdrop

Taco bowls enjoyed with the sound of the Atlantic surf

We weren’t the only ones enjoying the ocean view.  We saw this couple earlier, paddleboarding the same salt marshes we were.  And here they were, enjoying the same views as us, although perhaps in a more creative fashion.  We’ll have to try it like that sometime.

Kind of tough to leave this, but leave we must, so we took off towards “home”, arriving in Lake Waccamaw after dark.

Something To Write About

I am not a painter.  I’ve done a lot of painting over many years but I am not a painter.  Painting is a worthwhile activity.  It can even be a career choice for some people.  Just not for me.  And even more of a challenge than painting for me is writing about painting.  That’s why the last few days I have mostly written about things other than painting.

Today is a day off.  No painting.  That means some stuff to write about.  So here goes...

We took off towards Wilmington this morning with a few things in mind.  The first was to pick up some groceries.  Next was to do some kayaking.  After some deliberation we headed for Trails End Park, which is on the Intercostal Waterway behind Masonboro Island.  This island is undeveloped and composed mostly of several miles of ocean-facing dune and beach and a large saltwater marsh behind it.  The only access is by boat.

We launched the kayaks at the boat ramp and paddled out towards the salt marsh, a task made difficult by the stiff wind that was against us.  The boat ramp had steady activity with people launching and retrieving their boats; this place must be crazy on  weekends.

After about a mile and a quarter paddling through the salt marshes, we beached the kayaks and hiked over the small dune to the beach.  We could hear the roar of the surf over the dune even before we reached the dune and now we were rewarded with a view of the ocean. 

Other than two other people who had beached their paddle boards near our kayaks, we were the only ones on the beach.  For miles.  In both directions.  In the distance we could see the clustered resort buildings of Carolina Beach to the south and Wrightsville Beach to the north.  But here it was pristine in its emptiness.  There is very little mention of this place in any brochure or guidebook.  It almost seems like a closely guarded secret.

So we took a pleasant stroll on the beach, keeping one eye to the west where some pretty significant storm clouds were brewing.  The weather forecast called for strong storms with rainfall totals over an inch starting at 5pm so our time was limited here.  After walking on the beach for a while, we reluctantly turned back towards the kayaks.

I had expected the wind that was against us to help us out on the return trip, however, it nearly completely died down while we were returning.  Still easier to paddle back, but no help from the wind.  Another check of the forecast: significantly downgraded from last time, now only a chance of rain.  And the sky was brightening.  We did get sprinkled on for a little while, but that was about it.  We could have stayed longer.

We paddled through a large school of jellyfish on the way back.  We identified them later as Southern Moon Jellyfish.  That and the brown pelicans and white ibis and the non-stormy weather made this a super pleasant afternoon.

We drove south into Carolina Beach.  Parking is five dollars per hour at any spot near the beach and there’s no room for oversize vehicles.  So we parked the RV at Carolina Beach State Park, unloaded the bicycles, and pedaled the one-mile downtown.  We had dinner at Michelangelo’s Pizza.  Most likely no relation to the famous Italian painter/architect as there was nothing in the restaurant that would suggest a connection.  They just made pizza.  We ate out on their porch overlooking the main street, watching all the golf carts drive by.

We then took a walk on the boardwalk next to the beach.  Not a real long boardwalk, but long enough to walk off the food coma that comes from eating too much pizza.

When we got back to the state park and I was loading the bikes back on the RV, Deb discovered a bunch of flytrap plants growing behind the visitor center building.  This area is one of the very few where the Venus Flytrap grows in the wild.  So cool to see.

We figured that, rather than driving all the way back to Lake Waccamaw and then coming back here tomorrow, we would just boondock here and save the time.  So we holed up in the back parking lot of a Cracker Barrel.