A Marathon Day

We’re home.  We had a marathon day, for us at least. 500 miles in one day--rather a lot for how we normally travel.  We did make a stop in Shipshewana, Indiana, at Deb’s favorite grocery store, and at B&G Discount to pick up paint supplies for our own work project, and arrived home at about 8pm.

Temperatures dropped steadily as we drove north, and we arrived home in time for the first hard frost of the season.  I had to quickly winterize the RV and Deb had to remove any foodstuffs containing water to prevent freezing.  Welcome to the North. 🙄

The last leg of a trip home is always somewhat of a supply-run, with groceries and other stuff being thrown on the bed on our pell mell run back home.  No attempt at neatness, and we didn’t even make the bed, as we will not be sleeping in it any more on this trip.

And now we join normal life again, six weeks behind.  That is evidenced by the pile of mail on the table, although going through this doesn’t take very long.  A lot of the pile is junk mail, and a surprising amount of this is for kids who no longer live with us.  Feels like a post office in here, just sorting someone else’s mail.

In all we put 2900 miles on the RV and were on the road for six weeks.  So this wraps up our sixth volunteer project.  Stay tuned for number seven, scheduled for early January in Texas.  See y’all then.

And Just Like That, It's Over

We took leave of the Lives Under Construction Boys Ranch today.  It’s always a bit difficult to leave as we leave a little bit of our hearts behind, having gotten to know and love the people here, really enjoying the Ozark Mountains, and loving the extension of great Fall weather because of our more southern location.

I managed to finish the project I was working on, spending time this morning grouting the floor I had just repaired and tiled and then early this afternoon setting the toilet back in place.  It turned out rather well and, I gotta say, that throne is pretty solid.

These projects always involve supply trips.  In this case, I had to run to the wood shop numerous times for tools, fasteners, and the like, and I put 18 miles on my bike just running back and forth.  Most of the roads are steep, curvy, and made of coarse gravel, which made for a bumpy ride and an appreciation for an electric bike.

Deb was back in the thrift store.  This time she was asked to organize an enormous area full of plastic totes, sorting the dirty ones from the clean ones from the ones to be pitched.  This turned out to be a rather significant job, particularly since some of the stack needed to be moved to the other side of the 14,000 square-foot store, but she managed to make some semblance of order out of the pile.  She was rather exhausted when it was done and was even asked by one of the staff if she was OK.  “I think we gave you kind of a big job,” said the staff member.

We had our last lunch with the staff and the boys and said some of our goodbyes there in the lunch room.  Most of the boys were like, whatever, and went on with their chores as normal.  I’m sure there are so many volunteers that come in and out that we were just two among many.

Little Max, however was genuinely sorry to see us go.  We got a hug from him and he asked us when we were coming back.  He may be an off-the-wall, distractible kid, and we probably don’t see most of what goes on, although we do see him out on Con time quite a bit, but he is an endearing young man and we will miss him, too.

Normally we would be working until 3:30, but, as Steven said, there were a lot of big projects but he didn’t have any other small projects, so we were able to leave at around 1:30.  Steven said this as he was snaking out a sewer line for the mechanic’s shop.  The line was probably hit when a lean-to was put on the building and will have to be dug up and repaired.  “That will probably be a Con for the boys,” he told me.

Yeah, I wouldn’t want to dig that up either.  I’ll just go fix toilets instead. 🙄

It doesn’t take us long to disconnect and roll out of our campsite.  However, it took us over a half hour just to get to the end of the driveway.  We stopped by the metal shop and bade goodbye to Tim, a full-time volunteer that we’ve had many conversations with.

We stopped at the end of the driveway to take our group picture and there met up with Ken and Tracy, who rolled in with their big RV a few days ago.  Ken will be building a the chapel with cedar logs taken from the ranch property and milled and shaped by a local Mennonite sawmill.  They don’t know how long they will be staying: weeks, months, more?  But they felt called to come here to work for an undefined amount of time.

And then we drove for the rest of the day. 291 miles and we are stopped at a Cracker Barrel just east of St. Louis.

The story wouldn’t be complete without some sort of issue on the road.  An hour out of Springfield, we’re on Interstate 44 and suddenly there’s this rattling sound coming from somewhere outside.  Since no lights were on and it still seemed to be running fine, I continued five or six mies to the next exit and then pulled into a parking lot.  Looking underneath, nothing seemed to be amiss except for the tank heater on one of the waste tanks, hanging down and flapping in the breeze.  But rubber doesn’t make that kind of noise, so I crawled underneath and eventually found a heat shield had lost one of its retainer clips.  It rattled rather freely against the frame and the driveline.  I found another clip that could be taken off without making things too loose, and used that one to fasten the shield back in place.  Time lost: about ten minutes.

Looking back on it, this was probably one of our more enjoyable projects.  We were initially disappointed that we were the only SOWER couple here but that had some unexpected benefits.  With additional couples, the SOWERs tend to do things together: working together, devotions together, game nights, potlucks, and so on.  Instead, we got to know Steven and Christina, our ranch coordinators, rather well as we had devotions with them nearly every morning.  Because we ate in the lunch room with the staff and boys, we got to know them also.  And we had some conversations with other staff and volunteers as we were walking about in the evenings.

Plus, the ranch is in a beautiful location.  It may be a challenge to drive but it has that Ozark beauty to it, the steep rolling hills, the heavy wooded areas, and the nearby Table Rock Lake.  Lots to see and do here.  And the weather was great.  It’s supposed to rain buckets tomorrow, but it was great while it lasted.

If there was a project to do over again, this would be near the top of the list.  Even when reglazing showers and fixing toilets.

Wrapping Things Up

We have only one day to go here.  Tomorrow after work we will disconnect and drive towards home. It’s always a little bittersweet as we look forward to the conveniences of home but we will leave all these people we have gotten to know.  It has been nice sharing morning devotional times with Steven and Christina, our coordinators, and lunch times with some of the staff and the boys.

So it’s a race against time to finish this bathroom job I’m working on, primarily because the tile mortar has to set, then the grout has to be done and it takes its own time to set.  So far, I am on schedule as I finished laying the tile this afternoon.  I was asked to re-use the existing tile so it took a while to clean it up and chip off all the old grout from the edges.  Some of them were broken but they went in anyway, assembled like a concrete jig-saw puzzle.  Most of the cracks are behind the toilet, so they won’t be readily visible.  This picture is the work in progress.

Deb worked in the thrift store, first cleaning and organizing a case of silver tableware, then sweeping the floors.  All 14,000 square feet of floors.

She may be there again tomorrow, or she may not.  A large group of volunteers is leaving tomorrow, and I would imagine the places where they stayed may need to be cleaned.

Making a Mess

I finished up the desk hood this morning.  I made a latch mechanism that hold it up and that can easily be released.  After a couple of design changes, it works quite well.

After lunch I asked Steven what he would like me to do next.  He half-apologetically asked if I would be willing to replace a wax gasket under a toilet.  Perhaps he was afraid I would say no to this.  I told him I would be fine with that.  We take the glamorous work along with the unglamorous.

When he showed me where the work was, he said it would be a little more involved.  Indeed, the toilet rocked loosely on the floor and there was evidence that the floor had been wet.  Probably some subfloor needing replacement.  I confirmed this by taking up the toilet and the tile around the toilet.  The subfloor was soaking wet and quite rotted.

So a simple wax gasket replacement became a subfloor replacement and a tile and grout job.  I discovered that the toilet flange had never been fastened to the floor, so this installation was defective to begin with.

So began the dirty job of removing a rotted subfloor.  By the end of the day, I had a section removed and a new section cut out to replace it.  This job will probably take the remainder of my time here.

Deb cleaned another dwelling unit today.  Seems like there’s always that kind of work to do.

Boxing It Up

I spent much of the day in the wood shop and the mechanic’s shop.  I made quite a bit of progress on the locking box that fits over a desk in the mechanic’s shop, completing the box and getting it mounted to the wall.  The last detail will be a latch that will hold it up when it is in use.  Right now I am just using a prop.  I took some pictures of the nearly completed project as well as one picture that shows what I am working around: a 1966 Mustang Coupe, one of many older cars that grace this ranch.

At least this one is in good condition and is parked inside.  A little dusty, perhaps, but dry.  Many others are parked in the trees and are slowly succumbing to the weather and the undergrowth.

Deb cleaned another staff housing unit today.  This unit will be occupied with a new staff member tomorrow, so Deb was on another rush job, trying to clean a whole dwelling unit in just a few hours.  At least this one was smaller and not quite do dirty.

There may be one more house to clean tomorrow.

Lunch was more packed than usual.  Nearly a dozen volunteers from a church group are here for a few days laying floors, replacing decks, and other work.  The only time we cross paths is at lunch so not much chance to interact with any of them.  We have usually been sitting at the boys’ table where there really isn’t a lot of interaction with the boys.  I’m sure there are so many volunteers that come and go that they are just not interested in getting to know any of them.

Except Max.  Max wants to be friends with everyone.  He usually plops himself down across from us and is highly interested in our attention.  Today he was staring intently at me and asked me what I was looking at.

“I’m reading the words to ​Standing On the Promises, I told him, pointing at the song lyrics on the easel.  This led to a discussion of what standing on promises actually meant.  He may have been just trying to keep our attention, but he does think about it and wonder about it.  The discussion ended when he was reminded that he had ten minutes left to eat what was on his plate.  He has to be steered back on task.  A lot.

We took a walk this evening, walking past the building with the old fire engine and the sawmill, walking past the burn pile, and we eventually ended up by the mechanic’s shop where we noticed one door was open and the light was on.  Marty must be working late.  And he was in there, putting the finishing touches on a starter replacement job.  Marty is the resident mechanic here and will often be found here during off hours, working on one of many projects.

Marty also has his doctorate in theology and does the church services here on the ranch on Sundays.  We talked with Marty for probably an hour or more, and he covered such subjects such as the rise of Pentecostalism, dispensations, false teachings in the church, and traditional and contemporary music,  all the while making hand gestures holding the last tool he was working with in his grease-stained hands.

But he wasn’t just pontificating opinions.  His assertions were backed by Scripture and sound doctrine, something that is lacking in many modern churches.

We meet some fascinating people on these projects.  Marty is one of them.  A theologian who overhauls engines and transmissions is a rare person indeed and probably won’t be found in most typical churches or mechanic’s shops.  But the ranch?  That’s where you find them.

Sunday At the Ranch

The rains are done here, but they ushered in much cooler temperatures.  It was a day where it actually felt good to stand in the sun. Not so intense and it warmed the body enough to ward off the chill of the wind.

We joined our church via streaming at 8am.  Good to be able to participate, even if it’s only one way and on a tiny screen.

At 10:30 we joined the boys in the lunch room for their Sunday service.  Marty has been going over doctrine and today the topic was marriage and family.  He stressed that a proper view of marriage and family are foundational to society and living outside of God’s plan for marriage is one of the major contributors to decline of a culture.  During the question time it was the youngest, 10-year-old Max, who asked the most questions.  And he asked some good ones.  In spite of being off-the-wall most of the time, he is thinking about things.

Once this was done, the boys set up for dinner.  Sunday dinner is served family-style, with place settings out for everyone and food brought out to the tables.  Most other meals we have here are served cafeteria-style.

It can be challenging to get the boys to talk, unless you are talking about cars or hunting or video games.   Some of the older ones talk about trucks and what they want in a truck; big dually diesel trucks costing upwards of $80,000.  Deb put in a remark to the effect of “What if you drive some cheap, basic thing and save/invest the rest?”  They all looked at her like she had two heads.  Financial acumen is something we all need to grow into.

We saw Max by the plastic pile this afternoon, busting up the larger pieces of plastic so they would fit better in the dumpster.  In the trailer-loads of unusable stuff that comes from the thrift store, the plastic stuff is separated out and piled here to be taken care of by the boys, usually as a Con.  The rest goes either to the metal recycle or the burn pile.

Little Max was busting up plastic with a large mallet, and taking his time to do so.  When I walked past after he had finished and gone, I noticed strings of old Christmas lights where every bulb was smashed, and several VCR tapes where all the tape had been pulled out and jumbled up into one large pile before being thrown in the dumpster.  May as well play with the stuff as you are disposing of it.

I took some time to fly my drone for a while.  It’s not often I have such wide open spaces to practice flying.  I took picture of the road leading to the ranch.  It doesn’t look so steep from the air but, on the ground and driving a large vehicle, it’s much steeper than it looks.  The area around here is all part of the Mark Twain National Forest, so it is just trees for as far as the eye can see.  It is some beautiful country out here.

Tomorrow begins our last week of work.  It sounds like Deb will be cleaning more housing units and I will continue working in the wood shop.  Another couple drove in over the weekend in a large motorhome, and they will be volunteering for a while, and a church group will be here for a few days.  A lot of work is done by volunteers and I imagine it can be a challenge keeping all these groups gainfully employed.

Summer's End

Summer is over here.  The last day was yesterday.  A cold front moved through last night, bringing clouds and rain behind it.  While it was still somewhat warm today, the frequent downpours and thunder signaled a change in weather.  Tomorrow’s high will struggle into the low 60’s.

It has been a warm, dry few weeks here.  Great for working outside, not so great for the dry trout pools we saw yesterday.

Since it was not a day for outdoor activities, we drove into Branson after a leisurely breakfast.  We took the north route, through Kimberling City and hit a couple thrift stores on the way.  We also stopped at the Old Fashioned Dough Company in Branson West, a place that makes cinnamon rolls and similar delectables.  Deb found this in some of her area research as a highly-rated place to feed our food habit.

We were not disappointed.  My cinnamon roll and Deb’s Pecan roll were delightful and we enjoyed them in the car as the rain thrashed at the windows.

We arrived in Branson and bought tickets to SIX, a group that sings familiar and hit songs using no instruments, just their own harmonization.  The show started at 3pm, it was now 1pm, so we drove to Billy Gail’s Restaurant for lunch.  We wanted to a local icon, not some chain, and this one came out near the top of the reviews we had read.

This restaurant was quite the experience.  It was jammed to the rafters, attesting to is popularity, and it was a 20-minute wait to get in.  Looking around, this was a visual overload of stuff hanging from the walls and ceilings.  Think Cracker Barrel on steroids.  We were finally ushered in to a tiny two-person table in a very crowded dining room, but they appeared to have a system that made everything work well.  They specialize in breakfasts and are known for their five-egg omelettes and “hubcap-sized pancakes”.

The service was good and prompt, in spite of the crowds, and my five-egg pulled pork omelet was delicious.

SIX is a group of six brothers, all from the same family, who started singing as children because they couldn’t afford instruments.  There are actually 10 brothers and no sisters (their poor mother!).  They do everything a cappella, using their voices to harmonize and even mimic percussion sounds.  They were very good, singing songs all the way from the Beatles to Justin Bieber and a lot in between.  Would recommend them as well as the Haygoods for those coming to Branson.

When the show was over, we were not ready for dinner yet, having had a large lunch at nearly 2pm, so we took a walk at nearby Lakeside Forest Wilderness Area.  A trail and a series of over 300 stone steps descended to Lake Taneycomo.  Because of the rain, the trail and steps were wet and somewhat slippery so we had to tread carefully.

We decided that pizza would be our dinner and found a highly-rated pizza joint.  Upon arriving there, the parking lot was empty and a sign on the door said it was closed due to a dining room leak.  Must be from today’s rain.

We found another pizza place, again highly rated, in the direction of the ranch and drove there.  We found the road backed up from people trying to get into the parking lot and the line was streaming out the door.

Strike two.

On the way back to the ranch we found another pizza place.  It was (a) open, and (b) not crowded so we gave it a shot.  Turns out it was in the midst of changing ownership.  We did get a pizza.  The slices were cut at crazy angles and the condiments were mostly clustered on one side. But we actually got a pizza.  It was fair to middling.  So while we didn’t strike out, we only got a base hit and it was nothing to write home about.  We were hoping that our foodie day away would end with a bang, but it ended with more of a whimper.

Day Off

With two weeks of the project now in the books, we have a long weekend to ourselves.  Today we drove to nearby Dogwood Canyon Nature Park, recommended by a couple of staff members here.  

The drive was short, just a few miles.  Upon turning into the drive we encountered a sign: Busses, RVs, Trucks - Don’t even think about driving down this road.  They also had a phone number at the bottom of the sign.

None of the research we had done had mentioned this.  And they really didn’t have a place to get out of the way.  I did manage to pull onto the lawn and I tried the number.  Voice mail.  Tried a few times.  Voice mail.  I left a message but there was no return phone call.  Finally, Deb got out and walked down the road to the ticket booth and told someone we were waiting for an answer.  That got someone out who escorted me down the exit road into the parking lot.  Apparently, the entrance road has a hairpin turn where large vehicles can get stuck and larger vehicles get escorted the wrong way down the exit road.

Total time lost, about 45 minutes.

Dogwood Canyon is another venture by Johnny Morris, the founder of Bass Pro Shops.  10,000 acres along three miles of a canyon, with a paved path along the entire three miles.  He really has done a nice job making this a tourist destination with a conservation theme.  Waterfalls, a treehouse, caves, springs, and (of course) places to fish for trout; the three miles wind past all these things, making for a nice (if not long) walk or a pleasant bike ride.  It really is well done and a worthwhile destination, the drought dried up most of the trout pools and the National Riverway we were at a few weeks ago was much wilder and we could actually put a kayak in the river.

The best way to do this is on a bicycle and we did just that, joining the throngs of walkers and other bicycles along the way.  It is certainly a popular place, despite its rather remote location.  I’m sure it pulls a lot of the more adventurous people from Branson, about a half-hour’s drive away, and other areas even more far flung.

We biked the entire three miles, stopping at each marked attraction (except the 260-year-old Sycamore tree, which we found out later was just a stump.  I have a massive Sycamore tree in my front yard, so I know what they look like).

The last waterfall and the end of the road even had a little treat for those that made it that far: Yellow trout.  I’ve never seen these before so I stuck my phone in the water and took a picture of one.

Leaving here, we had some day left so we drove to the Big Indian public use area, probably one of the closest public areas.  Everything is far away here, especially over the roller-coaster roads and when driving an RV.  Arriving we found a boat ramp and a couple boat slip buildings in the process of being torn down.  We had a snack and watched the deconstruction for a while and then headed back.

On the way back, Deb spotted a small sign along the road advertising eggs.  I dutifully pulled into the driveway, which was large gravel and pitched downward at an alarming angle.  A closed gate stopped our progress and it had a sign instructing us to honk.  We slid to a stop before hitting the gate.  Someone was already coming out so we didn’t have to honk. There were two homes here and this place seemed to be quintessential Ozark, even Hillbilly-ish.  Small, simple homes with unpainted porches, surrounded by more vehicles than would be expected, probably some of them not running.  Beyond that, the steep rugged beauty of the Ozarks. The guy I talked to approached me suspiciously and I half expected him to brandish a shotgun.  I’m sure we were a bit of a spectacle, a motorhome crunching to a stop on his driveway (Don’t get many of them things in these parts).  When I asked about the eggs, he thought he had a dozen and instructed his son to go fetch them.  The boy disappeared into the dilapidated barn and emerged a few minutes later with an egg carton.  I handed him the three bucks. I carried the bulging carton back to the RV.  Inside were some of the largest eggs I have seen in a long time.

Deb was convinced we weren’t going to make it out of the driveway but we managed to escape the golf-ball sized rocks we were parked on and were soon back at the ranch.

A Rush Job

During our morning devotions and meeting we were talking about the staff housing unit we were working on. The shower I finished will take three days to cure and there probably was a few days of cleaning that needed to be done.  Deb was asking about priorities as there may be more cleaning than there is time available.  “When is he moving in?” she asked.

“Tomorrow,” was the answer.

Tomorrow?!

This means all that cleaning has to be done in three hours.

Deb did her best.  On adrenaline, she cleaned windows, swept and mopped the floors, touched up a few paint spots, put the linens back on the beds and the curtains back on the rods and cleaned two bathrooms.  The fridge got ten minutes, the oven got five.  And all the paint and stuff we had been using to fix the place up all had to be moved out.  By 11:30, the place was Ranch clean and she was exhausted.  Dutch clean would probably have taken a few days.  But with staff turnover being high and lots of housing units needing cleaning, Ranch clean it is.

I did manage to snap a picture of the shower this morning.  That’s some mighty fine lipstick that makes that pig look this good.

I started a new project.  In the mechanics shop there is a desk that will eventually be receiving computer diagnostic equipment for later model cars.  The ranch has operated for a long time on older vehicles, which don’t require such sophisticated equipment, but newer cars are starting to show up and they want to start training the boys on the newer cars.

Since many people have access to the building, I was asked to build something that would fold down over the desk and lock in place to protect this  equipment.  I was also given two sheets of plywood.  One of them was probably a Con for one of the boys as it had dozens of nail holes.  Someone got to pull the nails out as a consequence for some undesirable action.  This board appears to have had a prior life on a roof, with lots of shingles nailed to it.

It won’t be real pretty, but it will be functional.

So that was most of my day, first puzzling how to fit all the material needed into two sheets of plywood, one of them with a busted corner.  Next was wrestling these onto the table saw to cut them out, then beginning assembly.  I have most of the cover done, I just have to engineer a latch mechanism to hold it upright when it is folded upward.

Decent progress for the day and this marks two weeks completed on this project.  Only one week to go.  Time flies.

After dinner we had some supplies to get and also had a craving for ice cream so we took the car into Branson.  The ranch graciously allowed us to use one of their cars so we wouldn’t have to use the RV every time we needed to go out.  Piloting an RV on these roads, especially at night, is challenging in an RV and we were grateful for a smaller set of wheels.  We picked up some groceries and got our ice cream fix at Culver’s.

Was it worth it to drive an hour and a half round trip for ice cream?

You bet.

Volatile Organic Compounds

I always have this hesitation before starting a project like this, like I’ve never done this before and I don’t know what the outcome will be.  In fact, I’m not really sure how to do this.  In the end, the stall tactics come to an end and it just has to be done.

This particular job was mixing two parts of epoxy coating together and then painting it onto the shower.  All the prep work was done, I even managed to stifle the slow leak in the shower valve by wrapping an old towel around it.  Now I’m staring at this box of two-part epoxy, knowing that, when it is mixed together, I have just a few hours to get the job done before the stuff hardens and becomes unusable.

After making really sure that this can would cover the entire shower with two coats, I did the deed.  I mixed the two parts together, which started the clock.  Here goes nothing!

It took a surprisingly long time to put the first coat on.  Starting immediately after lunch, it was almost 2:30 before I was able to step outside for a break and get some fresh air.  Spending that much time in a small bathroom filled with Xylene and Trimethylbenzene vapors gets to a person after a while.  Providentially, a light wind was blowing in the right direction, forcing a supply of fresh air through the open window.  I leaned back into the breeze often while I was working.

I was supposed to let it sit for an hour before the second coat, but I figured the first wall was was already at an hour so I dove into the shower again, determined to get it done before the paint hardened.

Quitting time is normally 3:30, I managed to finish just before 4:30.  I was in such a hurry to get out of the stink that I didn’t take final picture.  But now it’s done. This shower is a bit of a pig, given what it’s been through.  But this lipstick on the pig has it looking pretty good.  And I can add painting a shower to the growing list of oddball stuff I've done while on these projects.

And Deb quarantined my clothing when I got back to the RV because I reeked of Volatile Organic Compounds.  Even my shoes are spending the night outside.

Deb started cleaning this unit, as a new staff member is supposed to move in soon.  It may take a while, it’s pretty dirty.  We had a little discussion on Dutch clean versus Ranch clean and this unit will probably end up somewhere between the two.

And when we get home, we get to do this all over again.  A rental unit needs a complete paint job and it needs the tub reglazed.  And probably some cleaning.  After getting a stratospheric quote for this work, we figured we would do it ourselves.  So I guess we are practicing for it right now.

Halfway There

Today marks the halfway point of our work here.  Three weeks total, halfway through the second week.  I always get to a point like this and it seems like our time here is just flying by.  On the other hand, looking through past journal entries, it seems like we’ve been on the road forever.  The first day here seems like ages ago.  And that was after nearly three weeks on the road already.

Today it was more of the same.  Deb did a lot of touch up painting, and I attacked the shower again.  It took several more hours of pounding, with each shard being a small hard-won victory.  By noon I had it down to a small corner, and then by about 2pm the last shard went flying.

The lesson from all this: never use Bondo to fix a shower.  This will be your “Con” (consequence).   Or somebody’s Con.  Like mine?

Tomorrow I get to sand the surface down and prepare it for reglazing.  I almost hate to ask but I have to: since we’re reglazing the floor of the shower, do we need to do the entire shower?  A reglazed floor will make the rest of the shower look bad.  But that’s a question for tomorrow.  We serve at the pleasure of our host and will do whatever he tells us to as long as it isn’t immoral or illegal.  Even work that looks and feels like a Con.

We’ve enjoyed lunches served by the ranch and shared with the staff and the boys.  And we can observe the personality of each of the boys, from the quiet, sullen looking one to the one bouncing off the walls.  And we’ve observed some of the discipline that goes on.  One young man has been on Con almost continually and I learned another term: NFT, which stands for No Free Time.    He has been on NFT for a while.  We’ve seen him sawing logs by the door to the lunch room when we came in for the last few days.  He spends half his lunch hour sawing logs in half as a Con.  Another youngster didn’t scoot his chair in when he left the table, so he had to scoot his chair in and out five times before sitting down again.

I tried to meet the quiet sullen young man on his terms at lunch.  I observed out loud that he was a man of few words and that I also was a man of few words.  I told him, “I have to conserve what few words that I have, so I don’t use them all up before the end of the day.”  The staff member sitting next to me laughed, but he just grunted.  Must be he has already used his up.  Not sure how to get through to that one.  Others will talk freely about hunting, about cars, about video games, we just have to figure out how to get them started.  It’s not hard with some of them.

Reusing Old Wood

I finished up the base trim today.  After countless trips up and down the stairs to the miter saw outside, lots of little pieces of wood laying around the saw, and nearly three days’ work, it’s done.  I do have to fill in some gaps with painter’s caulk when I get some, but the hard work is done.

Several of those pieces were cut wrong.  It’s probably good I made and painted a couple extra 12-foot pieces because I needed them.

Deb finished up painting in the same bedroom I finished the trim.  We were working around each other for most of the morning.  I realize now that I never took a picture.

There was a pile of the old trim on the front porch.  I asked Steven if he wanted me to load them all in the van and bring them to the burn pile.  After all, cut-up door casings slathered with paint and caulk are not useful for anything else, right?

Wrong.

“Oh, no,” Steven told me. “We can re-use this.”  He told me to pile it all up beside the wood shop building.  I was a bit surprised by this answer until his next statement.

“We will have the boys on Con pull all the nails out.  It’s tedious work.”

Now it all made sense. I’m not sure if the wood will actually be used to make something, but it’s usefulness as a consequence was undeniable: boring, tedious work that nobody wants to do, a great deterrent for undesirable behavior.  There’s hundreds of nails.

And the only thing I could think of was to burn it.

My next task was a shower.  This task was something I couldn’t have dreamed up on my own in a million years.  This shower looked like it had hardened brown goo on one side.  Steven explained to me that it didn’t drain properly, so someone in the past put a bunch of Bondo in it to try to re-shape the floor so the water flowed towards the drain.

Problem was, some of it stuck really well, some of it didn’t stick very well at all, and there was an area in the middle of the pool of Bondo that just didn’t harden.  The result was a big mess.  So Steven asked me for ideas on how to get it out of there.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon working in the shower, chipping the stuff out with a hammer and a small putty knife.  After a couple hours of work, I managed to chip about a third of it out.

I have a new appreciation for Bondo.  When it hardens properly it is about as hard as bulletproof glass and sticks so fast that the ceramic coating on the shower comes off with it.  It chips off in shards resembling glass and those shards end up flying all over the bathroom.

Guess what I will be doing tomorrow. 🙄

Progress, I think:

Maybe this is my Con.  What did I do?

Sunday

We streamed our church service this morning so we can keep up.  Because of the time difference, we were done with this by 9:30am.  It kind-of felt like almost noon as we are used to getting out of church later than this.  It also allowed us to attend the service with the boys at 10:30.  We gathered around one of the tables in the dining room and listened to Marty talk about the human heart.  Kind of cool, they are going though a doctrinal series, and our church is also going through a doctrinal series.  So we had a lot of doctrine this morning.  Good reminders of the state of the human heart and of how great the love of God is.

After church service, we stayed around the table for dinner, family style.  A simple dinner, as today was a day off for the cook, so we had ham leftover from last week.

We enjoyed a beautiful afternoon by taking a bike ride.  More up and down roads; we would have ended up walking if not for electric bikes.  We also walked the ranch and talked with some of the staff and boys about projects they are working on.  A couple of them have pickup trucks in various stages of disassembly.  One of the boys was excited to learn that the lift in the metal shop was now free and his pickup was next in line.  His re-built engine is currently in the back of the truck and he still has to get a new clutch, but progress will be coming soon.

Tomorrow it’s back to work.  Hopefully I will be able to finish the trim in the last bedroom.  I also have to re-do a popcorn ceiling above a bathtub.  Deb will probably be painting.

Side Trip, Day Two

Deb wanted to mail a couple of post cards so we drove to the nearby post office in Beaver, Arkansas to do so.  This post office is right next to the bridge we could not cross and we had to drive around the sign warning of the height restriction to keep from hitting it.  Deb also wanted some postcard stamps but the woman in the post office said that the government told her they don’t need postcard stamps.  “I get requests for them all the time,” she told Deb.

After mailing the post cards, we parked next to the bridge and walked the path along the river for a ways.  When we came back we started walking across the bridge until a woman in a pickup truck pulled up beside us.  “Ya know, it’s against the laaw to walk across this breeidge,” she drawled.  We hadn’t seen any signs, but, whatever, the locals probably know more than we do.  We turned around and left the breeidge.

We plotted a course for Pea Ridge National Military Park, the site of a decisive battle that saved Missouri for the Union during the Civil War.  At 4400 acres, it’s a big place.  A seven-mile paved loop goes through the park with stops along the way describing portions of the battle.  The visitor center was closed due to the appropriations lapse (government shutdown), but the roads were open.  Rather then drive the RV in the loop, we took our bikes.  We were not alone.  Apparently, biking this loop is a thing.  Several others biked this loop just because it is a very nice bike ride.

We drove into the town of Pea Ridge, to a Walmart to pick up fuel and supplies.  As I was pumping fuel, I noticed an odd structure behind the store and then saw a drone take off.  Turns out this is a drone delivery station and you can get your Walmart stuff delivered by drone if you live in the area.  Walmart’s HQ is in nearby Bentonville and this is a pilot location for drone delivery.  Maybe this is coming to a neighborhood near you.

We drove north into Roaring River State Park.  This is the site of a spring, a fish hatchery, and all the other stuff you would expect to find in a state park.  The spring is a cold-water spring, perfect for trout, so may trout are hatched here.  Like many springs in Missouri, the water comes from deep underground, appearing to come out of a cave, and makes a beautiful water source for the Roaring River.

We walked the Devil’s Kitchen trail, a 1.5 mile loop that included some rather significant up and down scrambles over rock.  In all that 1.5 miles, we never did find Devil’s Kitchen, but it was a nice walk in the woods.

The park has a large lodge and conference center and we thought we would try the restaurant there.  Nice place with a commanding view of a lot of the park.  The place appeared nearly deserted but we waited for our order to come for it seemed like forever.  The waitress finally came out and apologized for the delay, saying that they were also serving a large group in another room.  It probably really means they forgot our order.  We finally did get our food and the waitress gave us half off for the delay.  The food was OK, not great, so I wouldn’t recommend it.

So we got out a little later than expected and drove back to the ranch as the sun was setting.  The hills and curves may be a challenge to drive, but it makes for some pretty countryside.

I’m probably putting a little extra break wear on the RV, with roads like this.

Weekend Road Trip

We usually try to use the weekends to explore the area so we set our sights on Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  This was recommended by a couple people at the ranch as an interesting, artsy, historical town.  It’s less than an hour’s drive away.

First, however, we stopped at Persimmon Hill Farm, located a scant half-mile from the ranch.  It’s probably good we didn’t realize it was so close, we would have been there sooner.  This is a blueberry farm and they also have a bakery. On Fridays and Saturdays, they make blueberry cinnamon rolls and, since today is Friday, we finally scored something on the right day.

One cinnamon roll was $8.50 but I soon understood why.  It was the size of a dinner plate, probably the largest cinnamon roll I have ever seen.  It will probably serve as an afternoon snack for the next three days.  

We left with the cinnamon roll and a Thunder Muffin, another caloric delectable that just had to come with us.

Eureka Springs is a Victorian-era mountain town nestled in the Ozark Mountains just south of the Missouri border.  Originally founded around natural springs believed to have healing powers, the town flourished in the late 19th century as a resort destination.  It is known for its winding, hilly streets lined with well-preserved Victorian architecture, lots of boutique shops and art galleries, and the beauty of the Ozarks all around.

Because of the steepness and narrowness of most of the streets, there’s very little place to park an RV.  We did find adequate parking at one of the trolley stations and just bought a day pass on the trolleys.  Let someone else do the driving for once.

We took in as much as time (and the trolley schedule) would allow.  First stop was the Thorncrown Chapel.  This was designed by a protege of Frank Lloyd Wright, and there were definitely some Wright-esque elements in this building.

We then walked downtown for a while.  We’re not big shoppers and we can’t fit anything we buy anyway, so we just took in the sights and sounds of this town. We also experienced something we haven’t had in a while: Rain.  We had to take the trolley back to the RV to don some rain gear.

We even found a spring.  Just a little burble of water, enough to keep the flowers watered.

On our walk, we found what is reported to be the first neon sign west of the Mississippi.  I wish they would have had it turned on.

We took the Red trolley to the upper part of town, past all the cool old homes and to the Crescent Hotel, situated at probably the highest point of the town.  As with many iconic landmarks like this, it has a storied history, which includes use as an all-girls college and a cancer clinic in addition to a high-end hotel.  Fire gutted the fourth floor in 1967.  During its renovation in 1972, reports of supernatural occurrences surfaced, giving it the reputation for being haunted.

We lounged about the lobby for a while, admiring their one-of-a-kind automatic pipe organ. The view from the back patio was amazing.  From the patio, we could see a few guys in tuxedos on the balcony.  We visited the  Catholic Church across the street but they were about to close to the public for a wedding.  I’m sure it’s a lovely place for a wedding, but the wedding party and the guests are going home with sore legs.  They are on the fourth floor and the elevator is out of order.  Plus, it’s a few dozen steps from the hotel to the church.

Getting later in the day so we took off out of town, stopping at Inspiration point on the way.  Inspiration point is a high point that overlooks the White river and the valleys around it.  Nice view but the better view is from a little higher up, drone-style.

We arrived at our boondocking site right around dinner time.  The owner here keeps rescue dogs and we arrived to a chorus of barking. She said only one of the Rottweilers was a little mean, the noisy one was much friendlier.  She also had a Doberman.  She told us the dogs would be inside overnight and, indeed, all was quiet when we returned from a walk.  We can still hear a lot of the neighbors’ dogs, though.

We took a walk to the “Little Golden Gate Bridge”. This was one of the ways to get here, but it warned of a maximum height of 11 feet, six inches.  With our kayaks on the back, we are at 11’ 8”.  So we had to take the long way around.  It’s a cool bridge and is a favorite for motorcycle trips.  Just don’t attempt it in an RV larger than a campervan.