Sunday June 14, after church we drove to Randy and Debra’s home in South Carolina. It was great to be with them again after 72 days traveling the western US in BB. Debra had a wonderful homemade pizza waiting on us when we arrived. We had a busy but great four days with them before we were en route to Bowling Green, KY and the Constructors for Christ summer 2026 build. Randy and Debra joined us a day later, so we actually enjoyed twelve days together, but we had to share them with the other CFC volunteers.
The CFC project this year was building a 9,000 ft2 ministry center for Hope House that will assist the homeless and those in the recovery program. Their mission is “alleviating physical and spiritual poverty through gospel restoration.” There will be office space, classrooms, counseling rooms, etc. The programs they run to assist people getting back on their feet are impressive.
It was terribly hot for those working out on the job site and for those working to prepare the meals for everyone as well. Here is a day by day breakdown of the week:
Saturday:
The slab when we arrived
It’s always great to arrive a a project and see all the materials already on site …
… except maybe the 500 pounds of hand driven framing nails.
The Saturday crew
Our fine Saturday saw crew turned out …
… a bunch of corner and t-posts.
Installing exterior wall baseplates
Unloading the kitchen trailer
Sunday:
Sunday evening meeting
Monday:
Most days we got to enjoy sunrise on the way to work and sunset on the way back.
Each morning starts with prayer and instructions from Ray.
Moving materials
Installing interior baseplates
Building the first wall
Installing corner post for first wall
First part of the first wall
Rest of the first wall going up
Build site a the end of Monday
Another view on Monday evening
Tuesday:
Three more walls were erected before breakfast on Tuesday.
Build site at the end of Tuesday
Wednesday:
Our crew of lumber toters…
… sure saved us a lot of time – and steps.
One of our favorite things about Constructors for Christ is watching young people learn to be Christ’s hands and feet early …
… and learn new skills.
Part of our saw crew building headers
Build site at the end of Wednesday
Thursday:
First floor truss going up
Fastening trusses from the top and bottom
Getting a few more trusses up
This floorplan had lots of rooms, which means lots of doors and windows …
… which means lots of headers to install.
End of day Thursday
Friday:
We spent Friday morning putting the final touches on framing
The Constructors who have been attending the projects for many years are always willing to teach the newer volunteers.
When not otherwise working sometimes the younger mission volunteers practice building things out of scrap wood. (Hint: it’s a chair.)
End of week front view
End of week side view
The team on the job site got all the walls up for the first floor and all the floor trusses for the second floor leaving the project in good shape for week two to continue. The week 1 team this year consisted of 52 mission volunteers from 21 churches and 7 states. Please join us in praying for the next teams who will be completing as much as possible over the next four weeks.
We departed Capitol Reef National Park in Utah on Thursday, June 4th, knowing that a lot of our remaining time would be driving. Of course, we did not get an early start with the cinnamon rolls, hiking and getting BB ready for some back-to-back travel days. The night of June 4th was a Boondockers Welcome stop in Grand Junction, CO – about 200 miles for the day. Not great mileage but we stopped to make phone calls and handle some business that took longer than expected along the way. As usual, our hosts for the night were welcoming and we had a nice visit before turning in.
Eastern Utah sure looks a lot different from the western side.
We were up early on Friday, June 5th driving I-70 easterly across Colorado and into Kansas. We stopped for the night at Ellis Lakeside Campground, in Ellis, Kansas. This small campground is a city owned campground that was a whopping $25/night with full hookups and lake front site. It was a quiet, peaceful place to sleep after a long 568 mile day. We don’t do those long days very often anymore but it was all interstate and we were trying to get away from some of the heat.
Vista at the rest area near Vail
Welcome to Kansas
Shortly after entering Kansas we stopped and logged the oldest active geocache in the world
Our site at Ellis Lakeside Park
Near the city RV park in Ellis is a Railroad museum.
Saturday morning after a visit to the local bakery, we headed to Archie, MO. We stopped at the I-49 RV park to visit some friends, Connie and David. Connie and David are in our Bible Study group and we see them most weeks online but it sure was more fun to spend time with them in person! Thanks Connie and David for your gracious hospitality.
Visiting with Connie and Dave
Monday morning, June 8th, we left our dear friends and started driving again. Destination for Monday was Craighead Forest Park, Jonesboro , AR. – 345 miles. On the way, when it was time for a 2 hour driver change and leg stretch, we saw a sign for Mammoth Spring State Park and pulled in. Wow, what a find! It was right off US 63, and sort of served like a welcome center just after we entered Arkansas. We took advantage of their really nice walking trail and a nice display of the old generating plant on the spring river. It just so happened that this is the same Spring River that we took the Explorers canoeing many, many years ago – probably 40 years ago.
Mammoth Spring was flowing 8.59 million gallons of water each hour when we were there.
Mammoth Spring Dam
The old generator at Mammoth Spring provided power to area from 1925 to 1972.
Back on the road refreshed, we drove on to Jonesboro and another very nice public park on another lake that was only $15/night with hookups. Another great place to hike and another quiet night.
Our site at Craighead Forest Park in Jonesboro, AR
We enjoyed the lakeside trail at Craighead forest park.
On Tuesday, June 9th, we made our way back to Alabama and the River Ridge Retreat in Guntersville. This is the park where we had the Huddle back in April. We have rested a few days here, and tomorrow will move on to Camp Sumatanga, our church on Sunday and then back to our starting point in South Carolina. After getting BB cleaned out and Fred ready to hit the road to our next mission project, we will give you all the statistics on this trip.
Back at River Ridge Retreat
When we left River Ridge in April the ospreys were sitting on eggs. Now one of the nests has two chicks …
Wednesday, June 3 we left Bryce Canyon National Park en route to Capitol Reef National Park. We were surprised and very pleased with the drive on Scenic Byway 12. We drove 12 almost all the way to Capitol Reef. We both agree that this is the best scenic highway we have experienced. The scenery was amazing. We can’t say enough good things about the drive. Highly recommend! We hope the pictures come close to what we actually experienced. We hope to return to spend several days driving and camping along Highway 12 between Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef national parks.
Arriving at Capitol Reef National Park we first stopped at the Visitor’s center with the next stop being the Bakery at the Gifford Homestead. That’s where you purchase your pie or pies in our case. Anything you read about Capitol Reef will surely make mention of the pies. They sell out every day – usually before 3pm. They also sell cinnamon rolls, but we had to wait until Thursday morning for those because they were already sold out. They say you must be there before noon to get the cinnamon rolls so we were there by 10:00 on Thursday. Of course, Capitol Reef is much more than the bakery and we did some nice hiking and drove the scenic loop as well before departing for our next destination.
One of the giant trees in the park
Our Thursday morning hike was the Hickman Bridge Trail
Lots of steps at the beginning of the trail
One of several domes which contributed to the park’s name
This is the first bridge we came to on the trail. When we came back out some one asked us if this was the Hickman Bridge
Hickman Bridge. Anne is in front as a size reference.
The other side of the bridge
Almost back home
Unlike yesterday’s hike, today we went uphill first instead of last.
We made it back to the the bakery in time to get two cinnamon rolls. (We weren’t fast enough to get pictures of the pies, but they were the same size as the rolls.)
One of the features the early settlers called “reefs”
We have seen a lot of red rocks on this trip but we keep finding something different on each drive.
This formation made us think of barber poles.
Since we didn’t have all our logistics planned out we made use of the campground dump station and water fill before we left.
Still interesting but somewhat less scenic after we left the park
Our next few days are going to be heavy driving days hoping to avoid some of the heat.
After leaving Kodachrome State Park, we had a very easy drive day of about 1 hour to our destination at Bryce Canyon National Park. We visited this park a number of years ago but since we had a friend camp hosting there this year we decided to revisit the area and visit our friend John. We got set up at our site, had some lunch and then visited with John. Later in the afternoon we hiked from our camp site, to the Rim Trail, to Sunset campground, picked a site for Tuesday night and back to our campsite – 4 ½ miles. Didn’t plan to hike that far when we started but…we just kept going. There is a lot of beautiful scenery and many improvements since our last visit such as the new General Store.
Our first campsite at Bryce Canyon
Hiking the Rim Trail
Tuesday, we relaxed and worked on preparing for our Wednesday Bible Study. About 10:00 we visited with John again and then drove the scenic drive through the park – so nice. At the end of the road we stopped and hiked the Bristlecone Pine Loop – about 1-1/2 miles. Bristlecone Pines are very interesting trees, looking a lot like a bottle brush and can live for as long as 5,000 years. The remainder of Tuesday we got set up at the new campsite, Sunset Campground, visited with our neighbors and finished our preparation for Bible Study.
Hiking the Bristlecone Pine Trail
Bristlecone Pine
Natural Bridge
Our second campsite in Bryce Canyon NP
Deer in the campground
Wednesday morning we packed up BB for another travel day but not before we decided to hike the Navajo Loop Trail. We had done a portion of this trail on our last trip but today we did it all. It is only 1.5 miles but has over 500 feet of elevation gain at the end. It is a hard hike by our definition but the Park seems to think it is moderate. It is a great hike – very pretty but…we may be sore tomorrow.
Starting on the Navajo Loop Trail
One of us had to duck for this tunnel.
A tree in Wall Street
Wall Street
Twin Bridge
What Bryce Canyon is famous for
After saying goodbye to John, we began our travel to our next destination.
RVing With a Purpose 