Month: September 2017

Wednesday, September 06, 2017

Today was a waiting day for Max and a busy day for Anne. FRED did not get called in for service, but one of us had to be there just in case. Anne drove to Tuscaloosa for help her mother get ready to move into a larger apartment at the assisted living facility. Nothing very “blog-worthy.”

So, another flashback – this time to this day (more or less) in 2015.

We worked a NOMADS project from August 23rd to September 11th that year at the Midwest Mission Distribution Center (MMDC) in Chatham, IL. MMDC has many missions. Click on their name back there to find out more about them. NOMADS usually work two projects a year there. The project listing almost always indicates that we will be building desks for shipment to mission schools around the world. However, we always do much more. We have worked there twice and Anne has built a desk or two, but Max has mostly worked on building a new warehouse.  Anne worked on building the warehouse in 2016.   In 2015, we also helped build a new bike repair shop.

 

Some of you have probably heard us talk about Mary Alice Collins.  MMDC is where we met Mary Alice in 2015 and the first Wednesday of the 2015 project was the day her battle with sepsis began.  As an update, she miraculously survived, and is now walking on two prosthetic legs, using prosthetic hands and since winning the battle with sepsis she is also an ovarian cancer survivor.  And she has won many ribbons for her baked goods at the Indiana State Fair each year since. BTW, she, a number of years previous, also survived breast cancer.  A true inspiration to us all.

 

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

We were up early this morning because we didn’t know when Norris, the gentleman who is our point of contact for service, would be around to review our work list. We knew that generally he goes around and meets with people in the order you check in the campground. He starts about 7:00 am we think. So he comes around and talks to you a little and gives you some idea as to when you will be in and out. Norris didn’t get to us until late morning. We told him that we really needed to return to Blount County for Wess’s funeral. Norris made a call to someone and told us that he didn’t think we would be moved to a bay this afternoon. “Go.” he said. “Just go now.” So we did. He asked us what our plans were and we told him we needed to be headed to Iowa Monday and he didn’t act like that was a problem so we will see. We are fully prepared to return for another visit when we will be home for a while in November/December. As we said yesterday, while we have about 15 individual items on our list, they are mostly small items of a cosmetic nature and some are simply questions. For example there is a spot on the bathroom floor that appears to be some caulk or construction cement type thing but we don’t know what is safe to use to remove it.

Today was cloudy, with intermittent rain. We drove through one nasty storm on the way to the funeral. It was one of the “go slow and turn your flashers” on type of storms. We are thankful for safe travel today. We saw so many people at the funeral. The Hallman family is a large family, and most are still in the general area, so it was a family reunion of sorts. It was good to see everyone, just not for the reason. Wess (Rev. John Wesley Hallman, Jr) was the oldest of five brothers. From the stories we heard, those five must have been a handful. Wess was funny, generous, caring, and so many other things we could say. Most importantly he loved the Lord and wanted to share the Good News with everyone he met. Barry shared that Wess for quite some time has said “At my funeral I want two songs, three jokes and see you later.”  That was Wess.  Wess will be missed by his family but also by the community. Rest in Peace, Wess, until we meet again.

As we work on this blog entry, it is 9:00 pm and we are traveling back to Red Bay. Hopefully, Fred will have his work started sometime tomorrow morning and we will be able to return to Blount County soon.

Monday, September 4, 2017

Happy Labor Day! Hope you have all had a great day. This is always a little bit of a sad time – the end of another summer which were always such fun times as children. However, now we see it as a good thing because it means families are busy with school, football etc, and there are fewer crowds for us to contend with in campgrounds and national parks, etc. We love the shoulder season for travel.

We are, of course, still at Red Bay awaiting the beginning of the work week here at Tiffin and hopefully some touchups/repairs to FRED 2. Most of our punch list items are cosmetic, but things we would like done. Nothing major, mostly little stuff. We will see how things go tomorrow. Today we walked to the city park and then walked a couple of rounds on the short walking track there. We got some good exercise so that was nice and we have walked around the campground and talked and made new friends. It’s been fun to sit out around the RV’s and talk to everyone. Tonight there was a beautiful full moon. The campground is almost full tonight – 3 or 4 open sites. People were coming in all day. Certainly glad we came in yesterday since it means we should get into a service bay more quickly. We suspect most of tomorrow will be spent waiting. We hope to be able to get back home to go to the funeral, but we will have to wait and see. Hope you all have a good short work week.

Sunday, September 3, 2017

We were blessed with another beautiful, almost fall like day although it did warm up into the 80s this afternoon. We were also blessed with the opportunity to worship with our friends at Lester Memorial and then attend our Sunday school class. After church we finished up lunch, finished getting Fred ready to roll and when Juno and Helen were home from church, we had lunch ready for everyone. After cleaning up we pulled out about 1:30 in route to Red Bay, AL, Tiffin Motor Homes. This will be the first time we have had to bring our rig back to the factory. Fred One came back with his first owners but we never had to bring him back. We arrived in Red Bay about 4:15 pm after an uneventful drive. Tiffin has their own campground with full hookups right at the service center. There are close to 100 campsites and 50 service bays. The people at the campground office were extremely nice and helpful and registered us in to site 45. The campground is no where near full but that is to be expected due to the holiday weekend. We will spend Labor Day here but by doing so we are hopeful we will be close to the top of the list for Tuesday. They service coaches first come first serve, except for warranty work. Every other coach called to the service bay is a new coach if there are any new coaches waiting. Confusing? Yes, a little but we will see what Tuesday brings. Since Fred is less than 3 months old we were told we shouldn’t have to wait very long. Some of our punch list items were not completed by Sherman. We would like to get as much as possible completed before we head to Iowa.

We have met several people already. Tiffin owners are sort of like an extended family and everybody seems to sit outside and walk around visiting. We had heard that Camp Red Bay was interesting and fun so we shall see over the next day or two. We met one lady who is a widow and travels solo full time so we talked to her about NOMADS and gave her a brochure. She had a “home” campground in Houston but came to TN to watch the eclipse. She was headed back last week when Harvey hit. Now she has little reason to return so she is getting some work done on her motor home and then will decide where to go from here. We continue to pray for all those living through such tragedy. We also pray that the east coast is spared from Irma.

One more day of the holiday weekend. Y’all have fun and stay safe tomorrow.