Month: September 2018

Friday, September 20, 2018

Today started out hot. It was 77 with 95% humidity at 6:30 when we did our morning walk. Today we walked out from the campground in a different direction and walked through a research area of Shelby Farms. It would be interesting to have a tour of that area but probably they don’t share all those secrets. As we walked on we came to a large stand of bamboo. The signs said it’s panda food, so we googled it and the Memphis Zoo does have pandas. Guess they are feeding them the bamboo we saw. It was a pretty walk out through fields. We saw a large herd of deer at one area. We also went by MidSouth Raptor Center. They serve this area of TN, northern MS, eastern Arkansas to assist in raptor rehabilitation and with education. It was a small place but thay have about 20 cages on their grounds for the large birds. We were too early for the center to be open but it would be nice to see the birds.

Max and Anne were both working this morning. Max was again out in the heat parking RVs. Anne was in the cool inside. It was announced today that Anne was elected to the Board of Directors of NOMADS so she will be busy with the administration of our organization. Today was her first Board meeting. Anne knows it is a huge honor to have been elected by our members but also recognizes the responsibility and is committed to working hard for the members.

Tonight Max found some aerial photography of the area of Lumberton, NC where we worked last year. Sadly we recognized one of the homes we repaired. It was flooded again. So sad. Better news, it appears the RV park where we park did not flood so maybe we can continue our work this fall as planned.

Tomorrow will be another busy day of meetings and parking. There will be many more arriving tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the busiest day for the parking crew. Looking forward to the rest of our members arriving safely.

Thursday, September 20, 2018

We slept late this morning. It will be the last day we can sleep in for a number of days, so we took advantage of it. We took a late walk over to the Shelby Farms Refuge and walked about 3 miles. Nice walk and pretty area. There are lots of trails around here. We would use them a lot more if it was not so unbearably hot. In a little over a week when we are in the hills of Kentucky we will probably be looking for jackets but right now that sounds really nice. Max was working parking today and the guys had to watch to be sure no one became dehydrated.

Parking duty was pretty easy today except for the heat. Only a few arrivals today. Tomorrow and Saturday will be the busy days for parking crew. While Max was working, Anne went to the Farmer’s Market and bought some beautiful fresh veggies. Lunch was all from the market. Corn, they called bread and butter, which in Alabama we call peaches and cream, fresh shelled butter beans, very tasty tomatoes. It was all very good! Love our fresh veggies. It’s getting late in the season and they now have some of the later produce which we may get later in the week.

 

Please don’t forget to continue praying for the flooding victims. We are supposed to be in Lumberton, NC next month to continue working on damage from Hurricane Mathew. Don’t know yet what will happen to that project because some of the homes have probably flooded again from Florence. Just can’t imagine those families having to go through all this again. Looking forward to more friends arriving in Memphis tomorrow and Saturday. Safe travels everyone.

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Today was really hot. We started the day with our walk and a temperature of about 72 but it quickly started climbing. So glad we are not still at Camp Lake Stephens working in this heat. The heat index was over 100 today with a blue sky and only a few puffy clouds.

After our walk, we started the final process of closing up for travel. We checked in on Carol and Dave. We stopped at the dump station and emptied our holding tanks because we didn’t know if we would have sewer connections in Memphis and then hit the road again. Today could hardly be called a travel day. It was more like a repositioning. We had about a one hour drive from Hernando up interstate 55 to Germantown, TN and the Memphis AgriCenter. It’s a fairgrounds with RV camp ground. It’s more like parking in a parking lot really close together. Fortunately for us we are parked in a full hookup site, 50amp, water and sewer. They evidently assigned sites in the order we registered and we were early enough to get sewer, too. That will make life much easier since we will be here until a week from Friday. With sewer we can wash clothes and have everything ready for a week at Constructors when we leave here early next Friday morning.

After getting things setup and organized, we started getting familiar with the campground. A number of our friends came in today too, so there were lots of hugs all around. Can’t wait for everyone else to come in over the next few days. We are here early because Max is working on the parking committee and Anne is on the registration team. We found the farmers market that is here on the property and will be back there tomorrow morning to make some purchases. Some of the produce looked really good. We didn’t make it up to the meeting areas today but from a distance they looked large and nice. We will do some more exploring tomorrow. So we are here just east of Memphis for the next eight days. It should be some work and fun.

 

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

It was another hot, hot day in Hernando and will remain with predicted heat index in triple digits through Friday. Fortunately, we have full shade at the campground and the heat really hasn’t been oppressive. Of course the fact that we aren’t working out in the heat is a real blessing too.

We did our morning walk and then had breakfast at Carol and Dave’s campsite at 8:30. Dave made his home fries and we had eggs, sausage, toast, and peaches. Too much food, but oh so good. Thanks Dave and Carol!

After a leisurely breakfast we headed into town to run some errands. We ended up going all the way to Southhaven to take care of some estate banking. While we were there we also did some shopping because Southhaven has all the stores, many more options than Hernando. On the way back through Hernando we stopped at Velvet Cream. They have any flavor ice cream you can imagine. They have soft serve and home made hand dipped. There is an entire board listing all their flavors, additions and toppings. More than we wanted to take time to read. With all those options, we decided to get a vanilla soft serve cone. That is our base line for judging an ice cream place. If their vanilla passes muster, then the next time we will try one of the specialty items. This was one of the best vanilla cones we have ever had – maybe better than Cades Cove.

Back at the campground we did a little work and just enjoyed our last day here. There was another beautiful sunset and now its time to pack up for a moving day tomorrow.