Happy Valentine’s Day!! It was a beautiful spring-like day here in Baton Rouge. The trees are budding out and the flowers are starting to bloom. Seems early to us Alabama folks but hopefully there will not be a freeze.
This morning we rode around with the construction coordinator to visit some houses we will be working to repair. The first one is about 30 minutes from the church and is a house that has been worked on by many people since the 2016 flood. At first there was a FEMA contract with someone to gut the house and install a bathroom, bedroom and part of a kitchen for about $3,000.00. You get what you pay for so you can sort of picture what they got. Since that time a number of others have worked on the house including a church that has come one Saturday per month and this week some volunteers from Michigan. We will be trying to tie up the loose ends and finish things up. There are still three doors to install with at least two requiring shortening, the ceiling in the kitchen needs some repair, and there are baseboards and crown molding to install. A vent fan for the kitchen needs to be installed as well. We will probably find some other items when we really look at things Monday. Hopefully we can complete that house by Wednesday.
St Amant house doors and trim needed
St Amant house ceiling repair needed
Monticello house needs lots of drywall installed
Another house needs about 90 more sheets of drywall installed. There is also an old iron bathtub to remove and some decorative beams to remove from the living room. This house may take a little longer. It was a fun morning seeing parts of the Baton Rouge area we haven’t seen before. This afternoon there was more NOMADS board work, and some more prep work for the team.
Since it is Valentine’s Day, we decided to grill some steaks and asparagus along with twice baked potatoes. We haven’t done that in a while and it was a nice dinner. We also bought each other some items from Lowe’s for Valentine’s Day. It was a good day!
Our Valentine’s Day Gifts to each other
We also treated ourselves to a Valentine’s Day Dessert at Freddy’s
Tuesday was a rainy day, until late afternoon. Everything is wet. Anne spent the day on mail and paperwork. We got a mail “bag” from home. She was also working on NOMADS business. Max spent a good part of the day flushing our water heater, changing the anode and heating element and our filters. The water in Falfurrias was high in salts and really scaled up the heating element and tank. We knew it was a problem when the water heater started to make some strange noises the last week we were there. The area in the parking lot where the flushed water came out is now white with salts. Now all is well and no more weird noises.
What south Texas water will do to a water heater element
Today was a sunny day and warmed up nicely. A jacket still felt nice for most of the day. We had lots of errands to run today. We made a stop at Harbor Freight and left with all our money in our wallet. Truth! We also went to Home Depot and still didn’t buy anything. There must be something wrong with us. We also went to the grocery store to purchase ingredients for our Valentine dinner tomorrow and to Target, Bass Pro Shops and Sam’s. All of those did take our money. We were suppose to go visit houses today but Daryl was busy with other issues and we are scheduled for tomorrow morning. Max worked on the new sewer system and the ditch that is still open today while Anne worked on getting paperwork together for next week and doing another prospective member interview. It was a busy day but a good day.
Max moved one of the new sewer connections to make it easier to use
Today was a travel day. It began at 6:00 am with a dense fog advisory from Stephen Austin State Park all the way to Baton Rouge. We decided not to push to leave early, hoping the fog would dissipate. We pulled out about 8:30 thinking we would be behind the Houston rush hour traffic. Rush hour seems to be longer than your average hour in Houston. There was one wreck and lots of slow moving traffic. It takes forever to get across Houston. Thankful we don’t have to deal with that traffic everyday. Also I-10 from Houston to Baton Rouge is the worse interstate we have ever driven. People say you shouldn’t take your RV to Alaska because of the poor road conditions. That section of I-10 is worse than anything we drove in Alaska. We were tired when we arrived at Francis Asbury UMC about 3:15 this afternoon. However, by the time we arrived it was a glorious sunny afternoon and we traded our long sleeves for t-shirts. Nice!
Of course, there was a wreck on I-10 in Houston
Traffic on the I-10 Bridge in Baton Rouge was lighter than we expected.
We had a very brief chat with the construction coordinator and volunteer coordinator this afternoon and will be working with them preparing for our team’s arrival this weekend. There are two teams working here this week and the church did a dinner for them tonight and invited us to join them. Nice to share a meal with the volunteers from Michigan, north Louisiana and friends from the church. Looking forward to sharing God’s peace and love as we repair homes in Baton Rouge over the next several weeks.
Don’t worry, we are fine! No problems. Four days ago it was warm, with a high of 81. Three days ago we were out walking when the cold front came through and unfortunately we were walking in T-shirts. We went from warm and humid to a cold north wind in a matter of minutes. Since the front came through we have had nothing but clouds and intermittent drizzle and rain. Oh well, we have had a great four days anyway.
On Thursday we also reprogrammed the pre-flight checklist in Fred’s dash display
Thursday morning we did some more hiking and biking. Thursday afternoon we drove out to Fulshear, TX to Dave and Linda’s house. They have a beautiful home in Weston Lakes. Sam and his wife Jade and their puppy had already arrived and we immediately began catching up on everyone’s busy lives. Sam is still working in software development and told some interesting things regarding some artificial intelligence that is currently in development that will be very helpful. Jade, a physician will be completing her residency here in Houston in June and she and Sam will be moving to San Diego. So glad we had some time to visit with them before the move. Jade has a three year fellowship in San Diego and then they hope to return to Texas to be closer to family. Fortunately, Sam works from home so they can live anywhere. Dave returned home after he finished his day at the office. We were surprised to find that, although Dave has retired at least twice, he and three associates are back developing another business in the oil industry. We celebrated Dave’s birthday that was actually Friday but Jade was on call and was scheduled to be at the hospital all evening. Linda made a great Mexican casserole and German Chocolate cake. Fun evening of visiting.
Friday turned off cold again
Friday we stayed in the park all day. We met some of our fellow campers and got to share the NOMADS story with three different couples who seem interested in joining. They all have this year pretty well scheduled with camp hosting or trips to Alaska but seem genuinely interested in joining so that they could schedule projects next year. Hopefully at least some of them will join. We also again got to watch eight deer walk through our camp site with no concerns about us being in their territory. Lots of fun to watch. Anne also had some business to handle and NOMADS writing to do. She did another interview with a potential member who will hopefully be a NOMADS member in the next few weeks.
Saturday morning was more hiking and a good deal more NOMADS work for Anne. After lunch we went back to Dave’s and Linda’s so we could spend time with Tiffany and Juan Pablo and their puppy. They came up from Austin where they live. It was great to see them again too! They are expecting their first child which is due in May. They are glad that the baby will be here before Sam and Jade have to move, although Tiffany wouldn’t mind if it was about a week late so she can be with her fourth graders for their testing week. Always the teacher. The six of us went to Anthonie’s, a wonderful new restaurant in Simonton, a few miles away for dinner. Everyone was very pleased with their food. Anne had grilled shrimp with grits that was awesome and Max really liked his pork chop, too. Actually three of us had the pork chop and everyone like that choice. Dave had a seafood stew which look great. JP had a hamburger that he and Tiffany said was really good. So a 12 thumbs up from our group. We went back to the house to finish off the birthday cake for dessert. We were sad when we had to say goodbye to everyone but do hope we will see them all again, sooner rather than later.
Today we decided to watch Lester Memorial’s service rather than find a church nearby. We miss our church family. They are such a good group. After early service, we headed into Houston to see Ross and Barb one last time. Today they wanted to treat us to something we had never done so we sent to an Asian restaurant, Kim Son, for Dim Sum. For those of you who have never had Dim Sum, you can watch a You Tube video. We had all sorts of food and apparently not everything you eat has to have a name.
They were still celebrating Chinese New Year at the restaurant
Dim Sum remains
We went to Ross and Barb’s home after lunch and spent some time visiting and enjoying their lovely home. Then, all too soon it was time for us to return to the park and begin packing up bikes and preparing for tomorrow’s travel day. It has truly be a wonderful two weeks of rest and relaxation and great family time. Hope we can stay in closer contact over the next few years. As Ross reminded Anne, we have to do it ourselves now rather than relying on our Mom’s to keep us up to date on everyone in the family. Hope you all had a good weekend and that we hear from you soon.
RVing With a Purpose 