rvingwithapurpose

Enjoying Gulf State Park

Sunday, January 7, 2024

We are still at Gulf State Park enjoying some rest and preparation for our next NOMADS project. The trails here are wonderful for hiking and biking and even with the cooler than usual weather we have used them a lot. We also sometimes just walk around the campground meeting people – talking about birds, travel, RVs and our volunteer mission work.

Gulf State Park provides many educational programs, such as this one about dolphins.

Of course, one of our favorite things about the park is the abundance of wildlife – such as this alligator eating a duck …

… and this nesting pair of bald eagles that we see every year …

… and this curious armadillo that, on one of our hikes, walked onto the pavement, sniffed at Max’s shoe, then wandered off the other side of the trail.

Max’s birthday lunch was our usual order from Blalock Seafood – “a pound of royal red shrimp, peeled and deveined, steamed, mild, and left hot.”

We finally got a chance to try out Anne’s new smokeless fire pit by making a few s’mores.

Merry Christmas (and catching up)

Monday, December 25, 2023

Time to do a little catching up on our blog, since our last post was about six weeks ago when we wrapped up our project in Oklahoma. From Oklahoma we went back to Alabama for our annual doctor and dentist appointments and some business matters. After that it was to Gaffney, SC for Fred’s annual maintenance and then we took a few weeks to spend time with family.

After our visit to Gaffney, our driver side rear view mirror was shattered by a careless trucker so we had to repair that before we could get back on the road. We also replaced the fresh water pump in Fred.

As has become our tradition we spent Thanksgiving and a couple of weeks after with Max’s brother’s family.

Over Thanksgiving weekend we helped one of our nephews install a metal roof on his garage.

We had a great time camping with Randy and Debra at Santee State Park. We love waterfront campsites.

Chilling around the campfire at Santee State Park

Hiking the Old 301 Santee Walking Bridge

We also camped in a hospital parking lot for one night. It’s nice to have a place of our own to relax in between patient visits.

And we also spent some time with Anne’s brother in Georgia, including a visit to the award winning Christmas light show at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

One of the light tunnels at the Botanical Gardens light show

The goddess fountain is decorated with flowers in the summer, but was beautifully decorated with lights for the show.

The artists at the garden are very talented with light sculptures such as these birds…

Now we are back at Gulf State Park in Alabama for Christmas.

On our way to Gulf Shores we always try to stop at Warehouse Market and Bakery in Atmore, AL to stock up. That’s the only place we have found the Conecuh sausage rolls, so we bought a dozen (and a few other goodies).

Our Last Week In Oklahoma

Saturday November 11, 2023

We continued leadership of the Oklahoma Disaster Rebuild for this our last week. Last Friday, we said goodbye to Chris and Laura and Bruce and Janette. We had a great two weeks with both couples who helped the team accomplish so much. Thursday night the team went to one of the local Mexican restaurants and had a fun last meal together. On Sunday we welcomed new team member Nettie and her sweet furry friend Amos. This was Nettie’s first DR project and we look forward to working with her on a future DR.

This week we spent a lot of our time completing William’s house. With the delivery of the shingles on Monday morning, we were able to complete the roof before lunch. ROAD also brought us new paint on Monday morning. Last Thursday when we ran out of shingles, we began painting the fascia and soffit. We were not happy with the paint and wondered if it had been through a freeze. With the new paint the painting went much better and by Tuesday we completed the exterior painting. Wednesday, we completed the repairs, drywall and painting in the bathroom as well as painting the ceilings in the living room and hallway and part of the kitchen. Wow, what a difference that made in the interior appearance of the house. The installation of the new door was also completed this week. We also completed several punch list items and at the end of the day Wednesday presented William his Bible. He was so pleased and excited about all the improvements made in his home. Such a blessing to help people restore their homes.

Nettie and Anne painting more soffit and fascia

Michele and Ken starting the kitchen ceiling.

Anne starting the painting of the living room ceiling

Jake and Angela finished William’s bathroom while we worked in Okmulgee.

On Monday Anne was interviewed for a local news story about ROAD on KOTV in Tulsa. The story was still on their web page the last time we looked. Contact us if you want the link.

We also returned to Margaret’s home to complete the few punch list items there this week – touchup on some trim, paint, clean up, etc. We were able to present her with her Bible on Wednesday afternoon as well. She also was so very appreciative of all the many NOMADS who worked at her home.

Thursday the entire team returned to Okmulgee, 50 minutes away, to help our ROAD friends Gary and Sam complete a lot of items at Tiara’s house. We painted the bathroom ceiling and lots of trim, installed ceiling and floor trim, closet doors, assisted with some subfloor/beams/joist work and installed some lights as well as some general cleanup. We also had the pleasure of meeting Tiara Thursday and presented her with her Bible.

Gary and Sam requested “all hands on deck at Tiara’s on Thursday.

Some of the trim required a lot of custom cutting. Bob spent a lot of time getting this piece right. By the time he added the door trim you could easily not notice the crooked ceiling. (NOMADS did not install the ceiling.)

Ken hanging bi-fold doors on the bedroom closet

Sam and Gary worked all day on Tiara’s Kitchen floor.

Tiara’s kitchen floor when we left. Sam and Gary finished it before they left.

We closed the week with all the assigned tasks for our homes completed. No carryover work for the new leaders. We think this is the first time that has happened when we were turning over a DR to new leaders. Yesterday, November 10, Ken, Michelle and Nettie headed to their next project or home and we left the Oklahoma project in the great hands of Leone and Bob who will be starting some new work Monday.

Great team for our final week in Oklahoma

Also, for the past three weeks, we have worked alongside two other wonderful volunteers, Jake and Angela. They usually work with Habitat but fortunately for us the Habitat build they had planned to work was cancelled so they worked alongside us on William’s house. They had more roofing experience than us and were a tremendous asset. Hope we get to work with Jake and Angela again sometime. (Just maybe they will become NOMADS some day.)

Angela and Jake, our Godsends from Habitat for Humanity

Friday morning we said goodbyes to our new friends in Muskogee. We hope we can return sometime. They do great work and there are many people still needing assistance. Fred took us to an Arkansas rest area yesterday where we stopped for the night. This morning we were up early and made it back to Camp Sumatanga early this afternoon. Thank you, God, for safe travels. We are looking forward to worshiping with our friends at our home church tomorrow. Until next time, stay safe and ask God to help you be the light in this crazy world.

Week Three in Muskogee – Roofing and TV

Saturday, November 4, 2023

We continued leadership of the Oklahoma disaster rebuild this week. We had to say goodbye to Lee and Beth, our new NOMADS and friends, but welcomed Ken and Michele and Bob and Leone. Before Beth and Lee left the team had a great barbeque dinner at one of the local restaurants. Since we all worked at different houses on Thursday, we were very thankful for one last dinner together.

This week we continued the work on William’s home, almost completing the new roof. Tuesday and Wednesday, we were all either on the roof or working to support those on the roof, cleaning up and keeping us in supplies. Unfortunately, we ran out of shingles with one small section remaining.

After removing the old roofing we put down underlayment.

Jake, Ken and Bruce putting down the started rows

Jake and Angela taught Chris and Laura the finer points of roofing.

They learned quickly and were soon roofing on their own.

We ran out of shingles at this point and will have to finish next week

That meant more people were available Thursday afternoon to work on caulking and painting the new fascia and soffit Laura and Chris installed.

Anne, Leone and Michelle caulking the new soffitt

After we had to stop roofing, we started painting the soffits and fascia.

Bob took on the task of replacing an exterior door that had rotted at the bottom.

Bruce and Jan completed the repair of the vanity in the large bathroom and began the work on the smaller bath, removing the vanity, removing and reinstalling bathroom drywall damaged in the flood as well as damaged drywall in the closet. Next week we will begin with the finishing and painting of the drywall and then paint and install trim and the new vanity. Hopefully we will complete everything for William next week.

Bruce installing drywall in bathroom and closet

Max and Anne began work at Tiara’s home in Okmulgee, OK, about 45 minutes from Muskogee, Monday afternoon. This house is also being worked on by a TV show, “Fast: Home Rescue”, a show for the Weather Channel. It’s a small house and sometimes it gets very crowded. Monday, we worked on tearing out and shoring up the beams, and joists and reinstalling subflooring in the bathroom. Anne and Leone returned on Thursday for some exterior painting and painting the living room.

The bathroom at Tiara’s house before we started

We removed the ceiling in the bathroom first.

With the subfloor gone we could assess the joists and beams. ROAD replaced them and shored them up the next day.

This is some of the other volunteers that were working with the TV program

It was interesting watching how a reality program was produced.

Occasionally we had to stop making noise while they shot a scene.

At one point they used a drone to video the ROAD folks working on the roof.

Anne seems to frequently end up working on the high spots.

The weather was not our friend this week. We had record breaking cold weather with very heavy frost. We had to postpone our start time for an hour some mornings because we had to wait until the heavy frost melted off the roof. On the positive side, the grass and fields we drove by were beautiful. It was another great week in OK with lots of work accomplished for our homeowners still recovering from the flood waters.