We start a new project with Constructors for Christ this weekend, so we better get caught up on what we have been doing the last few weeks. So here it is.
We have been to Red Bay, Alabama to get some work done on Fred – to Edisto Beach State Park in South Carolina for a day trip that included a visit to Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve– participated in a volunteer day at Connie Maxwell Children’s Ministries in Greenwood, SC– made a quick trip to the historic city of Selma, Alabama to scope out an upcoming NOMADS project – and spent a good bit of good time with family.
We have been to Red Bay enough times that it may not still be on our bucket list.
At Botany Bay you have to pay attention to the tides to keep from having to wade back to the parking lot.
Driftwood beach at Botany Bay
At Connie Maxwell Randy and Max worked outside on some landscaping while Anne and Debra worked inside sorting clothes and moving goods.
Entering Selma
Some of the Selma tornado damage
While in South Carolina we bought peaces from the packing house and Debra and Anne fixed them and froze them (at least the ones we didn’t eat).
We also did some more work on our nephew’s deck – this time under close supervision.
Of course in our travels sometimes we just look for a sign that it’s time to pause for a few moments …
… and this was the perfect time.
Also, if you haven’t seen it, the Project Volunteer TV episode NOMADS participated in back in April has aired and is now on YouTube. Click here to see it.
And today we drove from South Carolina through North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia to Kentucky to get ready to start work tomorrow. More about that next week.
Hope everyone has had a great two weeks since last we posted. The first week, 5/5-5/11 we enjoyed our time spent with Randy and Debra catching up on all things. We helped each other on various projects, cooked and shared good meals and great family time. We were blessed to be able to attend our great-nephew’s infant dedication last Sunday and afterwards enjoyed a meal and afternoon of family time. We also planned and prepared for our camping (glamping) trip to Huntington Beach State Park. HBSP is just a few miles south of Myrtle Beach and not as crowded. None of us had ever visited this state park and we all loved our time at Huntington Beach this past week. Highly recommend this park. It was just a short walk from our RVs to the beach. The sunrises and beach walks were great! Some guests were enjoying the ocean waves, but we decided it was just a little too cool for us.
Sunrise on Huntington Beach
One of our sunrise walks on the beach
Within about an hour of our arrival, we had located and were enjoying the ice cream shop. Ice cream is a good lunch, right? We also visited the Atalaya Castle on the park’s grounds. Take a look at the link. We did the self-guided tour and found it very interesting. We learned so much but know we would have learned even more on the guided tour.
Inside Atalaya
Our Atalaya tour guides
We did an alligator tour that was also very educational and while on that tour saw in addition to the alligators many beautiful shore birds, some of which we had never seen before. This was a long hike but so worth it! Did you know that an alligator can live on one good meal each year. They usually eat more than that but in less-than-ideal circumstances they have survived 3 years with only one meal. We wouldn’t do well as alligators.
Some of the birds we saw included many red-winged blackbirds …
… anhingas …
… a black crowned night heron …
… and several great egrets. (We didn’t notice what was in the background until we downloaded the picture.)
We also attended a turtle presentation at the Nature Center. We saw diamond back terrapins and watched them capture fiddler crabs for their dinner, along with seeing sea horses, box turtles, rays, alligator, and again lots of birds.
Ranger presentation on turtles
These fellows really like fiddler crabs.
One of several seahorses in nature center
When we weren’t hiking or enjoying the nature at HBSP, we did some touristy things like playing 36 holes of miniature golf and eating some great seafood.
Our neighbors are not going to be happy when they get back to their campsite.
This trip was scheduled to celebrate Randy’s birthday and we certainly did enjoy the celebration. We are already planning for next year. Wonder if we could talk Randy into have more than one birthday each year? Until next post, praise and thank the Lord for all your blessings, and stay safe.
After arriving back in Johnston last Saturday, we had a very short – 2 day- visit with Randy and Debra. After that, we made the 3.5-hour drive to Hardeeville, SC on Tuesday. Hardeeville is a small community just across the state line from Savannah, GA and the location of the Switch It Up spring huddle. The huddle didn’t actually begin until Thursday evening but a number of us arrived early to have time to visit with friends, relax and help get ready for the rest of the crew. Wednesday evening, we had our Bible study group join us at Fred. All but one couple were at the huddle and Connie and David were able to join us via the internet via Fred’s outside TV. All 16 of us were able to visit and enjoy some dessert. It was really nice to have most of our group in person. Real hugs are much better than virtual hugs. Our virtual meetings and hugs every Wednesday night are good – but in person – so much better. This group has become so close. We are so blessed to be meeting with them each week.
It was great to have Sheila and Todd visit our Wednesday night Bible Study group.
Thursday the rest of the crew arrived, and the fun began for real and continued through the weekend and on into this week. We shared meals together, spent time getting to know new friends – there were 30-40 people who had never been to a huddle before- and renewing acquaintances from previous gatherings. We gave back to the community by cleaning up trash from the roadsides, giving donations to the homeless shelter and treats to the police and firefighters. We enjoyed catered meals, potlucks, games, worship, RV tours, pickle ball, e-bike rides, motorbike rides, a visit to the Wormsloe State Historic Site and an afternoon in Savannah enjoying the trolley tour learning about the history of the area, eating more good food and pralines. After the huddle officially ended Monday morning, we spent time saying goodbyes and getting a little rest. We had one more potluck Monday night for those of us who continued to hang out in Hardeeville. It’s just so hard to say goodbye to the crew.
Sheila and Meghan welcoming the crew
Our section’s potluck dinner
We also got to a view of a Space X launch.
At each Huddle the organizers find what the local community needs are for our “give backs”. This time one of the needs was to pick up trash along some of the city roadways.
The other “give back” was to provide much needed items for a homeless shelter and some treats for the local police and fire departments to show appreciation.
One of the activities for this event was a visit to Wormsloe Plantation.
Our guide provided a very informative and entertaining narrative about the history of the plantation.
The tour took us down this road lined with over 400 live oaks.
There is a gopher tortoise preserve on the plantation.
As always, Sheila’s message at our Sunday morning worship was one of the best parts of the gathering.
We spent Tuesday visiting Savannah and met friends for lunch.
The driver of the “hop on, hop off” trolley provided us with a lot of history of the city.
Wesley Monumental Methodist Church where both John and Charles Wesley served as pastors.
We didn’t know the First Girl Scout Headquarters was in Savannah.
Savannah has a unique World War II memorial called “A World Apart”.
The steeple of the Presbyterian church can be seen in the movie “Forrest Gump”. The bench from the movie has been moved to a museum.
River Street in Savannah is where we went for lunch – and ice cream – and pralines.
Wednesday, we visited the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. We saw 14 alligators, and lots of birds before getting back on the road and returning the Johnston Thursday. Another great experience with the Switch Crew. So much love shared! Just a super group of people. So blessed to call them friends. For those that are not aware, Switch It Up began as a YouTube channel about three years ago but now is so much more. It is a group of RVer’s who have come together to inspire others, create community and impact the world.
We enjoyed visiting the wildlife refuge and adding another stamp to our National Parks passport.
We hiked the short, but pretty, trails around the visitor center then drove around the wildlife loop.
The Savannah NWR wildlife loop
While driving the wildlife loop we saw 14 alligators …
After taking Friday to catch our breath, do a little laundry and buy a few groceries, we left Sumatanga Saturday morning and drove to Leitchfield, KY to Camp Loucon where we worked with another NOMADS team for this past week. We had never worked at Loucon and it was fun to experience a new camp. Loucon is in a beautiful and peaceful wooded setting in western Kentucky and like many of our camps had a long list of deferred maintenance items that they needed some help catching up. Charlotte led our team totaling 11 NOMADS. We have enjoyed working with Charlotte, Larry, Kathy, and Les several times and it was great to see them all again, and we especially enjoyed getting to know new-to-us NOMADS, John, Frank, Jill, Tom and Joan.
After we arrived on Saturday a deputy and a tracking K9 walked by our RV. Fortunately, we knew there was a man trailing seminar at the camp. Otherwise, we might have been a little concerned.
We began our work on Monday by removing some old siding from three cabins and replacing with new material. There was a work day scheduled for Saturday with about 100 additional volunteers arriving and they were to paint the new siding.
Removing the siding from Cabin 9
Anne, Jill and Frank sawing new siding
Cabin 9 finished
We also over the course of the week, replaced two porches on other buildings, rebuilt the steps on one of the office buildings, began building new game pits for summer camp and began the work of restoring an outdoor worship center. Eric the new camp director and the staff were very excited about the work we were able to complete this first week.
We spent most of our time with Jill, Frank and Les rebuilding this old porch on the camp staff media center. Those new support posts and header were installed before we arrived.
Removing the old porch
Once the old posts were removed we reinforced the connection between the new posts and the new header.
Anne and Jill building the new porch frame
Max and Frank installing new deck boards
New porch deck in place
Anne and Jill reinstalling the steps
Les was the saw man for several of the projects this week.
We completed the new media center porch on Thursday, but removed some parts and reinstalled them while the TV crew videoed.
Some of the NOMADS team replacing old porch at Munday Lodge
Munday Lodge porch finished
Tom, John and Larry building new steps for the camp office
Office steps finished
… and this new bridge.
This game pit is for a large chess or checkers board.
The Loucon phone system is for internal communications only.
This week we also worked Friday – an uncommon event for NOMADS. Joan reached out to Project Volunteer (PV) as part of her work as Co-chair of our promotions committee. PV arrived at Loucon Friday morning to video the work we were doing and interview Anne, Eric and others on our team. Project Volunteer will be producing a TV show for NRB TV and YouTube from the interviews and video. We will keep you posted when it is completed. They will provide us a copy of the 28 minute show and a number of the shorts they produce. Our hope is that we can use this to help us reach out to draw more new members. This was a fun addition to the project as the PV people were very low key and easy to work with. They are also Christians and use their talents to encourage others to volunteer.
Randy, from Project Volunteer, interviewing Larry and Joan. (Sorry, we didn’t get any pictures of Anne’s interview.)
We are now back in South Carolina with Randy and Debra for a couple days before we go to the next Switch It Up Huddle. We are looking forward to catching up with friends at the Huddle. Next week’s blog post may be a few days late so that we can include all the Huddle information.
The flush cable on FRED’s toilet broke a few days ago so after we got back to South Carolina we had to replace it. While replacing that we also replaced the flush valve. Fun job.
While we had it out, Anne cleaned all the parts and places that are otherwise unreachable.
The cicada emergence has started in South Carolina.
Also, if you haven’t seen it, the Project Volunteer TV episode NOMADS participated in back in April has aired and is now on YouTube. Click here to see it.
RVing With a Purpose 