RVing With a Purpose

Saturday, October 15, 2022

What a beautiful fall week we had to work at Camp Sumatanga. The weather was just about perfect – a little cool in the mornings but never too hot during the afternoon.  The leaves have started to turn on the sides of the surrounding mountains with some pretty reds and yellows now visible.  We also had some much needed rain over night Wednesday.   Thankful for the rain and thankful it didn’t interfere with work.

Last Sunday afternoon, after a very good buffet lunch at Charlie B’s in Oneonta, the team gathered for some games.  We had a relaxing afternoon and then Monday we jumped right back on the canoe rack project with all hands on deck. The racks are bulky and heavy and took us all to build and get in position.  The racks are very sturdy and look good in front of the lake.  They are currently holding several canoes and a kayak or two.  We hope people will enjoy using them.  We also finished up the last few boards on the floating dock, which is still a long way from floating.  We need more rain.

After cleaning up the area and packing up all the tools, the team headed to Retreat Center One to begin a remodeling job.  We are tasked with removing a wall, enlarging a conference room, taking down some cabinets, repairing drywall, painting and removing some tile.  We have made good progress with that project but since some cold weather is predicted next week, we pulled off that to tackle some outside work.

We began work on replacing siding on the outside of the administration building.  We removed all the battens and replaced the lower siding on the rear on the building.  The siding still needs painting and battens replaced next week.  Teresa and Rita have already painted all the battens so they won’t talk long to reinstall.  Teresa and Rita removed, cleaned and rearranged all the pictures in the lodge, too.  Looks really nice, but sorry we don’t have any pictures of the pictures.

For lunch today we met fellow NOMADS Dave and Carol Hill at Jack’s.  They were traveling I-59 from Knoxville, TN today so it was a convenient stop for them.  So glad they called so we could schedule a meetup.  The eight of us ended up spending quite a while in Jack’s dining room visiting, laughing and reminiscing before Dave and Carol needed to get back on the road.  Thanks so much for making the stop!

We have one more week here.  Only four work days and lots left to accomplish.  Say a prayer for us that we will safely accomplish all God has for us to do.  Hope you all have a great week!

Sunday October 9, 2022

Busy, busy since last blog entry two weeks ago.  After spending a full day in the service bay on Monday, we also spent most of the day Tuesday.  It seems most of our problems have been solved.  There are still a couple of small issues we will take care of at a later date.  We simply didn’t have time to deal with them right then.  We needed to get back to Alabama.  Our service techs were great and if we are able to attend the June 2023 rally, they plan to get us back in after the rally to make a few more adjustments.  We departed Middlebury midafternoon Tuesday and overnighted at a great Cracker Barrel a little south of Indianapolis.  We hit the road again early Wednesday morning (enjoyed a good CB breakfast) and arrived back on Pine Mountain in time to get a good afternoon walk and begin transferring all the dirty clothes, food, etc. over to Fred.  Thursday was routine dental appointments and completing the unloading of BB and working on Helen’s house.  Friday was laundry and readying Fred for three weeks at Camp Sumatanga.

Saturday morning (Oct. 1) we completed our packing and headed to Camp. It was so great to see our wonderful friends Dave and Rita.  We haven’t worked with them since Covid and really look forward to spending time with them while working at the Camp.  Our leaders are Scott and Teresa who we enjoyed visiting with at annual meeting and we look forward to working with them for the next three weeks.  We began our work at the camp repairing the ceiling at the McBee pavilion.  We also cleaned and changed light bulbs in the ceiling fans, repaired the roof, a toilet, and painted fascia.  The ladies also tackled the floating swim platform and stained and sealed it after replacing some rotten wood.  We demoed three canoe racks and all worked to begin construction of two new, heavy duty racks Thursday afternoon.  It was a busy week but we accomplished a lot.  It’s always good to work at Sumatanga.  We camp in view of the lake and get to do our walking around the lake each day.

Thursday evening the team went into Oneonta for a great dinner at one of the newer restaurants – Mio Sogno.  Saturday there was the Blount County Covered Bridge festival and pancake breakfast.  Hopefully we will have enough energy to get back to work tomorrow.  It’s great to be back working a NOMADS project.

Sunday, September 25, 2022,

A lot has occurred since our last post.  We have been busy.  After our trip to Red Bay for Fred repairs, (The slide is still working beautifully.) and returning to Pine Mountain, we spent several days on estate business and Aunt Helen’s house.  We then headed back to South Carolina hoping to pick up the little van/RV – BB/Beyond Blessed.  She was not quite ready so we were able to spend Labor day weekend with Randy and Debra.  We learned the repair shop had to reorder the rear doors 3 times before they received doors that were not damaged.  BB was repaired – looking good – the following week and then we headed back to Alabama after Randy re-installed the undamaged rack.  It was just in time to pack her up to make a trip to West Virginia for our annual NOMADS meeting.  We felt like we were finally back on the road again.  We overnighted at a Cracker Barrel and arrived in Lewisburg, WV the next day to make final preparations for Anne’s last NOMADS Board meeting.  We were in Lewisburg for the meetings 9 days.  It was a busy but fun time.  We saw friends we had not seen in several years due to COVID.  It was so GOOD!!  Anne turned over the gavel to the incoming Board chairman Thursday.

On Friday we left Lewisburg for Middlebury, IN.  We overnighted at a wonderful Harvest Host farm in Ohio.  The couple that owns the farm were so friendly and sweet.  It was a great overnight out in the country.  Very quiet and peaceful and we made a purchase of some really good, creamed honey and chicken salad.  Never tried creamed honey before but it’s very good on toast.

BB has an appointment to be seen tomorrow at the factory to get the last of her warranty work completed and to be sure the guys here don’t see any further damage from the wreck.  We are hoping to head south Tuesday or Wednesday because we need to get Fred over to Camp Sumatanga this weekend so we can begin a 3 week project with NOMADS Sunday afternoon.  Since Anne won’t be so busy with NOMADS business, we hope to return to more frequent blogging, projects and seeing the country.  Maybe another trip to Alaska next year – or Nova Scotia since we had to cancel that one this year due to BB’s injuries.  Can’t wait to see what happens. Hope you will continue to travel along with us.

Monday, August 29, 2022

We were parked at Convenient Campground in Red Bay last night.  It’s just a gravel parking lot but we were off the road enough that we had a quiet night, slept well.  We were back up at 6:00am to be ready for the Tiffin supervisor who always visits you at your RV sometime after 7:00 am your first morning.  We were still sitting at the table finishing up breakfast when the phone rang and the person on the other end asked us to come to Bay 7 ASAP.  What?  No visit from the supervisor?  Nope.  Straight to the bay.  Guess our problem description was adequate.  Talk about going from a slow relaxed morning to top speed in less than a minute.  We made it to Bay 7 in about 20 minutes.  As usual we had two very nice young men assigned to our coach and they began work on our slide out immediately.  Since you are not allowed to stay with your RV, we spent the next three – four hours roaming around Red Bay, visiting the grocery stores, the Tiffin Hospitality Center, the parts store and getting our walking in for the day.  Shortly before lunch we received another call asking us to return to Bay 7.  The work was complete and we were good to go!  They found a wire from the slide controller to a motor had come disconnected inside the wall. Apparently a known issue because they had a retrofit on hand to apply to keep it from happening again.  So relieved and the cost of the repair was much less than we expected.  We grabbed some lunch and were on the way to Pine Mountain.  We will get some estate work done here tomorrow morning then we plan to return to SC.  It was a good day.