Week 2 of our NOMADS project at Mingus Mountain Camp and Retreat started on May 18th and was much like Week 1. We continued all our projects with our Nomads friends, finished some and started some new ones.
On Monday we discovered a railing on one of the camp buildings was very loose, so the team stabilized it.
The team continued in one of the men’s bathrooms by installing the new vinyl plank flooring.
Anne cutting flooring
Bathroom at the end of the week
Bathroom entrance floor
LuAnn and Steve working on the gaga ball pit
Another big project we started this week was tearing down the old wood shed to build a new camp store.
Removing the old roof
Taking down the old wood shed piece by piece
Finally on the ground
Building a wall the old-fashioned way
The rest of the team helped with raising the first wall.
Bracing the first wall
Doyle anchoring a wall
New camp store at the end of the week
The weather has been the same as last week. Lows in the low 50’s overnight (didn’t bring enough warm clothes) and climbing into the low to mid 70’s during the day with a few days in the low 80’s. There has still been NO rain! No threats of rain. The only clouds are the white puffy ones, otherwise it’s just beautiful blue sky. There is no dew on the ground in the mornings. No change in the forecast for this week. Very different from what we are accustomed to in Alabama. Also, we have friends in Alabama that have had tornadoes this week and are now experiencing flash flooding. Please say a prayer for them! Don’t think we told you about the elevation. We are at 7,600 feet so that explains the cool evenings. Friday when we were in Prescott Valley doing laundry the temperature was 84 and it was 74 when we arrived back at our campsite on Mingus Mountain.
On one of our hikes around the camp we found this agave in its “death bloom.” Agave live for 10 to 30 years, bloom once, then die.
Our last post on May 8, we drove through some beautiful scenery to reach our home for the night in Cottonwood AZ. After refilling the refrigerator and the propane we had a good night of sleep. We really appreciated hospitality of the Methodist church. On May 9 we began our drive to Mingus Mountain, our home for the next 3 weeks. It was a beautiful although harrowing drive. We drove up through Jerome, but it was before anything was open. We plan to stop there as well as Sedona when we leave. Both areas are interesting and beautiful, but it was time to just get settled in after eighteen days on the road.
The drive from Cottonwood to Mingus Mountain was another interesting …
… but beautiful drive.
Our home for three weeks
The fireplace detail in dining hall
The outdoor worship center at the camp
This deer herd walks through the camp frequently.
They look a little different from the deer back east.
We arrived at Mingus Mountain Camp and Retreat before lunch, found our place to park and set up our campsite. We were greeted by our NOMADS leader Suzanne and later that afternoon the rest of the team, Steve, and Doyle and LouAnn arrived. Suzanne went ahead with our opening meeting since we were all gathered together and asking her questions. It was nice though since it gave us all a free day Sunday. Monday we met the camp director and program director when they joined us for devotion. After a tour of the facilities, we began our work for the week. We made a lot of repairs. Repairs to the entrance signage and painting it, the pump house roof, the heat strip on the pavilion roof, a door, lots of painting, built a trash can enclosure, an entry ramp for the dinning hall, repaired the 9-square game and began working in the men’s rest room which is a big three-week project. We began by removing all the tile, preparing the flooring for new vinyl laminate and started the painting. By the end of the week we had it so the rest room could be used by guests for the weekend.
Preparing the entrance sign for painting
Steve and Doyle repairing the pumphouse roof
Doyle and Steve re-installed a door that was blown off by the wind.
Repaired 9-square game
Doyle and Steve made the dining hall more accessible.
Suzanne painting the men’s bathroom.
Removing the old floor tile …
…took a lot of scraping.
Repairing heat tape on pavilion roof. We were probably the only people in Arizona working on heat tape this time of year.
The camp director wanted enclosures for the trash cans to keep animals out.
Steve working on the trash can enclosure
Finished trash can enclosure
Over the weekend we visited Prescott Valley. Wow! Another steep drive with minimal side rails. You can see the roadway, way, down below. We also bought groceries and visited Culver’s while there. Saturday, we hiked to the top of the mountain where there is an area for hang gliding. No one jumped off the mountain while we were there but the scenery was beautiful.
Up the road from the camp is a hang glider launch. We’ve seen hang gliders in the air, but none were launching when we walked to the launch.
One of many wild Rocky Mountain Irises on the mountain
One of the ancient alligator junipers we found around the mountain
The Claret-cup cactus is sometimes called strawberry cactus. Many are starting to bloom at the camp.
Claret-cup cactus and alligator juniper
On Sunday, we streamed our 8:30 am service from our home church, Lester Memorial Methodist. By the way, that was at 6:30 am here.
Enjoyed working with this hardworking team this week. We have accomplished a lot. Two more weeks to go.
Tuesday, May 6 was the official beginning of our Spring Road Trip 2025. If things go as planned, this will truly be a road trip. There will be lots of driving, lots of miles covered and not as much moseying along at a casual pace as our recent vacations. Tuesday, we drove to Asheville, NC to visit with the volunteer coordinator for the NOMADS disaster rebuilding project we will be leading in the fall. We met with Hannah at the church that will be providing our parking sites. The church is building camping sites on their property for people impacted by Hurricane Helene and will be including six sites for NOMADS to use. This should be a great opportunity for us to serve in a beautiful location while working to get families back into their homes.
Covenant Community Church will be the host for the NOMADS teams in Asheville.
The campground the church is building.
From Asheville, we drove to Barbourville, KY to visit the Constructors For Christ 2025 construction site. We will be helping to build the East Barbourville Baptist Church’s new sanctuary and perhaps build out some Sunday School classrooms. Since it was not too far off our route, we decided to take a quick look at the site and see the town. We arrived too late to see anyone at the church but got to take some pictures, try one of the local diners, check out the grocery stores, and the RV park we will be using. We also boondocked at the local WalMart (with permission). We are really looking forward to this project. This will be the 50th year Constructors has provided 5-6 weeks of labor to assist churches with their building needs. What a great ministry this organization has led. It’s an honor to work and serve with them and we look forward to seeing all our Constructor friends in June. We traveled 336 miles today.
Progress is being made for our project in Barbourville.
After a good night of sleep, on May 7, we continued driving northwest. We stopped at King Donut in London, KY for breakfast pastries and then continued to Big Bone Lick State Historic Park in Union, KY. This is a smaller state park but is in a beautiful setting and bills itself as “the birthplace of American paleontology.” We would definitely stay here again. The first sight we were assigned, we couldn’t get level. So the very helpful, “off duty” camp host quickly changed our site to one that was level and located immediately behind Randy and Debra. We spent the afternoon exploring the park and waiting for Randy and Debra to arrive. Another 171 miles traveled.
Our breakfast in London.
This old root cellar in the campground shows part of the history of this park.
The fossil and prehistoric display at the nature center.
Our last post left us at Camp Sumatanga for Easter weekend. Easter morning we were up at 4:00 am, on the road by 5:00 am and celebrated the resurrection of our Lord and Savior with our Lester Memorial family at 6:00 am on the mountain above Oneonta at Palisades Park. It was a wonderful service and beautiful sunrise. Such a great way to start Resurrection Sunday.
This is what we saw as we were leaving the camp on Easter morning.
Lester Memorial’s Sonrise Service for Easter 2025
For our third week working at Camp Sumatanga we were so blessed! Friday of Holy Week our good friends and fellow NOMADS Mariel and Shannon joined us. On Sunday afternoon two more good friends and NOMADS, Rita and Dave, joined us. We also had great help from Barry and Donna and Emily. First, there was NO water leak Monday morning! We were able to resume work on Cabin 5 with Barry, Donna, Mariel, Anne, Max, and Rita worked on painting the exterior since Monday would be our only dry day. Shannon and Dave did some framing work for the showers and vents, built some benches, and repaired drywall in the old section of the cabin. On Thursday Dave, Shannon, Max, Anne, and Barry insulated the walls and ceilings.
With the weather forecast for the week, we decided to get some outside painting done while we could.
We got about 80% of the new walls painted before we had to stop because of rain.
Dave and Shannon boxing in vent old pipe
Dave and Shannon building a wall for a dressing area
Shannon insulating the walls
Dave and Anne insulating the ceiling
We also continued to work in the girl’s staff hut. By the end of the week Donna, Barry, Rita, Mariel, Anne and Emily had all six bedrooms ceiling, walls and closets painted along with the hallway and most of the trim. The bathroom ceilings were also painted. The old water heaters were removed. Max and Anne rebuilt and insulated part of the front wall of the hut and finished the repair of the damaged subfloor in the front room. Max and Barry also worked on rough-in electrical in Cabin 7. It was a very busy week with a lot accomplished for the camp. Most importantly, everyone stayed safe! Big thank you to all who helped!!
Rita …
… Donna …
… and Mariel painted the in the girl’s staff hut …
… while Emily unpainted.
Finishing up our time with a little more work in the girl’s staff hut
The team also handled a few other tasks, such a hanging some new flags at the office …
… and repairing the wall of the nurse hut.
Thursday night dinner with our NOMADS helpers joined by two other NOMADS friends, Dave and Carol, along with two friends of theirs.
Always a few trillia along the Lake Trail this time of year …
… and the native azalea was especially pretty this year.
We returned to Johnston, SC after church on Sunday and have spent the past week with Randy and Debra. Randy received a great report from his oncologist on Wednesday so it’s been a great week for us. If things go as planned we will be doing some westward travel with Randy and Debra this next week.
