Wednesday 3/12/25, was another beautiful, sunny, blue-sky spring day and we visited the Atlanta Botanical Garden with Jim and Susan. Gorgeous!! The orchid exhibit was beyond any we have seen. We also couldn’t stop taking pictures of the tulips and daffodils. We visited the Garden in December 2023 when everything was decorated for Christmas. That was a great show, too. Jim says that they have something for each season that makes it worth a visit anytime you are in the Atlanta area. Not a lot of words today. We will let the pictures speak for us.
We saw many beautiful daffodils …
… and these tulips …
… the reflecting pool …
… but the main reason we visited the Garden this time was for the Orchiddaze. There were so many orchids, it was difficult picking which of our many pictures to post. And we didn’t even try to record all their names.
The mirrored globes in the orchid display
The orchid display also included these pitcher plants …
… and this live harlequin poison frog from Colombia.
This is what the goddess looked like when we were here in December 2023.
This is what it looked like this visit.
There were a few Chihuly glass sculptures on display, like this one on a fountain.
Anne visiting with one of the garden residents
While we hate the Atlanta traffic, Atlanta does have so much to offer a visitor. We just wouldn’t want to drive in that traffic every day. Thursday morning, we drove back to South Carolina to catch up on Randy and Debra. We are very appreciative for the prayers for Randy. He is doing well, and we are enjoying our time together. We will be here until the end of the month when we have an appointment in Red Bay for a little work on Fred.
Monday afternoon (03/10/25), we drove from Alabama to Senoia, GA (suburb of Atlanta) to Anne’s brother’s home. We visited there over the next few days, where the busyness described in our previous post continued. Jim had for quite a while been wanting to take us to the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning in Columbus, GA. We finally made the trip on Tuesday (3/11), a beautiful spring day. The museum was excellent. It was informative, moving, and one of the best museums we have visited. It is designed to be a self-guided tour but docent led tours can be scheduled. There is a giant screen theater and virtual reality (VR) simulators. You can even experience parachuting through the skies in the only Paradrop simulators in the US. Amazingly, the admission is free, with a suggested donation of $5.00. There are additional fees for some of the movies and VR offerings. When you enter the museum you first walk through a series of displays beginning with the Revolutionary War infantry and then advancing thru the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, and Global War on Terrorism infantrymen. They have also added an Armory and Calvary Museum. They have exhibits featuring various pieces of equipment, memorials, and a three-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. outside. There is also a Korean War Memorial, Gold Star and Surviving Family Memorial, and a Global War on Terrorism Memorial. When we arrived, we didn’t think we would be at the museum that long but stayed most of the day. It was another good day. We should have made this trip sooner.
Outside the National Infantry Museum
The first display shows Revolutionary War soldiers
Vietnam War display
Part of the Global War on Terrorism display
Harley Davidson display
Since the training for armor and cavalry soldiers has been moved to Fort Benning, a section of the museum has been dedicated to those branches.
Inside Armor and Cavalry Museum section
This armored personnel carrier is more the vintage of Max’s time in the cavalry.
One of the outside displays
This actual beam from the World Trade Center was donated to the museum by the NYC Fire Department.
We have been very busy since our last post two weeks ago. The busyness began just a couple of hours after returning to South Carolina from the Uskichitto NOMADS project. Randy and Debra invited us to join them for the Sweetwater Baptist Church’s Annual Wild Game Supper. It was even better than last year. We enjoyed elk meatballs, bison dogs, venison chili, fish and a few other items. Sweetwater Baptist invites everyone to their free community gathering of friends, family, and neighbors. We appreciate Randy and Debra including us. We enjoyed the event but what touched our hearts the most was to see Randy feeling good and smiling and laughing with friends. Thank you God for his continued improvement!
We had the next three days to make a quick transition from Fred to Beyond Blessed and there was lots of laundry to do. We departed SC Wednesday in route to Ocala, FL for the Ocala RV Show and the Coachmen Class B Roundup. We made a quick overnight at the Gainesville Bass Pro Shop where we had a quiet and restful night with eight other RVers. After arriving in Ocala Thursday morning, we helped with parking and registration at the rally for over 100 class B vans. (Sponsored by Sunshine State RV and the Coachmen Class B Division) Friday, we enjoyed working the RV show for a few hours. There we met prospective new owners of class B’s and prospective NOMADS. It was fun sharing our experiences traveling the country in a small van. BTW, we still love this form of travel. The rest of the weekend, we were able to visit with old friends and make new friends. We had some great food and entertainment as well. All too soon it was Sunday and time to say goodbye. We pointed BB back toward Pine Mountain, AL for medical appointments on Monday.
Setting up for registration – which included preparing all the goodie bags.
Somebody must being doing something right to get over 100 class B RVs of the same brand to come together in a grassy field with no hookups for the weekend.
One of the main reasons the group gets together is to get together …
… and of course, plenty of food. This year the sponsors provided a catered meal and a breakfast and the attendees had 2 potluck dinners.
The education session this year was on RV electrical systems.
There were a few very talented owners who made karaoke night a lot of fun.
Dean Savas (left) is the organizer of the Facebook group that started the Class B Roundup. Nick (right) of Sunshine State RV is one of the sponsors along with the Class B division of Coachmen.
When we last posted, we had just arrived at Uskichitto Retreat Center (pronounced “Whiskey Chitto”) in LeBlanc, LA. The retreat center has five cabins to house campers for summer camp season. The cabins are also used during the off season by businesses, clubs and church groups for weekend retreats, meetings and work sessions. We have full hookup camp sites and laundry facilities. This a three week NOMADS project, but we will only be working the first two weeks. Mariel and Shannon are our leaders. It’s so good to work with them again. We haven’t seen them since the annual meeting last year. We have team members, Pam and Dennis who we worked with at Camp Sumatanga last year and Lou and Gabriela who we just met. They are relatively new members from Iowa.
There is lots of work to be done at the camp, but our highest priority is replacing the flooring at the pavilion. Monday morning it was all hands-on deck to empty out the pavilion of all the sound equipment, furniture, etc. and remove the toilets and sinks from the restrooms and store everything in a nearby building. That done, we began using various tools to remove the old flooring. Most of the tile actually came up fairly easily. It was all the glue that remained on the floor that was the problem. The camp director rented us a machine that made the job easier but there was still lots of time spent on our knees scraping. It was decided that we would be using epoxy paint with color chips to replace the old tile. After scraping all the old glue up there was dust and dirt everywhere. Then, we began the process of cleaning the concrete mopping numerous times to get it clean. With that huge job completed, Thursday afternoon we etched the concrete and then mopped the concrete until clean again. The mop water had to be clear. That’s where we left it for the weekend.
Mariel removing baseboards
Removing one of the toilets
One of the sinks being removed.
The power scraper motor quit after about an hour of work. Fortunately the tile was loose enough to scrape up manually.
Mariel “helping” Dennis with the power grinder
Our tools of the trade for most of the week
We spend a lot of time team mopping.
Official mop cleaner
The floor before we started
At the end of the week
How we had fun all week
When there was a little down time throughout the week, a few of us were able to complete some smaller projects, the repair of some leaky faucets, replacement of some steps, repair of a “soft” spot in a bathroom and window cleaning in the cafeteria. We worked hard this week and we were rewarded with a fantastic Cajun meal Thursday night prepared by some of the ladies from Squryes UMC. The weekend will bring rest, laundry and perhaps some sight seeing.
It took a while to repair the leak in this shower.
The soft spot that had to be repaired
Lou repairing a picnic table while all the mops were occupied.
Delicious Thursday night gumbo dinner
There are many crawfish mounds around the grounds, but we didn’t try to catch any bugs …
… however, Mariel did rescue this cute chameleon from he dining room.
RVing With a Purpose 