volunteering – Page 8 – RVing With a Purpose

Spring 2025 Road Trip – Kentucky to Iowa

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Sorry it has been so long since we posted but we have been so busy having fun traveling. May 9th was a long travel day. We said goodbye to Big Bone Lick State Historic Park (nice park) about 8:00 am Friday morning and made our way across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and landed at Park Terrace Campground in Davenport, Iowa at about 6:00pm. It was a long day. We chose to make it a long day because we had already visited these states. Saturday morning after a good night of sleep, the four of us went to a local restaurant that Randy or Debra had found, The Machine Shed. What a wonderful place to have a Saturday morning breakfast. We all shared one huge cinnamon roll – probably the largest we have ever had, and oh so good! Our breakfasts were also very good but we had to work to clean our plates after having the cinnamon roll as an “appetizer”. If you are ever in Davenport this is a “must do” for breakfast.

We’ve seen a lot of cinnamon rolls in our time.

Next on the list for Iowa was the famous Iowa 80 Truck Stop. It is claimed to be the world’s largest truck stop. We don’t know about that, but we do know that is huge. It is located on the eastern edge of Iowa, not far from the Mississippi river close to the town of Walcott. Some call it a Trucker’s Disneyland. In addition to nine restaurants and 24 showers, they also have a dentist, chiropractor, barber shop, a dogamat pet wash, laundry center, movie theater, workout room and of course anything you might need or want for your 18 wheeler.

All of that was great but our favorite part was the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum. We lost count on the number of trucks but they were amazing. Entry is free but they ask for a donation. We almost skipped the museum because we had already spent so much time in the truck stop. So glad we did not miss it and we would definitely recommend the museum.

Our last stop for the day was at Antique Archaeology in Leclaire, IA. We knew it from the American Pickers TV show. Randy and Debra have watched a few of the shows and we went there so we could get some pics to send to their grandchildren. It was a fun way to end our day.

Just to give you an idea of some of the pricing in the store.

Spring 2025 Road Trip – Creation Museum and Ark Encounter

Tuesday May 13, 2025

On May 8th we left Big Bone Lick State Park at 8am en route to the Creation Museum in Boone, KY. If you are not aware, the Creation Museum is a Christian evangelistic outreach of Answers in Genesis, as is the sister attraction, the Ark Encounter which we visited later in the day. Randy and Debra had visited both the attractions previously, but for Debra it was a while back and there have been many changes since her visit. We were glad that they wanted to visit again today with us as we knew it would be more fun that way. We had never been to either location. We found both the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter to be interesting and well done. We learned some things and we have many pictures of information boards that we want to go back and read. The Creation Museum does just what you would think it would do – it tells the story of the creation of the world as revealed in the first book of the Bible – Genesis. It also covers the end of the perfect world that God created when Adam and Eve sinned.

This sign explains one of the main principles used at the museum.

One of many information panels at the museum

Many of the written panels seem to be designed to witness of Jesus’s purpose on earth.

Someone at the museum has a sense of humor.

The Ark Encounter likewise tells the story of Noah and his faithfulness, the building of the Ark and the world after the flood. Both the Creation Museum and The Ark Encounter shared the redemption of the world by the death of Christ on the cross and the resurrection three days later. Again, we felt they were well done. Yes, there was some artistic license taken at times but it was identified as such when it occurred.

The creators of the Ark Encounter want visitors to understand that some of the displays show some theoretical ideas and are not to be taken as Gospel.

Genesis talks about the “kinds” of animal that were in the Ark.

The cages have speakers in them to make it sound they are occupied.

We even found some information that might be useful in our study of the Acts.

There is a small zoo at the Ark where we saw this beautiful black crowned crane …

… and this sloth that was moving along pretty fast – for a sloth.

It took us a full day to do both the Creation Museum and The Ark and we did not do any of the “extras” such as movies, zip lines, and much more that is offered. Doing all that is offered would take at least two days. So, after a long day we went back to Big Bone Lick Campground and prepared for a long travel day.

Start of our Spring 2025 Road Trip

Sunday, May 11, 2025

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.

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 50^th 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.

This old root cellar in the campground shows part of the history of this park.

The fossil and prehistoric display at the nature center.

Third Week At Sumatanga

Sunday, May 4, 2025

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

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!!

… and Mariel painted the in the girl’s staff hut …

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.