Catching Up 2009 - Part 2

On Sunday, Feb. 15th, we left Topsail Hill State Park and headed to Mayo, FL for our next mission stop. The rain and wind from the prior days had passed and it was nice traveling. Arrived about 3 pm and settled into our spot. The Florida Campers on Mission (COM) are building a new facility for Airline Baptist Church. They've been working here since October 2008 and are now in the drywall hanging, taping, and finishing stage. Andy has experience with drywall having worked on the Builders for Christ trip in 2007 in Cullman, Alabama. Don & Nita Ridgway lead this group of workers and helped to set up the campground here for the Campers on Mission. They have 14 spots here that provide full hook ups (water, 30 amp electric, and sewer connection) plus wi-fi Internet. The church members have really helped the Florida COM work here by supplying free propane, welding services, washer/dryers and great lunches Monday-Friday. And we mean great lunches!!

We went to church here Sunday night and experienced their honky-tonk type of worship. Everyone sang with gusto and it was a great service. Monday at 8 am Andy started working over at the building. Andy's main job for the first week was to "screw up". He worked installing ceiling drywall so he was placing thousands of screws overhead in the ceiling! The first few nights his upper back, arms, shoulders, and neck were really complaining. But a nice hot shower, a little massage, and supper followed by a couple of Tylenol fixed him right up. He comes home every night covered in drywall dust so Linda makes him stomp around outside Barnabas before he comes in.

There's not a lot for Linda to do at the building, so she's been keeping busy with Ladies Bible Study, making salvation bracelets, keeping Barnabas clean, doing laundry, and crocheting hats for the local nursing home. She's getting lots of training in being a good southern baptist wife -- she needs it! Too bad she's not been practicing cooking! These ladies here can really cook. We've now samples "greens" and "grits". Like the grits -- not so much the greens -- but we're trying.

On Sunday, Feb. 22nd, it was Baptist Men's day at Mayo Baptist Church. The men led all the Sunday School classes, provided all the singing in the choir, and the music, and did all the preaching. Andy was snagged as soon as we walked into the sanctuary to join the men's choir and really enjoyed it. It would have helped if he had heard the songs before. At least he had the book with the words and music. The Pastor had a great sermon and it was a really good time of worship. That evening, the men and boys had a cake contest (with really nice prizes). Linda was asked to be a judge for the contest and really enjoyed tasting all the cakes the men had made. Those men can bake a cake and the competition was tough. After evening service, we had more food (surprise) and everyone enjoyed all the cakes! We trudged home with our flashlights to our RV, high on the sugar from all the cakes. It was another good day of worship.

The second week, Andy and the guys have finished with the drywall ceiling and Andy has been working on odd jobs, making signs, moving materials, helping Don fix the wi-fi when it went out, and being a general gofer and material handler as well as doing some miscellaneous electrical work. He worked on stuffing insulation today. He's also become the honorary break and lunch time "trumpeter". That involves blowing through a long piece of metal pipe to notify everyone that its time for a break! I think he enjoys this job the most.

We've really enjoyed being here in Mayo. The people from Campers on Mission have been really warm and friendly. Our sunset watching gatherings in the evening have become our favorite time of day. We'll hopefully be able to return to Mayo for another week of work before the 3rd grandchild is born on March 30th. Surprise, surprise, they'd like us to return --- :-) Go figure!

We'll finish up working here on Friday (2/27) and head to Riverview, Florida (near Tampa) to visit with Chris, Cindy and the grandkids next.

Catching Up 2009 - Part 1

Okay! Enough of you have harassed us about letting our blog get behind that we're going to try to catch you up on all the happenings with the Washburns' travels. We finished up our trip to Big Bend National Park (BBNP) on February 1 & 2. Sunday (2/1) was a day of cleaning (laundry and stuff) and just enjoying the scenery. Monday (2/2) we received our mail delivery, had another wonderful lunch at the restaurant in the Chisos Basis and again marveled at the scenery. On the way home, we stopped at Dugout Wells (an old settlement where there is water) and therefore lots of birds and plants (even a palm tree!). We just sat for almost three hours enjoying the scenery, watching all the birds, and enjoying the quietitude (our new word). It was hard to gather up the chairs and picnic basket and head back to Barnabas as it got dark. On Tuesday, February 3rd, we drove out of BBNP and headed for Fort Stockton. It was very hard to leave -- we kept telling ourselves that we WOULD NOT like it in the summer when it was 115! The trip to Fort Stockton was again thru desert scenery and it was a pleasant 1/2 day's drive. We arrived at our campsite around 2:30 pm, found a Tex-Mex restaurant for a meal, and a Wal-mart to resupply and finished the day doing some sight seeing around the old fort. Managed to get our shoes loaded with stickers walking thru an old cemetery and (of course) we carried them into Barnabas to find with our bare feet! Again - enjoying the wonders of God's creation!!!

On Wednesday, Feb. 4th, we drove into San Antonio, TX. Oh the joys of traffic! We had little to no traffic for the last month and it was a shock to hit the traffic going thru San Antonio on the interstate. We arrived at our campground on the south side of town, Braunig Lake, and parked in a lakeside spot with lots of elbow room. February 5th was Andy's birthday. First thing in the morning we dropped Barnabas off a the Freightliner dealer on the East side of San Antonio and headed downtown to see the Alamo. We spent the morning exploring the site and going thru the "shrine". It was quite an experience. Found a great place to have lunch on the Riverwalk (Casa Rio) one of the oldest restaurants on the Riverwalk. We ate outside along the canal - had great Tex-Mex food. Of course, it being Andy's birthday, we just had to have the roving quartet of Mexican musicians play Andy happy birthday! It was good to see him a little embarrassed. The waitress took pity on him and gave him a free dessert so I guess it was worth a little embarrassment. We spent the rest of the afternoon strolling along the Riverwalk, taking a cruise, and catching a movie about the Alamo at the IMAX. Drove back to get Barnabas from the repair shop (we had scheduled maintenance done on it-oil and transmission fluid changes, etc.) and headed back to the campsite thru a beautiful sunset. The next day was again running errands, finding a Wal-mart for an oil change for Little Red (the Vibe), and finding a Christian bookstore to stock up on reading materials.

On Saturday, Feb. 7th, we left San Antonio and drove to Houston, in very windy conditions, to have lunch with Mandy and Danielle at a Cracker Barrel on the west side of Houston. From there we drove to Livingston, TX and spent the night at the Escapee's Rainbow Campground. Sunday we drove into Shreveport, to spend a couple of days with Ron and Deborah (Andy's brother and sister-in-law). Again, we had to park at the Diamond Jack's Casino in Shreveport since the welders are still working on the new gas pipeline and there were no other campgrounds available. We still haven't been inside the casino. On Tuesday, Feb. 10th, we left Shreveport, again in the wind, and drove ahead of a weather front all day. Ended the day at Hattiesburg, MS in the Shady Cove campground. Basically, we camped in the woods and plugged into their electricity. Nothing remarkable except for the abundance of bluebirds! They were everywhere.

Headed out on the next day, Wednesday, Feb. 11th to Santa Rosa Beach, FL again in the wind/rain. Not a pretty days for travel at all. Arrived at the Topsail Hill State Park RV Resort and settled in. It's a really pretty park - VERY nicely landscaped. You almost don't see other RV's around your site. We were in the pine forest so no satellite but, hurrah!, they had cable hookups! On Thursday, Feb. 13th, we again needed to find a Wal-Mart for RV supplies. We headed out to find a breakfast place (kinda late in the morning) and ended up having a wonderful breakfast at Waffle House. They are everywhere down here. Every couple of miles you can surely find one. We were unprepared for all the development and traffic here. Drove 20 miles along Highway 98 (which is along the coast) and only saw the gulf waters twice. There are so many hotels, fancy shopping centers, etc. etc. that they have almost totally blocked the gulf from view. Too much glitz and glamor for us. We quickly made our purchases and headed to a less travel route for our return to Barnabas. One good item today -- we ordered delivery pizza from Giodorno's -- ham and pineapple -- and it was the bestest we've EVER had!! It cost us dearly -- $22 --but it was worth it! On Friday, Feb. 13th, we headed for the beach. Topsail Hill has a private beach that you have to walk back to -- no cars, or motorized vehicles allowed. Its only a .7 mile walk but it keep the riff-raff out! It was a beautiful day - high around 70 with a light breeze. Our first glimpse of the gulf waters was thru white sand dunes and was quite beautiful. The water here is crystal blue/green -- you can easily see the bottom as the waves come on shore. We did not come prepared to spend much time on the beach but it was so wonderful we just plopped down in the sand and enjoyed! We could probably see 5 miles of beach around us and only 10 or so people were on the beach with us. It was like having our own private beach. The sand was beautiful. White, crystaline and fine. Didn't stick everywhere like most sand. We stayed and played in the sand, enjoying the sound of the surf and the call of the seagulls for almost three hours. Linda had her hat on but short sleeves and no sunscreen. She paid for it with a sunburn on her arms! Not good when she's not supposed to get much sun. Oh well -- it was a beautiful day. We rode the park's tram back to our campground and finished the day hanging around the campsite.

On Saturday, Feb. 14th, it RAINED. IT RAINED and IT RAINED. Buy the time it was over, 2-1/2" had fallen. And in Barnabas we heard every drop. Needless to say, with the cloudy day and the drum of the rain on the roof, we had a sleepy kind of day. End of Part 1. Additional pictures are on Linda' Facebook page.