Debbie and Joe's Travel Adventures

We were again up before the crack of dawn.  While getting up this early has some issues (…lol), there are certainly advantages such as watching the sunrise.  Here we are enjoying breakfast while the sun is just coming up over the horizon.  It is amazing when you think that the earth is rotating on it’s axis about 1,000 mph!

The sheetrock crew wanted us to blow in the attic insulation before they finish the taping.  So, when we arrived one of our team members had already picked up the insulation truck.  After our wonderful devotional and prayer from the local pastor, we got right to work.  Our job was to load the hopper … which we had done before.  Once the hose had been placed in the attic, it was time to start feeding the hopper. 

After about 2  hours, we had blown in close to 100 bales of insulation into the attic.   While we were cleaning up, we noticed some dark clouds on the horizon.   The forecast was for no rain today … but, can you believe it?  Yeah, they were wrong.   But, we had gotten the insulation done, and our inside crew had finished up the window sheetrock trim and covered the outlets.  Since we had pretty much finished our tasks for the day, we decided to end early.  But – of course … we had to come back to enjoy the delicious lunch prepared by a local church.

It’s hard to believe that today is the end of our two week adventure.  The local affiliate is hosting a 2 week build dinner for the team at a local Amish home.  If it’s anything like we’ve been to in the past, it will be a family style meal served in an Amish family’s living room.  After dinner, we will be leaving Sullivan.  We have some sightseeing planned before we return back to Celebration.

We leave the finishing of the house in good hands.  There are some local volunteers that will finish up the remaining tasks, with the goal to get the family into the home before Thanksgiving.

Thank you for virtually joining us on our latest adventure.  We truly felt the love from everyone, and we are truly blessed to have such a wonderful extended family.  God is good!

On a typical build, today would be sheetrocking day.  It usually takes a full team about 2 days to complete the installation, and then another day to tape and spackle the walls.   This year, the local Habitat affiliate was approached by a local sheetrock company who wanted to volunteer their crew to install and tape the walls.  Of course, they graciously accepted their offer … so today that crew was busy installing.  The crew was already well underway by the time we arrived at the jobsite at 7:45AM this morning.  By the end of the day, they will have all the sheetrock installed … with impressively small seams between sheets 😉

So our focus today was to continue clearing the backyard.   We sorted the extra materials – with some being donated to the local Habitat ReStore, some being used by local volunteers for other projects, some recycled, and the rest put in the dumpster. 

The concrete team came back this morning and cut some grooves into the patio.  I had always thought these grooves were for aesthetics, but I was told it also helps reduce cracking by allowing some expansion/contraction due to temperature changes.

While the concrete team did a good job on the patio – they did leave some unwanted concrete along the edges.  So, we kept getting bigger power tools until we were able to break up the concrete and get it into the dumpster.

But the real highlight of the day is Thursday donuts.  We’ve been spoiled and blessed by so many local organizations providing us with snacks, lunches and dinners.   Every Thursday, a local bakery delivers delicious donuts.  Since it was a light day of work, we enjoyed a nice long team break on a beautiful sunny 70 degree day.

Tonight, we are being treated to dinner at the local Ambucs meeting.  Ambucs is an amazing organization that helps disabled people by building wheelchair ramps and purchasing handicap accessible bikes for kids.    They work hard, but they know how to cook!  At every one of their meetings, they cook for all their members on a huge grill.  I hear that tonight’s menu will be grilled ham steak.  Yum!  God is good!

Brrr … it was in the 40’s this morning.   We are very thankful that Roadie’s heat is working!  When we got to the jobsite, it was barely in the 50’s … but by afternoon it warmed up nicely.

Typically, today would be sheet rocking day, but because a company donated their time to install the sheetrock, our day was a little different.   One person from the company did show up this morning and installed metal ceiling nailers.  As we’ve been told, these allow the middle of the sheetrock to ‘float’, to reduce future cracks.

Since that big job is being done by a contractor, today was a day for catching up on loose ends, cleaning out the house, storing tools that will no longer be needed and cleaning up outside.   Some of our tasks were to seal penetrations around the doors,

load the trailer up with tools and materials that we won’t need anymore for this build,

and helping to clean out the shed and tool trailer.

Our ‘entertainment’ while working in the yard was watching the concrete crew pour concrete for the back patio and sidewalk.  They certainly make it look easy, but it is definitely a work of art.

So – you may be wondering … so what are the firsts for today?

Well  – we had a bird in the house!    It’s not just any type of bird .. but a woodpecker!   I’ve been told that this was a first :-).

I was laughing watching Dakota (the future owner) inside with a broom trying to convince the bird to leave … lol.

The other first was getting a tour of the unique Agricultural center at the local school.  The teacher gave us some history about how this Ag center started.  It’s a wonderful story of a collaboration between the Army Corps of Engineers, the principle, the school district and an incredibly passionate teacher.  This is the only center like this in the mid-west!

During the student’s 2 hour Agricultural class, they do everything from farming, designing and building fences, taking care of hogs/sheep/goats, breeding via artificial insemination and everything else needed to take care of their farm.  It is certainly an amazing place where the students get an appreciation of farming while getting an understanding of the importance of a work ethic.   It’s an amazing place!

Just another amazing day with an opportunity to work with talented and generous people.  God is good!

It’s hard to believe it’s October!  Being up north, it’s definitely noticeable.  Tonight the low temperature is supposed dip into the low 40s … brrr!   While the mornings are cool, the afternoons are crisp autumn days in the mid-70s.  It’s nice to see some leaves starting to change  🙂

Our job this morning was to drive the trailer to Menards (a home improvement store) about 45 minutes away to pick up 16 additional sheets of drywall.  It was a long, but scenic drive – passing by cornfield after cornfield.  It does give us an appreciation for how blessed we are in this country to have hard working farmers and fertile farmland.

When we got to Menards, I was very impressed with their system.  They had three huge drive-through barns with all kinds of construction materials.  When you checked in at the front gate, they sent someone to help you load.

By around 10:30, we had arrived back at the job site with the sheetrock.  When we arrived, we were amazed at how much activity was going on at the job site …

…the sidewalks and back patio were being prepped for concrete

…the plumber was finishing up some work

…the electrician was installing the furnace

… some of our team was setting the shower base in concrete and assembling the shower

… and others from our team were finishing up the siding on the south wall.

We always have a little fun along the way 🙂 …. and no, he wasn’t falling … lol…

After another wonderful lunch at a local church, we unloaded the sheet rock from the trailer and started to clean up the worksite.  

It was certainly organized chaos today – but there was much accomplished!     After a team get-together at a local VFW for ‘taco-Tuesday’, we are all ready to call it a day.  God is good!

Hurricane Helene visited us on Friday, but it was not too bad – just some wind gusts and a little bit of rain.  We called off the workday, but the sponsoring church blessed us with a wonderful lunch at the local library.  The weekend was good  – with some time to catch up with some friends that we hadn’t seen since last year.   We even got to see a first …. a robot delivering drinks at a local restaurant.   The middle of farm country would be the last place you’d expect to see this … but it was pretty cool.

The 5:30AM alarm on Monday comes very early :-).  The morning routine is getting a little easier, so it doesn’t feel as rushed getting ready.   When we arrived at the job site, we were able to take a look the completed foam insulated walls that were done on Friday.  This is the first year that we are using blown in insulation so we were very curious as to how it would finish.

We also saw a very full load of sheet rock that needed to be unloaded, both 12 foot and 8 foot lengths. 

It would have taken our small six person team a long time and a lot of effort to unload these heavy sheets.  After the pastor shared a wonderful devotional this morning, we got to talking about the big job ahead of us.  She asked if it would be helpful if some high school students could come and help unload.  Well … of course our answer was YES!   She made one call to the principle, and within 10 minutes, there were about 8 students at the job site (the high school is on the same block).   The students came from PE class – so lifting sheetrock was their lifting weights today :-).   With everyone working together, we were able to get all the sheetrock unloaded before 10AM.   God really does provide us with everything we need!

After unloading the sheetrock, we enjoyed a special snack today.  One of the team members baked some apple and banana bread to celebrate Gene’s birthday.   Then, it was back to work.  After setting up scaffolding and figuring out how to cut roof angles on the siding, we made some progress on the south side of the house.   I was on cutting duty, and Joe had the measuring/installing job.

After a productive day at work and a relaxing happy hour, the team met at a local restaurant to continue Gene’s birthday celebration.   We all have so much to be thankful for.  God is good!

We woke pre-dawn to another brisk morning, with temperatures in Roadie around 61 degrees…brr.   Thank goodness for the electric heater fireplace!

As expected,  we had numerous hurricane, cyclone, tropical storm and wind warnings for Florida in advance of Hurricane Helene.   We are thankful that it will mostly miss Celebration, but pray for the safety of those along the Florida coast.

What we did not expect was Hurricane warnings for Sullivan, IL!  A hurricane in Illinois?  How does that happen … where’s the water?   Anyway … this was the storm tracker yesterday.    Sullivan is in central IL, where the big red circle is.    OK, maybe we brought it with us … lol?

Since there is a good probability that we will have rain and high winds tomorrow, we wanted to get as much siding done as possible.  The back of the house was just drying up from the last storm – so we really wanted to get that done today so we would not have to work in another mud pit.   We finished the side of the house up to the angled roof line, and then decided to put everyone to work on the back wall.  I had the job of cutting the pieces while Joe was on the scaffolding doing the installing and nailing.  This team small, but amazing.  We all stayed a bit late this afternoon and got it done!   The afternoon weather was amazing with sunshine in the mid-70’s and a nice breeze.

After a successful day, we gathered under the pavilion for a happy hour.  It’s a nice time to just relax and share stories. 

While we were outside, we enjoyed watching the cornfields being harvested.  I’m sure the farmers were putting in overtime to beat the storm.  As we’ve learned over the years, the moisture level of the corn during harvesting is a huge factor so it is critical for them to get as much as they can done before the rain.

It was the first time I saw them working, even after dark.

We had another wonderful and exhausting day.   Let’s hope the winds aren’t too bad … although a local volunteer already offered for us to stay in their home if the storm gets too bad.  Amazing people!   God is good!

We woke up to a brisk 54 degrees!  Not only is it brrrrrrr…. but also very dark at 5:30AM.   As we were having breakfast, we get to enjoy a nice view of the sunrise from Roadie.   From our fogged windows (from the cold), it was just another reminder of God’s goodness.

Even though it was a chilly morning, it turned out to be a beautiful day for working.   By the afternoon it was in the mid seventies and sunny.    Two of our team members worked on removing/replacing a shower enclosure and picking up/installing the back door.   While they were busy with that task, the siding team was hard at work installing siding.  We were able to complete the front porch and front wall siding.   By the end of the day, the ground had finally started to dry up.  We are hoping that tomorrow the back side of the house will be dry enough to start the siding. 

 

 

When everyone returned to Faith Resort, we gathered under the pavilion to relax and enjoy the beautiful afternoon.  It was another blessed day!  God is good.

  

The toughest part of the day is getting up at 5:30AM.  But …this morning God got us up with a really loud thunder storm.  Not only the thunder, but the sound of heavy rain on a fiberglass roof is enough to get you going :-).   When it stopped raining around 7AM, there were ‘ponds’ outside our window, where there was just grass last night.  We must have gotten over 2″ of rain.   But, by 7:30 it had stopped raining.  We got out our ‘heavy duty’ rain boots today, and headed out to catch our ride.  We were greeted at the door by a fellow Care-a-vanner,  telling us that Gene had called off work for today.   But…. we have our boots on, and we’re ready to go!   The rest of the team felt the same way, and we convinced Gene to meet at the job site and see how the weather goes.   While we were waiting for our ride, I decided to use the huge puddle outside our front step to attempt to clean off some of the mud from the shoes we wore yesterday.

As we expected, the job site was a mud pit.  Joe and I, with our heavy duty boots, were ready to start siding.  We did get some rain on-and-off, but we were able to get some siding cut.

Fitting the siding around the windows is always challenging.  After carefully measuring, we have to manually cut the siding with sharp sheers.

By lunchtime, we had completed as much as we could on the front wall without getting ladders  which would have been unsafe to use given the mud pit. 

We were once again treated to a wonderful lunch at a local church.  We had a selection of sandwiches, salads, chips … and of course, some amazing desserts.  After lunch, we started working on the side wall.  By the end of the day, the team had made significant progress on the porch soffits and siding.  Here’s a view of progress at the end of the day. 

….not bad for a ‘rain delay’ day.  This Habitat team is here to build a house, and won’t let a little rain get in the way :-).

God is Good!

This year, the house is being built on a piece of donated land in Bethany, IL – a town about 10 minutes from Sullivan.   Given that this is week five of a six week build, the progress on the house is well underway.  The interior walls are up, the bathtubs are in place and the electrical rough-in is almost complete.  We are waiting for the plumber to complete his work before the wall insulation and drywall can be installed.  It’s definitely starting to look like a house:

On the exterior, the team completed as much of the siding that could be completed until the concrete porches were poured and the back door gets installed.

Thankfully, the porch concrete was poured on Friday so we could get started on the siding.  Joe and I started on the front of the house.  

We were just getting back into the groove when the rain started.  We worked for about an hour in the rain, hoping it would stop.

But then it really started raining.   Without any gutters, the rain was coming off the roof … right to where we were installing siding.  Since the forecast was for continued rain, we decided to call it a day.   As you can imagine, or shoes became mud magnets. Of course, our mud boots were clean and dry….in the car :-(.  

When we cleaned up as best we could, we headed out to a local church for lunch.   And … what a lunch it was!  They had prepared fresh homemade bread, two types of salads and three types of lasagna for us:  meat, seafood and vegetable.  If that wasn’t enough, they had 3 different desserts.   Yeah … probably not going to loose weight on this build :-).

Rain, rain … go away!   We ‘hear’ that it might rain again tomorrow.   I guess God is just sending extra blessings our way :-).  God is good!

 

As some of you may know, Joe’s dad passed away in July and we miss him dearly. Since we were in NY for most of the spring and summer, we decided that we would not be able to participate on the Habitat team in Illinois, since the build started in August. After cleaning out Joe’s parents home in NY, we arrived back in Celebration the end of August with a ‘million’ things to catch up on. Each week we were back, we tried to convince ourselves that we should just pass on the build this year. Until Wednesday of last week when Joe said … ‘we should just go …’. God was just telling us to pack up and go, so on Friday morning we packed up ‘Roadie’ (our motorhome) and headed out to meet the rest of the Habitat team in Sullivan. Yeah, it was pretty crazy. We could only accomplish this with the amazing friends we have in Celebration that helped us once again take care of some things while we are gone. We are incredibly thankful for all of you!

Since we’ve done this roadtrip before, we were able to just ‘copy and paste’ our trip itinerary from last year with overnight stops at conveniently located Cracker Barrel restaurants. Most Cracker Barrel’s let RVers stay overnight, knowing that they will stop in for a meal. They are more than happy to accommodate us and we look forward to our pancake breakfasts in the morning before we continue our travels.

With the huge panoramic window on Roadie, we get to enjoy this country’s beautiful scenery. Here is a picture of beautiful mountains as we drove through Tennessee,

the seemingly unending cornfields in Illinois

and finally arriving at Faith Lutheran campground in Sullivan, IL on Sunday afternoon after driving over 1,000 miles.

After hooking up water and electric, we got settled in. It’s always fun to cook in Roadie – it’s amazing how little space and supplies you really need.

It’s going to be an early day tomorrow – we leave at 7:30 AM. For us retired people, that’s crazy early! Look forward to sharing our two week Habitat journey with all of you!

God is Good!