Plugging Away

Our truck isn’t fixed yet, the body shops have been too busy.  But we have done all that was asked by the insurance company.  We have an appointment for its repair during the week after the 4^th of July weekend.

Meanwhile, one of our summer projects for the cabin is complete: the interior wall was rebuilt, re-painted, and three doorways were re-trimmed.  The job looks pretty good for a couple of amateur laborers. 

 

Our remaining project is more physical and time consuming.  We have bought new carpeting to replace what has been there since sometime in the ‘60’s.  The original carpeting doesn’t look too bad – it doesn’t show dirt or wear, but one seam has been slowing coming apart every time the vacuum cleaner gets a chance to pull up another thread.  The replacement carpet won’t have a seam there, so maybe it will last another 50 years too. 

What is taking our time is pulling up the old stuff.  The carpet, itself, comes out fairly quickly.  It is the glued down foam backing that takes time to scrape off.  This reminds us of a lot of our Nomad project work: we couldn’t do this for a living, but we will volunteer our own labor.  We will continue doing a couple of square yards at a time, since the installers can’t put the replacement carpet down until mid-July.

We haven’t been “all work and no play”, however.  Last weekend, Dave, LeJoy, Valentina, Brayden, and Kaelyn spent the weekend with us.  Brayden and Kaelyn had not been to the cabin before.  They had lots of “firsts” – sauna, paddle boat, golf cart rides, fireworks, and using the outhouse (yuck!).  We all had a great time and they are coming back over the Fourth weekend.

 

For the past 2+ weeks, we’ve been dog sitting Stella, Brett’s family dog.  Brett and family are enjoying a trip to Italy for 3 weeks.  Stella has adjusted well – enjoying her daily tennis ball retrieving in the lake, the 2 mile walk around the loop, and golf cart rides.  Brett’s family returns on 7/30 and the girls want to come up over the Fourth also so we’ll have Stella here for another week plus a couple days.

 

The weather is finally warming up and we’re enjoying the outdoors.  So it’s a good combination of work and fun now. 

 

Oh, Deer!

It has finally happened: Thursday we were attacked by Bambi.  She tried to imitate a linebacker and run us off the road, but she failed.  We stayed on the road and she bounced off the driver’s side.

We lost a mirror, the front fender was pushed in, and both doors are rippled.  Neither of us was injured, but we can’t say the same for the deer. The situation is just one more little “opportunity”.

Other than that incident, we have been busy dog-sitting.  Brett and Jen took the girls on vacation and left Stella, their 3 year old chocolate lab, with us for awhile.  We have had her swimming in the lake and going for walks around the cabin circle.  When Brett was up here last Saturday, he brought his chainsaw to take down a dead tree by our garage.  It went very smoothly and we now have more room to get in and out of the garage.

We have also stayed busy with our remodeling.  The old paneling had been glued to the drywall so both came down and were hauled to the landfill.  We have just finished hanging the new drywall, along with taping and mudding (our own little Nomad project).

The paint was bought earlier today so we will have something to do this weekend – final photos later.

The weather has finally gotten sunny and warm.  We’re sure enjoying that!  On Wednesday, Paige’s mom came up for the day and our friends, the Buerkle’s, took us for a long ride on their pontoon.  It was so relaxing and Joyce really enjoyed seeing other parts of the lake.

Back and Forth

We have been up at the cabin, down to the Twin Cities, and back again to the cabin, all in the last two weeks.  We’ve enjoyed spending time with the granddaughters, family, and friends!

Paige had some dental work done and we had the truck serviced in Duluth before Memorial Day.  Brett and his daughters brought Stella, their Chocolate Lab, up to the cabin for the long weekend.  It was her first visit here and she really enjoyed the lake.  That’s a good thing since we will be caring for her up here while Brett and Jen and girls are vacationing later this month. 

Our summer improvement project has begun, and has already grown.  We had planned to replace the carpeting that has been unraveling for a couple of years.  We have picked the replacement, but the installers are so busy that it will be over a month before we have it.  In the meantime, we started to remove some paneling from an interior wall and found that it had been both nailed and glued to the drywall.  Removing the paneling now means removing the drywall too.

       

This gives us a chance to change some lighting and move some switches before installing the new drywall.  We hope to have all that done before the new carpet comes. 

Last weekend we brought Paige’s mom down to the Twin Cities for a graduation party, and a get-together with Ty and his family.  It was a great time and we got to see lots of family that we hadn’t seen in a long time. 

 

Thursday we take the motorhome into Duluth for some work on one of the slides.  Soon after leaving the Winnebago factory in Forest City, Iowa, we developed a nasty noise when bringing the slide in.  Bummer!  Hopefully the fix won’t take much time.

Otherwise, we’ll be working on our projects at the cabin for a few weeks.  Looking forward to Dave, LeJoy and kids coming up later in June.

Catching up

After nearly 2 weeks of busy-ness, the time has come to catch up with this blog.

 

When we last posted here, we had been setting up at Dakota County’s Lebanon Hills campground.  We had a busy 4 days there, complete with 3 granddaughters staying with us for a couple of nights, as well as both of our sons camping nearby.  David brought his trailer and Brett and Jen stayed in their tent.  It was like a mini family reunion campout.  David also brought LaJoy and her 2 kids and a great time was had by all.  We learned that a 40 foot motorhome is large enough to feed 11 for breakfast.

As the weekend wound down, we moved to the street in front of Brett’s house for a series of grandparent activities: one soccer practice and one choral concert.  Mid-week we moved the motorhome to the cabin where, thankfully, we had an uneventful setup – unlike last year!  During a short 3-day stay there, we got the cabin opened up, the sauna stove painted, and the pine needles raked up.

 

The winter was milder this past year (compared to the year before) with less snow.  As a result, the water level has been low, but is now rising due to spring rains.

 

We also got to Duluth for a belated Mother’s Day lunch with Joyce and completed a few things on her “to do” list.  Then we returned to Elk River for more grandparent duties: a 3-game hockey tournament and a belated birthday party for Anna.  Yet to come during the next few days are another birthday dinner (Pam), another music concert (Sophia), a soccer game (Olivia) and a few medical appointments (us). 

By mid-week we will get back to the cabin just in time for the long Memorial Day weekend.

We sure have been busy with a lot of coming and going.

Back in Minnesota

After a 2-day drive from Conway AR to Forest City IA, plus a quick trip to Minneapolis and back the next day (almost 1,000 miles in 3 days), we had plenty of time to rest up at the Winnebago factory.  The quick trip to Minneapolis was to support Sophia at the state competition of History Days for middle and high schools from all over the state.  We picked up Valentina so we got to see all the granddaughters.

 

The Winnebago factory service group handled a couple of minor warranty issues to our satisfaction on Monday and took care of another new issue on Tuesday.  We had a pleasant time at “Camp Winnebago” meeting new friends and reconnecting with old ones.  After a late sleep-in on Wednesday, we waited for the morning fog to lift, then had a short day to Lebanon Hills Campground, a Dakota County park, in Apple Valley MN. 

 

We plan to be here for the rest of the week and into the weekend, with guests.  Brett will be bringing his girls here for a couple of days, and David will join us for Saturday with his trailer.  We plan to help him restring a day/night shade.

 

Back to the NorthCountry

While our week at Conway Arkansas was brief (only 3 working days), it was also quite physical.  As we mentioned in the prior post, a tornado came through here last year and did a lot of damage.  The county disaster program, working with Habitat for Humanity and many volunteer organizations will be working here for a long time.  We’ve learned that some volunteers know what they are doing and some others should have stayed home.   

Half of our crew spent most of this week removing and replacing drywall joint compound (mud) that was very poorly applied at one house.  Here is Paige, after doing some re-work:

 

The rest of our crew installed drywall at a new house nearby:

  

While working there, we met the future resident and her family one day, and we were interviewed by one of the local TV stations on another day.  Here is a picture of the TV screen.  Danny is holding a sheet of drywall with Bob (whom you can’t see) at the other end:

 

Since our granddaughter, Sophia, is competing in the State finals of a history competition, we got permission to leave a day early.  We joked that we did 4-days worth of work in the three days we were there.  This is our last Nomads project until the Fall.  We’re looking forward to life at the cabin for the summer and our own little “Nomads” projects up there.

Thursday had us driving through scenic northern Arkansas (through Harrison) and into Missouri (through Branson and Springfield) stopping for the night in Kansas City.  Friday’s drive was not quite as far, to Winnebago’s plant in Forest City Iowa.  We have an appointment for a little warranty work to be done next week.  Saturday we will be with all the granddaughters at the University of Minnesota for Sophia’s presentation. - - - -    

              Lots of driving in only 3 days, but worth it to see those girls!!

 

Ready to Get Back to Work

Our week of recuperation is nearly over.  We did lots of errands, repaired the TV antenna, had lunch with Nomad friends who are workcamping at a nearby Corps of Engineer campground and had them over to our campground for a short visit and met other Nomads who were also camped at Toad Suck.  Plus our rig got a well needed bath.

 

After cleaning everything, we spent Friday listening to the rain on the roof all day.

 

Today we left our quiet Corps of Engineers campsite at Toad Suck and traveled a grand total of 12 miles to a church parking lot on the east side of Conway AR.  One year ago this weekend a tornado, rated EF4, came through here and produced lots of devastation.  Not only Nomads, but many other volunteer groups as well, have been here helping to rebuild homes and lives.

Disaster Recovery projects are handled differently from traditional Nomad projects.  These can be long term, with team members signing up for any number of weeks at a time (not the usual 3 weeks only).  Each week some members might leave, to be replaced by others.  They have room here for 6 rigs to park.  Three have stayed over from last week, and 3 replacement rigs just came in today.  When doing laundry yesterday we met a couple who had been here, but were about to leave.  We have committed to just one week (4 working days) but we will have to leave a day early, next Thursday, so that we can attend Sophie’s history competition at U of Minn.

We will have an official introductory meeting tomorrow evening, but unofficially we have learned that some of us will be doing drywall work, while others will be finishing some plumbing items at another house.