o/`o/` The Long and Winding Road o/`o/` OR Adventures near Saguenay

As you may remember from our last post, Irene and I took Friday "off" trying to just stay home and relax.  So, having done that, Saturday was a time to get out and take a look around.  The first video below tries to show you where our route took us:

No matter where we go in the Trekker we know one fact for certain,  there is beauty and awesomeness in what is in THAT location and nowhere else in the world.  The area of Quebec province around the Saguenay River is in the midst of the Laurentian (or Laurentide) Mountains which are (essentially) the Southernmost portion of the Appalachian Mountains IN Canada (they continue up through Newfoundland).  The Appalachian mountains are made up of many different sections:  The Smokey or Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and Virginia;  The Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia and Pennsylvania.  The Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania; the Catskills and Adirondack Mountains of New York; the Green Mountains of Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  Well, the section in Quebec Province of Canada are referred to as the Laurentian (Laurentide) Mountains.

Here is a video of a lovely small lake we saw Saturday.  The video doesn't do justice to the actual view (and never can).

Much to our surprise we saw a covered bridge on our trek.  It was just off the road as it now is laid out.  One wonders though if at one point this wasn't the route of the original road.  The video below is our driving across the bridge.

On the north shore of the Saguenay River where it empties into the Saint Lawrence (Saint Laurent - French) is the tiny town of Tadoussac.  It is largely a tourist based economy in town.  Where the Saguenay River empties into the Saint Lawrence is a favored breeding ground for beluga whales (NO, we didn't see any).  So, tourists in the area stream to this small town.

Irene and I stopped for lunch there.  The picture below shows the name of the restaurant we ate at.

Since we are in Quebec, E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G is in French.  In the the rest of Canada, virtually every sign is in both English and French because they are both official languages in Canada.  However, in Quebec Province very little is in English and it seems to be purposeful.  Here's the menu we had to order from:

In every country I've ever done mission work in the adults can barely speak English in.  It is the younger generation that has watched TV with the show in subtitled in the native language and listened to American Music in English and desired to learn English.  That's what has been the case in Malta, Romania, Albania, Mexico, South Africa and Namibia.  Here in Quebec Province though that is NOT the case.  Even the young don't know English.  When you want to order a coffee at the local Tim Horton's, you'd better be able to muddle your way through in French.  MAYBE the barista will be able to find another of the staff that knows enough English to help you.  At Tadoussac it was the same way.  Our initial waitress realized we weren't "parlaying" "en Francais" so she disappeared and soon another waitress, Lydia, came to serve us.  She is a college student majoring in Business Administration hoping to one day have her own tourist oriented business in Tadoussac (it is her hometown).  She was kind enough to take our picture:

 As I metioned, Tadoussac is on the north bank of the Saguenay River.  Just 1/2 mile across the mouth of the river is its southern bank, BUT, how to get here?  There isn't a bridge.  AHHH, a Ferry!  Yep, they have a ferry.  A FREE Ferry.  I've never been on or heard of a Ferry that you didn't have to pay to ride, but this one is.  Here's a (poor) video showing part of our ride:

And another of the end of the passage:

As we came back into Saguenay we had dinner at the Aki Sushi House.  We love sushi.  This one had about 6 rooms made up like Tea Houses.  We got to sit in one of those.  Comfortable AFTER you are sitting in them but a form of Oriental torture to get to that position.  Get down on your knees on a hard wooden bench and TRY to get your legs under a table that is TOO low and TOO close to get under.  So you pretzel yourself until you "git 'er dun!"  The sushi was excellent though.  Definitely worth the torture.

Sir, If you'll not be needing me, I'll close down for awhile!

If you follow this blog regularly you know that Irene and I have had a busy year.  As I noted in another post - We have been meeting ourselves coming AND going.

We arrived here in Saguenay-Saint Ambroise on Thursday afternoon about 1:30 in the afternoon and got set up.  Then we drove to Alma to see if there was a Walmart there.  Sure enough, there was.  We also had to get the Ford Flex washed.  It gets FILTHY being towed behind the Trekker.  After checking out Alma we came back and took the Greniers to dinner.  We talked with them about what we could do in the area.  They mentioned driving over to the Saint Lawrence River where the Saguenay river empties into it - La Baie (the Bay) is the French word for it.

We woke up this morning and decided since we've been so busy being pushed to" get here" and "do this" by "that date" or by "this time" that we'd just blow it all off for one day.  So, we made it our aim for the day to not even have to leave the Trekker PERIOD for one single day.

We began the day by not getting up until about 8:30.  Then we had breakfast and a 3 game Scrabble face off.  Irene won 2 of the 3 games.  One of which was a skunk.   I'll explain our scrabble rules and scoring for you:

1.  You get 1 lookup per turn - FREE.  We've found some interesting words on some of our lookups through the years.

2.  Scoring:

1-49 Point win - You BEAT the other player

50-74 Point win - You THUMPED the other player

75-99 Point win - You put a HEAVY DUTY THUMPING on the other person

100-149 Point win - You SKUNKED the other person

150-174 Point win - You put a SKUNK and a THUMP on the other person

175-199 Point win - a HEAVY DUTY SKUNK and a THUMP on the other person

200-249 Point win - a DOUBLE SKUNK

250-274 Point win - a DOUBLE SKUNK and a THUMP

Got it?

TEST QUESTIONS:

What is a 282 point win called?

What is a 302 point win called? (This has only ever happened one time)

While we were playing Irene was also doing the laundry.  After those 3 games we had lunch.  After lunch I watched the NFL channel for a while and then at 2:00 we watched the 100th "Dirty Jobs" show with Mike Rowe.  It was a 2 hour special.  It's funny that this show was recorded in 2006 and the show hasn't been "LIVE" on the air since September of 2012, but they've left the "promos" in the programs asking you to send in suggestions for the "Dirtiest Jobs" so they can do them. 

While I was watching that I was also doing our finances with Quicken Premier 2014.  Quicken makes it all pretty easy.

After that we had another 3 game Scrabble set while we ate dinner - Pizza.   I won this 3 game set.  One of them I won by 245 points.  QUICK, use the chart above and figure out what "kind" of win this was.  At 7:00 PM "Criminal Minds" started its "Marathon" on A&E.  I don't know what "Criminal Minds" has to do with Arts OR Entertainment but I sure am glad it's on.  It probably my favorite show.  Abhorrent behavior amazes me.  I took a "Abnormal Psychology" class as a Freshman in College in 1971 at Central Washington State College and I was "HOOKED."


The answer to the 3 Scrabble scoring questions will be in the next post IF I REMEMBER!!

P.S. - Mrs. Grenier came over to the Trekker just as Criminal Minds was beginning and asked us to go for a walk - I said "NO, but Irene might go with you!"  Irene did - so SHE had to leave the Trekker today! LOL TOO BAD, SOOOO SAD. She said it was a lovely walk and came home with some Red Raspberries.

On the Banks of the Saguenay River OR "We aren't in Kansas anymore, Toto"

We left Lapeer, Michigan last Sunday morning at about 8:30 AM and crossed into Canada at the Port Huron (US)/Sarnia (Canada) border crossing.  For the first time ever the border guard came inside our RV.  He wanted to know if we had any guns.  We assured him we didn't but he wanted to look around anyway.  We got into Brampton, Ontario (ON) at about 2:30 in the afternoon.  Irene and I had church service in our RV.  We sang about 5 songs, had a couple of prayers, read John 19 and 20 and then had the Lord's Supper (communion) together.

After we were done with out assembly we called our daughter Mary and got together with her and her husband Brad and Amélie and went to the park.  Amélie is quite the wader.  She reminded me of a crane.  Here are a couple of videos showing her in the wading pool at Stanley Park behind their home:

She's also quite the hoofer.  Watch her "cut the rug in the two videos below:

After going to dinner we took it back to the Trekker for the evening.  Monday we played some Scrabble.  Irene won 2 out of 3 games.  DRAT!  Then we watched TV that had recorded from the previous week when we were in Mission with Brenda and Phoebe.  Thank the Lord for DVRs!  Then that afternoon it was back to the kids house to meet with Brad and Amélie for the evening (Mary had a prior commitment that she couldn't get out of).  For dinner Irene and I had the BEST fish and chips. Well, the best fish anyway.  It was a firm, dense Haddock filet.

We left Tuesday morning for our trek to Saguenay.  We decided to hold driving to about 4-5 hours per day, so we left at 10 and got to our next RV camp about 3 PM.  It was the West Montreal KOA.  It was a really nice park.  It has a great play area for kids.

Wednesday we got out about 10 AM again and and got to our RV Park about about 2.  It was about 10 minutes from downtown Quebec City.  It is called "Camping Transit." Now THERE'S a "catchy title" for you!  This one was a let down.  The spot was great but when I called to ask for the WiFi password the guy told me.  "I will bring it to your rig in just a few minutes" but then the NEVER showed up.  That kinda yanked my chain.

RANT ALERT! RANT ALERT!

One of the biggest problems with being in Canada is the fact that they charge INTERNATIONAL ROAMING rates.  How can this be?  I mean I KNOW its another country but we have the same phone system!  You don't have to dial 011 to place a call to Canada.  They use 1-AREA CODE-NUMBER just like we do in the US.  800/888/877/866/855 calls to/from Canada are all still TOLL-FREE.  Why is it that they have to charge international roaming rates for cell phone use?  Since that's the case AND since so often RV park WiFi systems are pretty shoddy (even in the USA) I couldn't do any blog posting the last 4 nights.  Even now my cell phone is sitting here with Cellular Data turned OFF.  Canada mooches off of the US for national defense, why can't they let us mooch off of them for WiFi.  (FYI: Do you know that 90% of Canadian citizens live within 100 mile of the US border?)

Back to our day in Quebec City.  I decided to drive through the city to check out our route to Saguenay.  It proved to be VERY easy.  It was all on "Interprovince(?)" roads.  Then I took Irene to dinner at a sidewalk cafe/restaurant in the downtown area: "Versa" was its name.  It was VERY GOOD. Pure, dumb luck I guess.  We had no ideas about where to go.  We just found a parking spot downtown and walked to something close.  When we got there it was 4 PM and NO ONE else was there.  But we sat down and gave it a shot anyway.  It was NOT a mistake.  Here's a pic of the love-birds at "Versa":

That is Irene with her French Onion soup (the best she has EVER had she said) and me with some "Seafood Chowder."  It, too, was very flavorful.

After beating her 2 out of 3 in Scrabble and watching "Brooklyn Taxi" last night we retired for the evening to get on the road at 10 AM this morning to drive up to Saguenay Sainte Ambroise.  We were here by 2:30 PM after a very lovely and pleasant drive through the Canadian Laurentides (The extension of the Appalachian Mountains into Canada).

The first thing we did was "pop the top" on the Trekker (get the electric, water and sewer hooked up and open up the slides).  The we drove to Alma (about 16 miles away) to get our car washed and find the closest Walmart.  After that we invited the Greniers (Jean and Ana) to dinner with us.  Having gotten back I'm just finishing putting the blog posting to bed at 11 PM.

I know, I know, It's been a while OR We be busy people, folk, it aint like we are slumming here, ya know!

Wow, it's been a while since the last post and (as is our wont) we've been here, there and everywhere since it was written.

First off - SPENCER, WV Sojourn

The sojourn went as well as God wanted it to.  We had 9 kids and 15 adults over the 5 days.  The Gralls and the Wootens did yeoman's work and we can't thank them enough for all they did and how easy they made being the "Team Leader" on the sojourn.  Thanks.  Here's a picture of the crew.

OUR MISSION (TX) TRIP

Following the sojourn we drove in a single day back to Frankfort, IN to park the rig to head for Mission, TX.  We met with the church there on Sunday AM and I preached the sermon.  Then we drove to Indy to get our 4:40 PM flight out.  Unfortunately it was delayed for 2 HOURS which caused us to miss our Flight from Dallas to McAllen so they had to schedule us on the last flight of the night. SO, instead of getting in at a reasonable 8:15 PM, we got in at 11 PM.  Brenda and Phoebe were driving down from Midland, TX to spend the time with us so that became a little tough for the 4 1/2 year old to deal with.  

This was our second inspection of the house that we are having built for us at Retama Village.  Monday morning we selected the plants for our gardens and our 2 trees.  One is a "Live Oak" tree.  

I've got 2 sets of pictures below.  The FIRST set we took on the Monday and shows the house all drywalled and trimmed out - ready to paint.  They are videos:

The second group is a series of pictures taken by Brenda just before they left to visit her family over in Brownsville, TX.  It's just 4 days later and the painters and stuccoers are attacking the house having almost all the stucco done (the 3rd and 4th coats) and inside the ceiling and trim were all painted:

LUCY, you got some Splainin' to do:

Thursday night Steve, Kazumi and I went to see LUCY with Scarlett Johannsen and Morgan Freeman in it.  It was 2001:A Space Odyssey and a Jackie Chan movie put into a Waring blender and put on purée.  Some of the allusions to 2001 were so blatant that if Adam Clarke weren't dead I'd counsel him to sue for Copyright Infringement.  Grandma Irene and Neo stayed at the Chino's house and watched "FROZEN."  Neo can do a command performance of "Let It Go" from start to finish.  It was pretty amazing.  Irene said it was a a really good movie. NO IT WASN'T! It's a cartoon.  I don't do animated films.  I'm not "moved" by them (other than the urge to puke).  Even when I was a kid I thought that Bambi, Cinderella and Snow White were idiotic.  I just don't think in "Cartoon", I guess.

EYE, EYE Sir

Friday I had an eye appointment.  For the second appointment in a row my eye did NOT need a shot (queue Handel's "Messiah" here). Then Friday afternoon we drove up to Shults-Lewis Children's home to give ourselves a "head-start" on our trip to Saguenay, Quebec.

SATURDAY NIGHT'S ALL RIGHT FOR FIGHTIN'

Just a quote from a Elton John song.  We left Shults-Lewis at about 1:30 today and drove to Lapeer, Michigan which is about 50 miles from the Canadian border.  Tomorrow we will drive to Toronto to spend 2 days with our daughter, Mary; her husband, Brad and our granddaughter Amélie.  Then it's on to Saguenay for our first of 2 back to back physical sojourns.

"It just rattles around a bit"

In the movie Patton, General Omar Bradley (played my Karl Malden) is explaining to General Patton (played by George C. Scott in academy awarding winning fashion) how the American tanks (which ran on gasoline) would explode when hit by a shell, bullet, shrapnel, etc. but the German tanks (which were powered by diesel fuel) would just keep going though "you can hear the shell (that hit them - JRG) rattling around inside them."  I'm convinced that is what happens to the WiFi signal at so many of the locations we have Sojourns - "It just rattles around" - around the hills here in Spencer.  We get anywhere from NO SERVICE to 2 bars and 4G (even USING our Signal Booster) at the church building.  So, you have to wait for web pages to load in small bursts with varying amounts of time just sitting there mocking you.

We are here on our 2nd "Becoming Servants" VBS.  For the last 4 days we have been door-knocking in town and inviting people to attend.  There are 2 other Sojourner couples here with us - Dave and Charlotte Grall from California and Elger (Al) and Glenda Wooten from Alabama originally but trying to buy a home in Parkersburg, WV.  Al has plantar fasciitis so he isn't able to do any door-knocking so they just arrived on Tuesday and we are VERY happy to have them.

The Gralls are wonderful - real troupers.  We couldn't ask for better partners in this Sojourn.

We've had 3 teams of 2 people put out 634 invitations in town and speak to LOTS of residents at the house about coming in pretty physically demanding geography.  In case you haven't heard - West Virginia is H-I-L-L-Y!!  So getting to many of the doors on the houses demands walking up a flight of (usually) steep stairs OR a long inclined driveway.

Tomorrow is our "day off."  We are supposed to get Friday and Saturdays off - yea! right! fat chance!  The VBS begins Saturday - so that day isn't going to happen AND tomorrow (Friday) many of the teachers will be working on getting their class materials and classrooms ready.  Here's the teaching line-up:

Pre-School - Irene

1 & 2 Grade - Allison Miller (a local member that a is a teacher)

3 & 4 Grade - Charlotte Grall

5 & 6 Grade - Glenda Wooten

Teens - Dave Grall

Adults - Jim Gordon

The VBS goes on from 6:30-8:30 each evening from Saturday 12th - Wednesday 16th.

The church here is very small.  It only has about 20 members.  They've helped as much as they could and we really appreciate it.  Marvin Miller and Harold Richards have been out door-knocking every day with us and Allison have been printing our materials and helping us bag the stuff.

Because the WiFi here is so poor, this is going to be a text-only blog posting.

God bless you all and have a great day.

The Things You Can Learn in Medical School OR More construction pictures of the completed Closed Cell Wall Insulation

We are in Durham, NC visiting our son, Junzo; his wife, Emma and their children Maeda and Rowan.  One of the things that we did today was watch Junzo put on a "bubble blowing" exhibition.  It was pretty amazing.  Here's a video:

If you read to the bottom of the post the "Recipe" for the bubble soap is there. 

 It contains a special ingredient.

These first four pictures below show the progress made on the "brown coat" - the second of the four coats applied when stuccoing a house

Here are the posts on the west side of the "RV Port"

This is the wall at the back of the port area.  The door is into the storage shed.

This is the entry arch with its brown coat applied

This is the eastern wall with the glass cube windows for the living room and kitchen.  

The one window has all but one block installed.

The pictures below show the foam adhering to the rafters.  It's thick enough that you can not see them:

This picture is of the Living Room Rafters (the JOISTS are the wood 2x6s that you can still see)

This shows the walls meeting the ceiling in the Master Bedroom

This is a picture of the Master Bathroom over the Toilet

This is a picture of the ceiling in the master bathroom shower

The pictures below show the walls after they are foamed.  They use a special knife that reaches across 2 studs and cuts off the foam that is sticking out past the studs:

This is the corner of the front (guest) bedroom with the foam in the walls.

This shows the wall that runs from the computer desk (which will be below the window on the right and the Laundry Room.  The Pocket door framing has also been installed.  At the lower left of the picture you can see the dryer vent hole.

This is the Kitchen wall foamed and ready to drywall.  Notice the 

Glass Blocks have also been installed.

Here is a shot of the Living Room wall from the inside with the foam applied.  Again, notice that the one "Glass Block Window" has all but 1 glass block installed.  The other "Glass Block Window" is still awaiting its blocks.

This is the wall in the Guest Bedroom.  Since it is a "Bay Window" the top of it is

 framed in like a wall because it will have drywall attached to it also.

This picture is of the master bedroom wall all "foamed and ready" for drywall.

The Bubble Soap Recipe:

12 parts of water

2 parts of Dawn Detergent

1/2 part of Surgical Lubricant

The two sticks are just from off of the ground.

The string between them has a weight at the bottom heavy enough  to pull the string together when it is put into the water.

The Surgical Lubricant is the key.  It increases the Surface Tension of the soap so the bubbles don't pop easily and get VERY large.

Our Best Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash Impersonation OR "o/`o/` We've been everywhere man, We've been everywhere man, We've been everywhere man, We've been everywhere man, We've been everywhere man, ....o/`o/`"

Just a quickie post to keep all you "trekking junkies" satisfied.

Don't like Johnny Cash?  How about Ricky Nelson "o/`o/` I'm a travelin' man... o/1"

Thursday we were in Indianapolis, IN on our Sojourn at the Franklin Road Church of Christ.  We drove the Trekker to Frankfort, IN to park it at the Memorial Parkway Church of Christ and immediately drove back to Indianapolis Airport to get on a plane (2 actually) to fly to Mission, TX to look at the house we are having built at Bentsen Palm Retama Village.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights we were in Mission, TX.

Monday we flew back to Indiana and stayed in the Trekker Monday night at the Memorial Parkway Church of Christ in Frankfort, IN.

Tuesday I had an eye appointment in Lafayette, IN in the morning YIPPEE! NO SHOT REQUIRED.

Wednesday we drove the Trekker to Centerville, OH to spend the afternoon and evening with Larry and Jan Long (the couple that taught me the gospel while we were stationed at Minot, ND in 1974-75).  We stayed in the parking lot of the Centerville Church of Christ for the night

Thursday we got up and drove the Trekker to Spencer, WV where we begin our next sojourn this coming monday (July 7th).  It's going to be another VBS.

When dropped our rig off there and got it leveled up and then drove  the car to Durham, NC to spend the 4th of July with our grandchildren Maeda and Rowan and their mom and dad (Emma and Junzo) and our daughter Fumiko.  Junzo is on the staff of Duke Medical Center.  He is the head of their Gynocological Radiation Oncology section.  Fumiko is just beginning her "Internship" at the Medical center having graduated from Duke Medical School in May.

We will drive back to Spencer, WV Saturday Afternoon.