And in this corner measuring in at ...... OR What's 3 or 4 more modifications gonna hurt

After we finished the workshop at Camp Bee, we headed to Red Bay, Alibam.  It's time to get our yearly repair list taken care of.  Here's the list for this trip:

Red bay trekker issues:

1. Driver's side BR slide - bearing on bottom rear has fallen out.

2. Front Carefree awning still not retracting completely 

3. Front drivers side electronics bay still gets wet during rain

4. Rear upper drivers side turn signal comes loose 

5. Rear driver's side ride height leveler needs adjusted to within specs - the unit is out of tolerance and so it beeps incessantly.

6. Dining Room chair broke again

7. Body work near engine exhaust pipe.  A piece of tire retread bounced up and hit it.

8. Panel next to refrigerator 

9. Dead Bolt on Entry Door.  Siezed up and broke.

10. Toilet not holding water.  

11. Rear PASSENGER slide - corroded contacts.  This causes the slide to go out crooked (NOT a good thing), so we can't use it.

12. Service AquaHot

We arrived here on October 29th.  They just called us Friday, November 13th to tell us they can get us into the bays to begin repairs this coming Monday (November 16th).

Now you might think that waiting around is a bad thing, but that itsn't so.  We've taken the opportunity to get 3 more modifications made to our rig to provide us additional interior storage.  You may remember that when we first purchased the trekker we had 4 or 5 modifications made to improve usability and increase our interior storage.  Here's the link for you to "go back in History" and relive it: RV makeover part un.

So, without further ado, here are the 3 modifications we've had done this trip:

Our Master Bedroom TV Hide-A-Bureau

The Over The Closet Bureau Hutch

The Back Closet "Hide-Away Shelving Area"

Lord willing, they will get the work on the rig done by the first week of December.  

Over the long thanksgiving weekend we are going to drive our car down to Steve and Kazumi and Neo's new home in Santa Rosa Beach in the panhandle of Florida.  Its about 5-6 hours from Red Bay, Alabama to down there.

Also, on December 5th, I will be holding a seminar on the Book of Revelation and Daniel, chapter 2-9.  That will be an "all-day sucker."  We are beginning @ 8:30 AM and going till 4:30 PM and taking an hour off for lunch.  It will be at the Saucer Creek Church of Christ over in Dennis, Mississippi about 17 miles from Red Bay.  That should be a hoot.  I've got notes I'll give to everyone that attends (right about at 100 pages) - 78 pages on Revelation and the balance on Daniel.  They are the class notes I used to hand out when I taught Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation at the Cape School of Preaching in Cape Town, South Africa.

If they get done our rig repairs by the 3rd of December, after the class is taught we will head home to Mission, TX.  We HOPE to be able to attend the Sojourner get-together that the Blair hold in Pearland, TX (just south of Houston) on the way there.  

Ready, Set, Go Man Go! OR Videos of a full Camp Bee

No doubt our beloved minions have seized the opportunity since being edumacated regarding needing to have the correct CODEC to watch our uploaded videos to have downloaded the necessary files.  So, today we are going to reward your obedience by posting the video we took of Camp Bee filled to the brim and overrunning with Sojourners.  So, without further ado, here is your longed for Audio-Visual feast:

Camp Bee Full #1

Camp Bee Full #2

Camp Bee Full #3

Camp Bee Full #4

Camp Bee Full #5

Camp Bee Full #6

o/` o/` "North, to Alaska Goin' North the Rush is On" o/`o/` OR our 2016 Sojourning Schedule

When last we posted it was the videos of an virtually empty Camp Bee.

ALERT! ALERT!

We understand that some of our blog followers could not view the videos as they were posted.  Well, how can I put this kindly .... Ummm, UPDATE YOUR COMPUTERS?!?!  The videos that we post here are always in .MOV formats.  This is a standard video CODEC.  Codec is "COder DECoder shoved together into "CODEC".  A Codec is "a device or program that compresses data to enable faster transmission and decompresses received data."

When you make a video the device you are doing it on doesn't care how much space it takes up.  It just keeps recording.  If it is an apple iPad (like we used for the video) it uses M4V Codec.  However the video was 502 Megabytes long and the LONGEST video allowed on this blog by google is 100 Megabytes, so it had to be broken into 6 chunks.  Also, because Google and Apple are competitors M4V (an Apple CODEC) is NOT uploadable to this blog.  This is because Google hates Apple and Apple hates Google and GOD FORBID that for the sake of their common customers they should get along and support one another's software and hardware.  So, we have to run the videos through a video converter to post it onto this site.  We chose the MOV codec because its a very common one.  So, if your WINDOWS computer could NOT view the videos on the last blog posting go onto the internet (OH, wait you ARE on the internet) -- go onto the internet on your windows computer and perform a search for:

"Windows MOV codec software"

a myriad of programs will come up (some free) that will allow you to install a MOV Coder-Decoder ("Codec") onto your windows computer.

Back to our posting.

Anyway, the NEXT blog post will be the videos of a virtually full Camp Bee.  This blog posting will be about our Sojourn Schedule for 2016.

We decided that next year we would seize the opportunity to make our RV "pilgrimage" to Alaska.  For most people that RV full-time and many part-timers too, making a trip to Alaska is on the proverbial "bucket list."  We ain't gettin' no younger, so we decided we'd better make the trip while we could still drive well. From our home in Mission, TX to the sojourn we will team lead in Homer, Alaska ("the end of the road") is 4571 miles.  If it were only that simple!

So, here's our Sojourn Schedule for 2016:

February 18th - March 3rd, 2016 - Port Lavaca, Texas

March 17th - March 31st - Downey, California

April 1st - April 14th - Yosemite Bible Camp, Oakhurst, California

June 2nd - June 16th - Homer, Alaska

July 21st - August 13th - Rupert, Idaho

October 10th - 20th - Camp Bee Workshop

Once we leave Mission to head to Port Lavaca we won't be back in Mission until August.  Thank goodness we have great neighbors, a rock solid security system and live in a gated community!  We will travel 10,286 miles DIRECTLY from one location to another, but that doesn't even begin to add in the side trips we plan to be taking:

Yosemite National Park
Death Valley
Joshua Tree National Monument
The Redwood Forest of Northwest California
Crater Lake, Oregon
Olympic Peninsula in Washington State
Mount St. Helen's
Denali National Park
Fairbanks, AK
Yellowstone National Park

and who knows how many other interesting side trips along the way.

So, I expect we will put 13-15 K miles on our rig next year and who knows how many extra on our car.

A Tour of Sojourner Headquarters --- Camp Bee

We've mentioned Camp Bee, the headquarters for Sojourners in numerous posts since we began this blog.  We thought we would take you on a video tour.  Just click on the videos below to watch them.

Camp Bee Video 1

Camp Bee Video 2

Camp Bee Video 3

Camp Bee Video 4

Camp Bee Video 5

Camp Bee Video 6

We hope you enjoy the tour.

The Workshop is from October 12-22 this year.  We have a listening lab on the 7th and 8th of October and then an Instructors Course for the listening lab on the 23rd and 24th of October.  Following that we will head to Red Bay and Tiffin Motorhomes to have some warranty work, some repair work and some additional storage cabinetry installed in the Trekker.

Finally Some Down time OR What should I do next?

We finished the Sojourn in Saguenay on the 14th of August and drove down to Toronto to see our granddaughter, Amélie and her parents, Mary and Brad.  We got there on Sunday afternoon, the 16th and stayed until Saturday, the 22nd. 

The night of the 21st Amélie spent the night in the Trekker with us.  She is the 2nd of our grandchildren to do that.  Neo being the other.  Phoebe hasn't had the nerve to yet.  Maeda and Rowan have an in-house bedtime routine that precludes their being able to to date and Bela is just too young yet.

We arrived at Shults-Lewis Children's Home in Valparaiso, Indiana in time on Sunday morning (Aug 23rd) to attend services at the church that meets in the school's gymnasium - the Hilltop church of Christ.  So, we are here two weeks early.  The sojourn here doesn't begin until September 8th.

So, what do you do when you've got nothing on the schedule for 2 weeks and you own an RV:  

Well, Irene seizes the opportunity to make cards for grandkids and the children here @ Shults-Lewis and thank you cards for the church in Saguenay.  She also does a lot of beading.  They have Annual Day here (a once-per-year large Fund-raising event) on the 2nd Saturday after Labor Day.  Irene has a booth there where she sells jewelry she has made.

I decided it was time to clean out the Trekker's "basement."  As you know we travel a LOT in the Trekker.  We put about 13,000 miles per year on our rig.  That's a lot of set up camp; live there from 1-10 days; break down camp and move to our next destinations.  So we are constantly getting stuff out of the storage area underneath of the Trekker (the "basement"); using it and having to put them back when it's time to go:  Tools; Bead Crates; Compressor; VBS material; porch mat, macerator equipment, etc, etc.  It would be nice (in this instance) if I was OCD enough to have "a place for everything and everything in its place" but, HEH, I'm 62 and this old dog ain't learning no new tricks!  So, when we leave somewhere I just open a basement door; see if there's enough room to shove whatever I've got in my hand into that space and if so, SHOVE and CLOSE the door.  If not, move on to the next basement door and repeat the process.

So, this past Sunday I totally emptied the basement and vacuumed out the whole area.  Then I went through all that was under there and tossed the trash that has built up; Combined 3 or 4  one half full boxes and got all my tools sorted and placed back in there original satchels and boxes.  Then I labeled all of the storage boxes and put everything back into the basement in a wonderfully ordered manner.  Now the 2 pass-through trays in the basement work as they should - they can pull out from either side and I won't have to stoop or get down on my knees, unload a bunch of stuff that's in the way to HOPEFULLY find what I want and get it out.  The way it should work now is: "My tools are all in this one slide tray."  "All the macerator equipment is in this one mini-bay."  "All the electrical and water hoses are in this tray."  

Well, we'll see how long THIS lasts!

Duck! Duck! Alouette! OR Our Second Visit to Quebec

If you are the slavishly devoted follower of this blog that you SHOULD be, then you remember that one of our sojourns last year was in Saguenay, Quebec.  We returned this year to continue to help Jean and Anne Grenier and the church there to complete work on the old barn ---> diesel mechanic's shop ---> Saguenay Church of Christ building conversion project.

Irene had really wanted to return to spend some time edifying Anne.  This would include L-O-T-S of beading.  Anne loved it when she and Irene did it last year, so a "deja vue experience" (how about that - a little French Lingo in the midst of this French Quebec sojourn report) was in order.  So, last October we signed up to head the sojourn once again.

It ended up that Irene and I were the ONLY sojourners that signed up for the sojourn.  Theoretically, we could have "called it off" for "lack of workers", but we felt that Jean and Anne really needed the emotional support of knowing we wanted to come to visit them again.  Obviously, with the lack of workers, we knew that a great deal couldn't be accomplished work-wise on the sojourn.  So we made it our aim to be more "supportive" of the Greniers and the church.

When we arrived we were happily surprised to see how much had been accomplished in the last year and how close they were to being completed.  Praise the Lord!  Jean's brother, Yves (pronounce EVE), is a private general contractor and he had spent a great deal of time there over the last year.  They had also had a large group (over 20) that had come from one of the churches that supports Jean to help for about 2 weeks earlier in the summer.  Another group had also come up to help from another church.  

So, we will be the FINAL group of sojourners that goes to help the Church of Christ in Saguenay, Quebec transform and old barn into a wonderful meeting place for the church to gather and worship the Lord as they edify, exhort, teach and admonish each other in songs, hymns and spiritual songs; pray together; gather together to remember the sacrifice of Jesus by partaking of the Lord's Supper; Receive an exhortation through the preaching of the word and Gather an offering to reach out into the world with the saving gospel of Christ.  This realization is a little bittersweet.  Kind of like knowing you are raising your children to not need you anymore.  At the time you long for the day that it occurs -- but you loath it when it is upon you.

For the record - Irene did a great deal of paint scraping and wood staining on the sojourn.  For some reason some of the paint that had been applied by the ladies last year (Sue Hughes, Lineta Grimes and Irene) didn't adhere as advertised.  So this year on about 8 panels, Irene had to scrap off the paint to prepare it for repainting.  Also, on the front of building she stained many of the wood planks to give them more "pop" - so they all didn't look exactly alike.  

Since both of her tasks were outdoors, they were weather dependent.  Unfortunately (or REALLY, REALLY fortunately if you want to do a bunch of beading, too), it was very rainy during the sojourn.  In the 10 days of the sojourn we only had 2 or 3 days were it didn't rain at least sometime during the day (often in the afternoon and into the night).  So, Irene and Anne had a lot of beading time on their hands which they were MORE than willing to fill.  Also, one of the other sister's in the congregation Corinne came over and beaded two days also.  Heck, even her two sons - Raphael and Matthew - got into the act and really enjoyed it.  Yves 11 year old daughter Lilyrose was with him also, so she got to learn to bead.

And what was poor, little old Jim (sniff, sniff) doing while Irene was knee deep in beads?  Well, my part of the work wasn't weather dependent!  In fact, they had tasks to do if it was nice outside (get the windows installed in Jean's office area and install the steel on the back of the building) and tasks to accomplish if it was raining outside (frame out the windows inside and insulate and frame out the area around the door that had been installed to the outside from Jean's office).

On the spiritual side of things the MOST significant thing that occurred on the sojourn was Irene teaching a class for the children (Raphael, Matthew and Lilyrose) the Sunday during the sojourn. Anne and Jean Phillipe (Jean and Anne's 17 year old son) translated and helped teach the class also.  She taught the VBS lesson on John the Baptist and his baptism of Jesus.  She also has left the other 4 VBS lessons and crafts (Ruth, Mary, Paul and Silas in Philippi and Jesus) there for them to continue to teach the kids.  For my part, I preached the Sunday during the Sojourn - The Christian and the Word of God Powerpoint presentation that I've made, which I had "translated" into French.  To translate it I used the French Geneva Bible from my Accordance software on my computer for the verses and Google's English to French translator on the internet for the questions.  Then I had Jean Phillipe make the necessary corrections to the Google Translator.  As I preached that Sunday, Jean translated into French.

We also had the blessing of visiting in the home of Daniel and Corinne and their sons the Sunday afternoon of the sojourn.  It was a lovely visit.

We have now bid "au revoir" to Saguenay and Quebec, if it is for the final time since they will not need another sojourn to help finish the building, only God knows, but for now I am putting my non-existent French dictionary and phrase book back on the shelf.

To Designate or NOT to Designate? This is the Question OR o/` o/` It's One, Two, Three Strikes You're OUT o/` o/`

Irene and I have been married for 35 years next month, on September 6th (and NO, I didn't have to ask Irene to make sure).  

During our marriage, we have been to many baseball parks: The Big "A" - Angel Stadium in Anaheim - The California Angels; Chavez Ravine (LA Dodger Stadium); Jack Murphy Stadium (San Diego Padres); The Kingdome (Seattle Mariners - no longer standing); Chicago's Wrigley Field (Cubs) & Comiskey Park (the original park - Chicago White Sox ); The Houston Astrodome (Houston Astros); Riverfront Stadium (Cincinnati Reds);  Separately, I have gone to the NEW Comiskey Stadium (also the Chicago White Sox); Oakland Coliseum And Connie Mack Stadium (Philadelphia Phillies in the 50s).  Irene has gone to Crosley Stadium (in the 50s - Cincinnati Reds).

So, while we were in New York for the Middletown Church of Christ Sojourn I took the opportunity to go to both the New Yankee Stadium (with Martin Buchanan one of the other sojourners) and to Citi Field (Shea Stadium - Home of the New York Mets) with Irene.

Oh, we also went to Cleveland's Municipal Stadium were the Indians played, but it was to see the Cleveland Browns play a football game.

So, here are some pictures of the New Yankees Stadium:

Above is the view from our seats

I love Cracker Jack (the more peanuts at the bottom, the better), but even though the song says "Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack" - you'd be amazed to know how many Major League Stadiums no longer sell Cracker Jack!  That oughta be illegal.  Yankee Stadium had the biggest bag of Cracker Jack I've ever seen.

Above is the view from the right field seats and...

Above is the view from the left field seats.

The Yankees won the game over the Seattle Mariners 4-3.  It was a home run fest.  I'm not a Yankee fan, so I was bummed enough, but the "coup-de-grace" is that the margin of victory was a home run by Aurelio "Juice" Rodriguez - A-Rod.  He was suspended by Major League Baseball for using Anabolic Steroids.  In other words, he's a cheater.

The game at Citi Field - Shea Stadium was more to my liking.  The Mets were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers and I have been a Dodgers fan since I was 9 years old.  I used to almost worship Sandy Koufax.  He was left handed and the person that made me realize that my being left handed was good, preferential even.  The Dodgers beat the Mets like a rug. 1 run in the 1st; 2 runs in the 2nd; 3 runs in the 3rd.  I was hoping it would continue. 45 runs would have been nice.  The final score was 7-2.  Here's the picture of the stadium from our seats below:

Just a note:

Citi Field is right next to La Guardia Airport.  During the single 9 inning game we must have seen over 200 airplanes fly low over the stadium immediately after takeoff.

You'll notice how similar the view is (in reference to the field) in both stadiums from our seats.  I always try to up high and as close to right behind home plate as possible.  I think it gives you the best view of the whole park.