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Family and Friends, On the Road, Pictures of the Adventure, RV Life

Leaving Waco

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It was hard to leave Waco.

Oh, it was emotionally hard to leave behind this house that we’d not only poured the last three months of our lives into but also a house that had been ‘in the family’ for 10 years. There are a lot of sweet memories and sweat equity in that home, and it was bittersweet to bid it that final farewell.

And of course it was heart-hard to leave behind our precious Waco family –
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(Abigail missed this photo-op, but we’re sure gonna miss her too!) Especially with that 4th little Texas cowboy on the way!

But what I’m talkin’ about here is that it was PHYSICALLY hard to leave Waco!
We got a good early start out of the campground,
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left the RV at the Sam’s Club parking lot and then went to the house to wait for a package. (We had placed the order before we realized we were going to be able to leave earlier than planned. Poor planning, I know.)
And then we waited.
We waited in the house.
We waited on the porch.
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We waited in the truck.
And at 3:45 that brown truck finally arrived.
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Finally, we were heading back to the RV to get hooked up and ON OUR WAY.
As I was pulling the truck behind Lizzie to get started, I had a brain hiccup and remembered I had left one last load of wash in the dryer. Back at the house. Yes, after sitting within 20 feet of the laundry room for a full 6 hours with no recall whatsoever that I had left the dryer going the night before, God (in His kindness but with a bit of humor) brought that to mind. So it was back to the house for me (Gary stayed at the rig to try and get her cooled off after sitting in the sun all day). I collected the wash (which was still a little damp – GAHHHHH), returned to the rig through rush hour traffic and FINALLY, at 6PM, we were on our way.
Ahhh…..
The rest of the trip had a few little hiccups –
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and
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and really and truly, too much traffic for my taste.
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But we made it to Ohio
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and spent the evening with these darling faces!
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We’ll get to see the rest of the Ohio Grands before we head on to Montrose Bible Conference (our July and August SOWER project), but for now we’re thankful for the sweet respite and the joy of seeing family. We’re also thankful for safety on the roads, the spare fuel filter that allowed us to continue on our way (and for my guy who knew how to change it!), for cooler temps and for all the laundry being with us in Ohio!!
God is Good!!
Steph

On the Road, Pictures of the Adventure, RV Life, SOWER Projects 2017

‘Bout Time…

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….I do a little blogging, right? Although I still have to put together a post about our wonderful cruise –
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and then catch all you’all up on our April project at Oakridge Ministries in Anadarko, OK.
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I thought I’d do a little real time update, instead.
We left Anadarko bright and early Tuesday morning.
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We did have a small concern in that the “Warning” light on the dashboard came on just as we were starting out. It doesn’t actually tell you what’s wrong, just that SOMETHING isn’t right. All the fluids were good, and she was running fine, so we opted to drive up to Oklahoma City (about 45 miles) and get it checked out there.
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We made it without incident, and they were able to diagnose (and replace) a failed transient suppressor (you wanted to know, right?). That’s the good news. The bad news is that they spotted a potential problem with the “#3 Exhaust Gasket” – it had a leak and there was possible damage to the manifold. However, since they couldn’t fix it until next week sometime, we opted to continue on and get it looked at (a second opinion is always a good idea anyway when $$$ is involved) in Ohio since we’ll be there for over a week. (Are you glassy-eyed yet?) Sooooo…..
With the 4 hour delay, we only got to the Missouri Welcome Center before we stopped for the night. Not quite as far as we had hoped, but thankfully we had no additional mechanical issues.
This morning we started out in the rain –
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and it pretty much rained all day, all the way.
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Eight Hours. Driving in the Rain. Ugh. But we made it most of the way across Illinois and, Lord willing, we’ll make it to Columbus (or at least to the diesel mechanic) by the end of the day tomorrow!!

As I type this, we are sitting in a Walmart parking lot in Effingham, Illinois watching it rain.
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(And listening to PSA’s about severe weather warnings. What county are we in again? Do we head into Walmart if it gets too crazy?)

It looks like we’ll be in the rain for most of the night –
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We’re the blue dot – and let me say, that green blob has been with us all day!!! We can only pray that it will be long gone in the morning!

I’d like to say that I’ll be catching up soon with Cruise and Project posts, but the truth of the matter is after tomorrow my days will mostly be filled with kids and grands. And once again, blogging will get placed on the back burner! (But that’s really how it should be, don’t you agree?)

Thanks again for stopping by!

Pictures of the Adventure, RV Life, The Adventure

Catching up – Second installment

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We still had a couple of National Parks to check out before we made that final dash to Waco –
Canyon DeChelly
This was another one of those ‘lesser known’ parks in the Four Corners area of the country, but we’re glad we stopped!
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Here’s the opening blurb from the website –
For nearly 5,000 years, people have lived in these canyons – longer than anyone has lived uninterrupted anywhere on the Colorado Plateau. In the place called Tseyi, their homes and images tell us their stories. Today, Navajo families make their homes, raise livestock, and farm the lands in these canyons. The National Park Service and Navajo Nation actively work together to manage park resources.
Because we were stopping here on our way to our next campground, we opted to do the driving tour rather than a more extensive tour of the valleys. Once again we were treated to beautiful views and lots of pueblo ruins.
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Here’s a bit of a zoom-in at the base of the canyon wall –
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Pretty impressive views all around!
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It was a great stop and we’re glad we put it into our itinerary!
(More pictures of the Canyon deChelly HERE) 🙂
Next up – The Petrified Forest and The Painted Desert.
WOW!!
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The petrified wood was so interesting –
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and very beautiful!
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The drive through the painted desert
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was spectacular, and the combination of the painted desert and the petrified forest
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was pretty amazing.
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Lots more pictures of this area can be found HERE. (Funny story about first world problems with the picture taking on this trip. Theoretically it was daylight savings time and I made sure my phone and big-girl camera were set to the same time so when I combined the pictures they would all be in order. HOWEVER, since Arizona does not do daylight savings time, every time we drove into AZ, my phone would change – but of course my camera would not. And then, if we were also in Navajo land, where they do do daylight savings time….well, let’s just say, getting these pictures in order was quite a task. Every park we went into in that Four Corners area had three clocks – Arizona time, whatever state we were in time, and Navajo time. Crazy!)

After the Petrified Forest, we put the pedal to the metal, and pointed the RV to Waco!
Back to Gary’s Journal –
[Following the Petrified Forest] we reconnected the truck and drove to the NM Welcome Center and stayed the night.
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UntitledLeft NM Rest Area @ 6:30. Stopped @ Denny’s for breakfast, drove East I40 to Rt 84. Stopped at Walmart in Lubbock, TX.
Left Walmart and drove East on Rte 84.
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Arrived Waco 2:30PM

And that finally wraps up our very long drive from California to Waco long, long ago…..

Thank you for your patience – and for coming along!

Family and Friends, On the Road, RV Life, SOWER Projects, SOWER Projects 2017, The Adventure

The New Neighborhood

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When we left our January SOWER project (Highland Lakes Camp) on Thursday morning
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the sun was shining brightly. It’s a 15 minute drive just to get to the main road and we were blessed with beautiful glimpses of Lake Travis.
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We had less than 50 miles to travel, but they were all taking us toward Austin and one of my least favorite parts of RV’ing – Traffic!!! And we also noticed that our beautiful sunny day was about to run smack dab into a cold front –
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Oy! The traffic wasn’t really too bad since we had timed it for after rush hour. (Although it did bring to mind a trip I made into S. Austin last Monday with a sweet 91 year old behind the wheel during rush hour. Did I mention the blinding sun glare. Now THAT was a ride! Many prayers of thanksgiving were offered once we arrived at the doctor’s office. And yes, I did drive home! But back to THIS drive…) It went off without a hitch and soon we were tucked into our February neighborhood.
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Even though we’re the only SOWERs at this ministry this month, there is another long-term volunteer couple here, and right now there are other campers that came in for a weekend retreat. I think the neighborhood will look different come Monday!

As you can see by the cloud cover in our parking picture, the cold front did arrived along with us! But a fun dinner (at the famous Salt Lick BBQ) with friends (yippee for a bit of overlap!) warmed us right up!
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Friday morning we said good-bye to our buddies (though we’ll be working with them in March, so it wasn’t too sad!), and we spent the rest of the day learning the lay of the land (both in camp and the area)and getting a bit more settled. Today continued cool and drizzly, so we just stayed inside ALL day. Nope, didn’t get out of my yoga pants all day! But I did get a good start on Weston’s quilt!

All cut out, and ready to sew. Well, not quite ready to sew – I still have to arrange the layout. But still, it felt good to it cut and organized. And it felt really good to have a total stay at home, no place to go Saturday.
Hope you’re weekend is going well too!

PS – there’s a map showing our location over on But Where Are We Now? page if you want a bit more detail! 🙂