You might be up at The Cabin with the Conrads if…
Your first outing (even before the grocery store) is a trip to Lowes.
You might be up at The Cabin with the Conrads if…
You awaken to the sound of power tools coming from the Tree House.
You might be up at The Cabin with the Conrads if…
Even though the sound of power tools may wake you up, there is still a lovely fire and fresh coffee waiting for you!
You might be up at The Cabin with the Conrads if…
This is what your counter looks like at the end of the day.
You might be up at The Cabin with the Conrads if…
You have to wait for the traffic to clear before you head to the outhouse during the night.
You might be up at The Cabin with the Conrads if…
You’re OK with our security system.
You might be up at The Cabin with the Conrads if…
Dinner sometimes means ice cream.
(Don’t judge – see those nuts? Protein, baby. Protein!)
You might be up at The Cabin with the Conrads if…
You check out local food trucks!
Oh My! So good!
You might be up at The Cabin with the Conrads if…
You know this picture will be taken.
You might be up at The Cabin with the Conrads if…
You have to pretend to take a picture of pears to capture a rare sighting of Gary sitting down.
You might be up at The Cabin with the Conrads if…
Whether it’s first thing in the morning
or as the sun sinks behind the mountains,
the view never disappoints.
You might have been up at The Cabin with the Conrads if…
As you pull away, your heart is full of thankfulness!
Follow
1014
Miles, that is.
From the front of Toby’s house (after we watched them drive off to church)
to our parking spot for the next several weeks –
it was mile after mile after mile.
It started with some lovely country roads
and ended with some classic Texas (70mph) 2-lane highways,
but in between, there was highway mile after highway mile after highway mile.
So long, Ohio!
Hello, Construction!
We took a short detour for a long overdue RV wash. Thank you, Blue Beacon, that was a very well-spent $42.00.
We crossed the Mississippi just before dusk
and settled in at a truck stop for the night.
Day two on the road was just more of the same…
It was a crazy hot day, so it made sense to pull into a campground for the night to plug in and cool off!
YAY for pull-through sites at a campground right off the interstate! (Sunrise RV Park in Texarkana, AR for those RV’ers out there. Not fancy, but it sure fits the bill for a quick overnight.)
This morning we crossed into Texas
and we were parked and plugged in at the SOWER office RV area by noon! Phew!
It’s still crazy hot here (sorry for those of you who have been in this heat all summer and a 95-degree day actually feels like a relief, but this girl has been in VERMONT!), but we are certainly enjoying having the slides out (first time since we left Odosagih on August 18th!). I’m still living out of my suitcase (when the slide is in I can’t get to my drawers), so tomorrow will be spent unpacking from our time at the Cabin and finding homes for all the treasures I managed to accumulate during the last month.
Thanks for coming along for the ride! It was a long one, but as always we are so thankful that our biggest challenge was a couple of single-lane construction areas. We never take a boring ol’ trip for granted, believe me!
Sometimes
Sometimes when I’m at the cabin (as mentioned in the previous (long ago) post) I have a true spurt of blogging. And sometimes when I’m at the cabin I don’t open my computer for anything other than stuff that requires my immediate attention (are any checks going to bounce?, the SOWER newsletter, Cabin business itself). Obviously, the latter was true for those past two weeks. So while I’m hopeful that I’ll backtrack to some Cabin adventures in the days to come, right now I think I’ll just stick with the here and now.
After a long drive from the Cabin to where our RV was parked (Bradford, VT to Bradford, PA), we were finally reunited with our girl after a good solid three weeks.
The plants had not died, no small rodents (or large ones for that matter) had taken up residence, and all in all, it just felt good to be home. We brought in the perishables and what we needed for that night, and pretty much fell into our own bed. Ah…..
But the traveling was not over! The next morning, after doing a bit more unloading (so much stuff, so little room….), we started our ol’ girl up (it was a little rough, but she finally started purring), and we took to the road once again. This time we were heading for our family in Columbus.
Monday night was dinner with our daughter and family (my only picture is of Alexandra – too busy catching up to snap more! And no, she’s not actually poking out her mother’s eye!).
Tuesday we moved up to Marysville for a visit with our son, Toby, and his family. And we were swept right into their busy life!
When you put together two high school daughters (each with jobs and babysitting careers but only one with a license), two boys who play “Fall Ball” but in different age leagues, band, life groups, dance troupes, school and a two-year-old, your color-coded calendar is bound to look like this –
And just to make the week a little busier, the in-laws show up, park their house in front of your house, and then Toby and Gary take off at zero dark thirty on Wednesday for a four-day men’s retreat in upper Michigan.
Yes, friends – for the first time that I can recall, I’m the one ‘home alone’ and Gary is the one off having an adventure! It’s a new experience, to be sure. Thankfully it’s a quick walk across the lawn to hang out with some pretty great grandkids and a super sweet (and very organized) DIL! No guarantee I’ll get pictures of all those kiddos, but the one I’m spending the most time with is doing a great job of melting my heart!
I’m pretty sure we’re both where we’re supposed to be. 😊
The kids are all home from school – I better get in there before they start dispersing again!
Thanks for stopping by!
The Long Road to the Cabin
Generally, when we’re headed to the Cabin, we go the quickest way possible. But sometimes, when there is a bit of a gap between when you are available to go to the Cabin and when the Cabin is available to you (it is, after all a Family Cabin!), the road to the Cabin is long and windy. But still full of delights!
First we moved Lizzie (the RV) from Odosagih Bible Conference to a SOWER friends’ home in Bradford, PA.
It wasn’t too far, so we drove separately and I snuck a quick picture. (Don’t judge me – I’m a trained photo snapper and you can see how heavy the traffic was!).
Once we got her settled (i.e. parked and plugged in), we enjoyed dinner with our friends and then left at zero-dark-thirty the next morning for the first leg of the trip. (Sorry, but this trained photo snapper totally failed to document said parking and friends!).
Over the river and through the mountains to my sister’s house! We hadn’t seen each other since we had said good-bye “see you later” to our dear sister Elna in May, so there were hugs and tears and love in abundance.
Also some fun excursions, which included (but was not limited to) yard sales, ice cream, fancy coffee, worship and prayer, and more hugs.
What a lovely weekend!
Monday we got an early start on our next leg – the annual doctor check-ups and visiting with our nephew and and his family (always the best part of those doctor visits!). We took in a volleyball game
(my great-niece is #12 at the net – not even jumping but still the tallest one there!),
helped facilitate the Great Grill Exchange (between Parents and Children)
played lots of games
ate too many wings (no documentation – but trust me Too. Many.)
and generally just had a super sweet time with these guys!
(And for the record – all check-ups, mammogram, and bloodwork came back A-OK! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!)
After that lovely visit, it was back to Joie’s, for a final couple of days of togetherness. We won’t be hugging again until next summer, so each day together is a precious gift. All too soon, it seemed, it was time to head off on one more leg of the Long Road to the Cabin.
It was another early start –
and good day’s drive, but our final stop before the cabin was way up in upstate NY for a visit with some of our very best SOWER friends – Kim and Joe!
We had two perfectly lovely lazy days – watching the turkey’s meander through their yard, and sharing our lives over the last year.
I’m so thankful for friends who we don’t get to see very often, but once we’re together it’s like no time had passed at all! I did get one picture of all four of us – on the morning that we left. A little double-chinny, but hey – it was early!
I am so thankful for these folks – and so many others – that we have met and grown to love through the SOWER Ministry. How full our life has been because of them!
And then, finally, on Monday morning we set out for Vermont and the Cabin! We crossed into Vermont from the north –
and reached the cabin by mid-afternoon.
Odosagih to Bradford, PA – 50 miles
Bradford to Green Park, PA -180 miles
Green Park to Chambersburg – 50 miles
Chambersburg to Green Park – 50 miles
Green Park to Canton, NY – – 375 miles
Canton to The Cabin – 225 miles
Total Miles to Cabin – 930
Cheapest Fuel – 3.89/gal (Costco outside of Burlington, VT)(!How crazy that that price made us happy???)
Memories – worth every extra mile!!
Thanks for waiting so patiently for this update! But I’m sure you will agree that spending time with family and friends far outweighs spending time sitting at a computer.
Sending loads of Cabin love your way –
The Weekend and the Wrap-up
Here we are, once again, at the end of another SOWER month! We put in some extra hours (remember all those days Gary started at 7?), so we’re scooting out a day early (i.e. tomorrow). But what a great month we’ve had! Although we are very ‘pitiful tourists’ these days, we did make the trip over to Letchworth State Park (which some say is the nicest state park in the country!) this past Saturday. It was a beautiful day in a beautiful park, and we enjoyed the day immensely! We checked out the Middle Falls, the Upper Falls, the restored restaurant (exterior only – it seemed a little fancy for our hiking gear!), and took a stab at the Lower Falls. Unfortunately, the sign indicating the 127 stairs to get down to the falls (followed by the 127 steps getting back up from the falls) was not met with great enthusiasm. After all, we had just hiked way more than we’d hiked in months, so it seemed reasonable to grab a couple of ‘close to the falls’ pictures, and call it a day! (Besides which, Gary claimed he’d already seen water falling over rocks twice that day already. Like I said – pitiful touristing!) Here’s a little slide show of our hike –
We’ve been blessed abundantly by the speakers and concerts and special music that we’ve been able to enjoy here at Odosagih Bible Conference. This summer they are celebrating their 100th anniversary – so they were pulling out all the stops!
This is a little hidden gem in Western NY – and surely hope that God continues to bless them for the next 100 years (or until He comes again!).
On the work front, we continued painting the second floor at the Bethany House in anticipation of new staff. Sometimes we were very cozy –
but mostly we were working on our own sections, trying to finish up the job. Remember that banister they took down and rebuilt?
Original-
in Process –
Collecting stuff
Finished product –
My only part in this transformation was the final finish on the top, but I really do think it came out nicely!
While I was finishing up with the polyurethane, Gary moved outdoors yesterday and today to help install a new electronic sign –
Still needs a little finish work –
but it’s up and running. And the good news is, it’s someone else’s job to actually make it legible!
It was a fun way to end up our time here, and to be honest, Gary was pretty happy to put away our paint supplies! The team next month will be working on the first floor, and our Odosagih friends have promised to send us photos of the completed job. I can’t wait to see what it looks like with its new flooring!
So what’s next? Well, we’re taking September off from SOWER work, but have filled it with visits with friends and family, a couple of routine doctor visits, and will be finishing it off with some Cabin time. The very best way to end a summer in my book! So busy times ahead – but good times to be sure!
Thanks for stopping by!
