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Pictures of the Adventure, RV Life, SOWER Projects, SOWER Projects 2016, The Adventure

Black Lake Wrap-up!

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We are getting ready to do our 100 mile trip to our next project (YWAM, Discovery Bay, in Port Townsend, WA – up on the Olympic Peninsula), but I wanted to do a quick wrap-up…
(OK – packing up to move the house apparently trumps blog updating, so I’m happy to report that we have safely arrived at Discovery Bay. The slides are out, the levelers down, and lunch has been eaten. Now where was I…..Oh right -)
quick wrap-up of our time at Black Lake Bible Camp.
First of all – these people!
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Old friends – New friends – Forever friends! We had a great month working along side these folks. Lots of laughs and lots of work too! We discovered the Wednesday $9.99 Steak Dinner special at a local restaurant and we may or may not have gone each Wednesday we were there. That’s the kind of group this was!
The staff here was also exceptional! Very welcoming, loved to share about their ministry, and even the director could be found doing whatever needed to be done. Like the day we saw him painting new lines in the parking lots. I love that! We had an especially nice time sharing several meals with a staff family that had 4 adorable kiddos – very close in age to our grands. No pictures – too busy enjoying the time!
But we did get some work done, honest!
As often is the case, I didn’t get many action shots of the guys actually working, but trust me, they were very busy! I already mentioned the tables and chairs and decks and even some roof work they got done, but there were also ramps, railings, electrical work and that bathroom that got remodeled (virtually single handed-ly by Roy) that was added to the Jobs Done list.
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We ladies also managed to complete our to-do list. Lola redid any number of pillows, Glenda worked her creative magic on those camp store signs and the dunk tank,
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(How cute is that!!)
and I finished up the painting in Alderwood and then Lola and I cleaned it up and put it all back together again (with lots of new furniture! What fun!).
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I think the guests will like it! It was great fun to see it from the beginning (well, with all the old furniture piled in the middle at least) to getting it all spiffed up for guests! We also worked on cleaning and re-decorating another small cabin that will be used by the summer staff chaplain and his wife. It’s really tiny – but pretty cute!
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Although I do think this toilet/shower configuration might get a little old after a while!
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Just sayin’.

So once again, it was a grand month! We were blessed to serve at this camp, we were able to do a bit of sightseeing (oh, those amazing mountains!), and we made new friends. I’m not sure it can get any better than that!

(There were a couple of other interruptions as I tried to finish up – like a trip into Port Townsend for coffee (we’re near Seattle, remember) and a bit of exploring with our new neighbors and dinner. So it’s quite late in the day (early morning for those of you on the East Coast) but at least I got ‘er done! Here’s a taste of our little jaunt into town –

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I think this month holds just a bit of promise too!)

Pictures of the Adventure, RV Life, The Adventure

The Anatomy of a Blog Post

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Here are the steps that I often go through before I actually hit the “publish” button to post a blog entry.

  1. Find something interesting to write about! This can be harder than you think (or maybe not, you say!), but for this example I’ll be using our mini road trip to explore the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.
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  2. Actually DO the ‘interesting thing to write about”.  And while you’re doing it take lots of pictures, and give a little bit of thought about how you want to “frame” the story. (Even though the day started out a bit cloudy and drizzly,Mt.St.Helens-1 we were hopeful that the weather would break in our favor.)
  3. Return home, take a quick nap and then begin sorting through the photos of the day.
    1. Original Count (both camera and phone)-203
    2. Mark your favorites – got it down to 93
    3. Look at that first sifting, and continue to fine tune your choices. (Decide you need to take a photography class to better utilize/understand your SLR camera since you often like the iPhone pix better than the camera pix.) Get it down to 60. Still too many, but I just gave up!
  4. Begin to upload the pictures to Flickr. Be realistic about your slow internet (here under the towering pines) and when after 3 days of having had only 15 successfully upload, take the computer to the dining hall and use the camp wifi.  In the time it took to eat dinner, all the pictures were uploaded and just needed a bit of organizing. Phew.
  5. Start the post and then decide which few photos to actually highlight and how that will work in with the storyline. Assuming I remember the story line. Where were we again? Oh right – Mount. St. Helens.
    We’ve visited a lot of mountains in our travels (most recently the majestic Mt. Rainier), but we’ve never visited an active volcano that erupted during our lifetime – 1980. And I mean, ERUPTED!  From Wikipedia –

    Mount St. Helens is most notorious for its paroxysmic eruption on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m. PDT,[2] the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States. Fifty-seven people were killed; 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles (24 km) of railways, and 185 miles (298 km) of highway were destroyed. A massive debris avalanche triggered by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale caused an eruption[3] that reduced the elevation of the mountain’s summit from 9,677 ft (2,950 m) to 8,363 ft (2,549 m), replacing it with a 1 mile (1.6 km) wide horseshoe-shaped crater.[4] The debris avalanche was up to 0.7 cubic miles (2.9 km3) in volume. The Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument was created to preserve the volcano and allow for its aftermath to be scientifically studied.

    It was a very interesting day – from the lower slopes that have been purposefully re-forested by Weyerhauser
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    to the area managed by the Forestry Service which has been left to regrow without man’s help.
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    One of the highlights of the day (other than the very informative visitor centers and videos) was a short hike I took along the ridge to the Johnson Ridge Observatory.
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    Another was the beautiful walk along Coldstone Lake (formed when a landslide from the eruption formed a natural dam).
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    What an excellent day! Such powerful examples of “beauty from ashes” and the wonderful regenerative resources that our great God has enabled in His creation.
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  6. Read it over about a dozen times – checking grammar, always being thankful for that squiggly red line for spelling, and insert any links that might be helpful. Do a preview post to check for formatting and if you just can’t figure out how to make it line up the way you want to (just enough html knowledge over here to be dangerous) get over it and move on. Save your draft and then make sure you put it in a category and apply pertinent “tags” to it.
  7. Decide if you want to do a “featured image” which will be the header when this specific post is brought up. Find and upload the picture. Uploading, uploading, uploading…….(Tidy up a bit while you’re waiting for the upload. After all, we are moving down the road and there is packing that needs to be done!)
  8. Decide if you want to do a “Check out this LINK if you’d like to see the whole set of photos” or actually do a fancy slide show. What the heck – do ’em both- it’s good practice!
  9. Preview one final time – and then, (four full days after the event!), hit the Publish button.
  10. Take another nap.

 

Back to packing! Hope you enjoyed this little ‘inside edition’ of the journey!

Steph

 

Pictures of the Adventure, RV Life, The Adventure

A Bit of Olympia

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Although the week ahead has some promises of sunshine, most of the weekend was cool and drizzly. Quite typical for this time of the year in this part of the country, but still. So while not unexpected, it did put a bit of a damper on some of the outdoor activities we were hoping for this weekend. But not to be deterred by a bit of drizzle, we did manage to check out the Olympia Farmers Market.
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There were beautiful crafts, amazing food booths, live music and stunning veggies –
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Most of it was out of our price range, but it was still fun to look around and be part of the local scene!
Since the rain was spitting, and we were (after all) in downtown Olympia, we went to the next logical spot –
the State Capital Building!
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I think now would be a good time to confess that although we have been to 48 of the 50 states, I cannot recall ever touring a state capital building. (Not even Harrisburg, PA! What kind of Pennsylvanian am I???)
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We were right between tours so we opted to just mosey around with a little help from the kind lady at the information desk and a trusty map. Here’s one little tidbit – this building houses the largest collection of Tiffany glass and lamps in the country. And this chandelier, hanging in the rotunda, weighs 10,000 lbs.
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Yikes!
It’s a magnificent building, with lots of history, and we were really glad we stopped.
Even the door knobs in the restrooms were proud to be Washingtonians!
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How fancy!

With promises of some sunshine and warmer temps tomorrow (Monday), we’re planning on a little road trip to Mt. St. Helens. Plus – there’s only a 10% chance of rain (at least at the moment!).  We’ll see how it all pans out!

There are a couple more pictures of the beautiful Capital Building HERE (along with a couple of the Farmers Market thrown in) if you’d like to check them out!

Thanks for stopping by!

Pictures of the Adventure, RV Life, The Adventure

Mount Rainier – Surface Scratched

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I’ve decided that these days we can best be described at National Park Scratchers. We never seem to have enough time or enough stamina to really explore the beautiful National Parks this country has been blessed with. And so, we tend to just scratch the surface of these wonders. We approach the rangers sitting behind the desk with the question – “So we only have the day (afternoon) and we’re old(ish). What are the “don’t miss” items in the park that we can see and do.” Yes, we’re those people – National Park Scratchers. But still, even with our limited time and ‘resources’, we were so glad we spent (at least part of the day) Saturday checking out Mt. Rainier National Park.
First of all it was a beautiful day. Crisp and clear and warm. Closing in on hot actually. (HOT actually happened on Sunday when the temps climbed to 97!). We kept chasing that mountain
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Winding our way to The Mountain. #mtrainier #fartherthanithought
until finally we were in the park and closing in on the subject!
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Even before we got to the Visitor Center in the Paradise section of the park, we did our best to stop at some of the pull-outs to see what we could see!
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(Not too much scenery, but I really like the cross!)
I say we ‘did our best’ to stop because the pull-outs were already full of cars trying to see what they could see. In fact, several times along the way there were signs that read – “Paradise Lot is Full. Through traffic only.” It seems that LOTS of folks thought this beautiful clear Saturday was an day excellent to visit the mountain!
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And yes, indeed, the parking lot WAS full. As were the shoulders for at least a mile before you even got to the visitor center. We circled the lot a couple of times (us and about a dozen other cars) and then resigned ourselves to just a beautiful drive back down when a car pulled out of the line-up along the shoulder. Before I could say, “I don’t think we’ll fit in there”, Gary had us parked and we were walking back to the center. (We had hoped to do a loop drive that started from there, but that wasn’t open yet for the season. Silly snow!)
We checked out the 21 minute video (:)),
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(We do love us a good National Park video!)
toured the small museum and gift shop. We decided that tromping through the snow wasn’t all that interesting to us, so we relinquished our shoulder parking spot and did indeed head back down the mountain road.
Most of the pull-outs were still packed, but I did make Gary stop so I could check out these lovely flowers blooming amidst a rock wall.
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Pretty, pretty, pretty!

We continued home, stopped for a lovely dinner along the way, and still enjoyed catching glimpses of The Mountain all the way home!
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A few more photos of our day at the Park can be found here
but I thought I’d leave you with two very different views of Mt. Rainier –
Taken on my flight East back in early May –
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and then on my flight back to Seattle two weeks later –
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Yes, it’s that little dimple in the clouds! Gotta love Seattle weather!

Thanks for stopping by –
Your friendly neighborhood National Park Scratchers!

Family and Friends, Pictures of the Adventure, RV Life, The Adventure

10 Things I think I forgot to mention

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10. Way back in February (yes, that was quite a few ‘yesterdays’ ago) we took a little field trip to Robson Ranch and Mining Camp, a ghost town remnant of the booming mining industry that helped settle the Wickenburg area of Arizona.
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It was an interesting day –a little history,
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a little hiking (complete with some petroglyphs that I personally never found but were documented by others in our group),
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and some beautiful scenery.
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Here’s a link to my set of pictures from the day – Robson Mining Ranch –

9. In March we checked out St. Anthony’s Coptic Monastery outside of Barstow, CA. This was WAY OUT THERE.
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(It’s that little white dot on the left, halfway up! And we had already driven about 1/2 hour on that dirt road.)
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And we really weren’t sure just what to expect. What we found was a relatively new church that was quite ornate, a grouping of single-wide mobile homes (the monastery part), another older church (or two – it was hard to tell) and 5 (yes, 5) tour buses that had come up from Los Angeles. We were a bit out of our element (most of the other visitors were actually Coptic Christians and there on a pilgrimage of sorts) so aside from checking out the gift store (most items in Arabic) and taking pictures of the church, we chose not to linger.

8. Early Man Site. OK – here’s another head scratcher. Since we were already driving on dirt roads (finding the monastery) that day, we thought we’d find out just what this Early Man Site was all about.
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Well, apparently although no human bones have been found, there have been discoveries of tools and tool making rocks. Again, it was a nice hike and some beautiful views of the San Bernardino Valley and the Mohave Desert. And I suppose if I was into archaeological digs, this could hold some interest. For us – not so much. (Just keeping it real!)
Here are just a couple more pictures.

7. Remember our Berdoo Canyon Adventure coming out of Joshua Tree Natl Park?
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As we were navigating our way through that canyon, we had a certain ‘carrot’ hanging out in front of us – a date shake at the Shields Date Gardens.It kept us going, to be sure. However, by the time we emerged from the canyon, the sun was setting and the Date Garden was closed. “Hey, we’re adults,” I said. “I bet we can figure out how to make a date shake.” Without skipping a beat Jenny said, – “Tell him your dad has a gun.” Aren’t we hilarious! 😉

6. This past week my big sister had a birthday. Oh, it wasn’t one of those “Big Ones”, but it was still a birthday, and at our age, we should never take them for granted. So, although I sent her a card, called her, and wished her an official Facebook Happy Birthday – here’s one more – Happy Birthday, Elna! I can’t imagine a better big sister and I’m thankful for you each and every day! XOXOXOX

5. This past week my dear husband also had a birthday. Again, not a big decade jumping birthday, but as I said before, we celebrate each one! (Actually, we celebrate waking up and dressing ourselves. Just sayin’) So Happy Birthday (just a bit late) to the best man in my life! Love you, baby!

4. All three of our kids are either in the midst of or have already accomplished major life adjustments in the last several months. Job changes (no small thing when you have a family of 7), revitalizing a career that has been on hold for a couple of years, and moving across the country. I’m pretty darn proud of these courageous kiddos of mine, and I just want to say here in the Blog World – that I think you are ALL absolutely AMAZING!
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3. Look where we’re parked for the next three weeks!
Lake Retreat parking.
Instead of tracking in sand, now we’re tracking in pine needles. But everything is so GREEN!!! And the trees are so HUGE!!!! Ah…….

2. Tomorrow I head east to Columbus! I’ll be spending next week loving on my Ohio kids (4) and grands (7), watching ball games, enjoying Mother’s Day with my kids (that hasn’t happened in about 12 years!), playing games and enjoying all of the beautiful family chaos that I miss so much! Less than 24hrs until my plane leaves!

1. Then next Friday, I leave Columbus and fly to PA for Girls Week ’16!!!! It’s another thing I will never take for granted – a week with my precious sisters! We’ll be bopping around the countryside, trying to fit as much family and fun (oh, and maybe a bit of shopping) in as we can! Not to mention talking, praying, talking, napping, coffee drinking, etc, There are even plans in the works to connect with most of my PA kids and grands, too – super excited about that!
The Sisters

So that’s the list. There are probably more than 10 things I forgot to mention, but at least this got some of the real ancient history off the table. And, it gave me a good chance to let you know that the next two weeks might be (ok, will be) pretty quiet. At least here at RV There Yet! (And probably here at Lake Retreat where Gary will be playing the bachelor till I return.)

We’ll catch up when I get back, ‘K?

Steph