SOWER's

 

Starr & I have joined a missionary organization called "SOWER" which is an acronym for "Servants On Wheels Ever Ready". It's a Christian couples RV work ministry. We can signup to work anywhere in the United States wherever there is a need! They all start on the first Monday of the month. Majority of the work is Monday thru Thursday, six hours a day for three weeks. The fourth week is your own to do what you want. The facility that you are volunteering at are required to furnish you a place to park your RV with full hook up (water, electric sewer). We were approved on Sep11th, 2021 after a hour and a half phone interview! We were chatting with the group at the rally in July and got real excited about it, we suddenly knew what we were going to do with our retirement years! For more information you can visit there website at https://sowerministry.org/

We did our first project in Dec in California and our next one will be at Eloy, AZ about half way between Tucson and Phoenix I will post more on that later!

Rose Parade, Pasadena, CA, Dec 27th 2021 - Jan 03rd 2022

This was the actual float I worked on for the parade. I applied the black seed on the wheelchair tires & center hubs.

Diligently applying black onion seed, about the size of a grain of sand, to the wheelchair wheels. The glue, an industrial form of Elmer's glue, is brushed using a paint brush. The seeds are smattered in some way, shape or form using a 3"x3" piece of 1/4" thick flexible foam. If you look below where I am working it's all black, where as what I am doing is black and white. The glue will eventually dry and turn clear. All the floats are pre-painted the colors you see in the parade, the organics (seeds and such) are adhered to the top of that, sorta a paint by number thing!

Me working on the upper part of the wheel, kind of a great perspective shot of the actual size of these floats!! The wheelchair lady is actually tipped here on her back because to get her, and all the floats under any bridges and overhead wires, the can be no more than 16-1/2 ft. tall. In the warehouse where they are assembled, that is the height that they make the doors, If they fit thru the doors, they will make it to the parade staging area!! Once there, they pivot and move all the pieces in place to their full height!

This shows some of the detail put into the pieces.

More detail.

 

This is the seed trailer where you go and get your supplies!

Hoover Dam

Saturday and Sunday we visited Hoover Dam. Saturday we did the driving thing, over the dam and walked back over it and around the displays. Sunday we did a Lake Mead boat tour of the dam and walked up to the freeway high bridge (When they built it they added a walkway on the dam side) . I was a little disappointed that they still had the internal tour shut down, showing the inner workings of the dam and power plant. It is all so huge it is hard to capture on camera!

When you look at the pictures of the lake you will see a whitish strip on the lake bank, the is the high water mark from 1983, it left a lot of calcium deposit behind!

Taken from the freeway high bridge

Our tour boat

Dam, lake side, from the tour boat.
The things with the vertical dark lines are the water inlets to turn the generators,
four total, two on the Nevada side, two on the Arizona side.

Taa daa! We really were on the boat!

Entering the Black Canyon that leads to the dam.
I guess before the dam was built there was nasty rapids thru this canyon!

Looking down the dam wall

Starr sitting pretty next to one of the displays

A closer view of the water intake towers

One of the statues, I wondered out loud if there arms ever got tired, they didn't respond!

 

Via Las Vegas, fun times at the airport and back to Minnesota

 It's been suggested by some of my readers that maybe I should start doing more current post, so y'all know where we are and what we are currently up to! Probably a good idea! I know you all are waiting with with baited breath for our next installment, so here it is!

It is currently Friday Nov 19th! We are at Boulder Beach Campground just outside of Bolder City, NV approx. 30 miles from the Las Vegas airport, a hop skip and a jump from Hover Dam (which we are planning to explore tomorrow), see map snippet below! We paid for three nights so we will be here until at least Sunday morning. This is part of the national park service, so with Starr's National Park pass and being over 60, it's only $10 a night! And did we drive straight here from the airport???? Oh heavens no! Let me start at the beginning! 

Last week we flew back to Minnesota on Delta, round trip tickets from Las Vegas for $308 total for us both! Wednesday to Wednesday to go to our 2nd oldest granddaughter musical that she was a part of. This is her HS Senior year (more on that later). We parked our truck and trailer at the Las Vegas airport oversized parking lot which mostly worked out well, it was still there and intact when we got back. The only hitch (no pun intended) was, once we got back to Vegas and got to the shuttle bus area to get back to the rig, none of the drivers knew where the place was! After probably a 45min wait and a lengthy, rather loud discussion over the phone with a very rude dispatcher, one of the drivers went out of his way to figure it out for us, also, Starr asked if I still had the location saved in my RV app program and sure enough I did! So, Walla! We got delivered!

Because we had planned to head to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon when we got back, we made a reservation at Mesquite, NV where we had stayed the night before we left for MN. We also made some orders to be delivered there to be waiting for our return. While in MN I checked the weather for the North Rim and noticed that the lows were going to be in the high teens at night, way to cold for my RV (and me), so plans were changed to go where we are now (East of Vegas). Unfortunately, the things we ordered were in Mesquite, 1-1/2 to 2 hours NE which we still had to drive to. We arrived around 8:30, pulled into our spot without even unhooking thinking we would spend an extra day there just to unwind and leave on Friday. It turned out they were already booked with no room at the inn, so to speak, so, here we are, 150 miles or so later, 30 miles from our start position, with our Amazon ordered in hand! LoL!!

About our trip to Minnesota

BRRRRRR, I was so COLD!! The best part was going to our Granddaughter's musical at Glencoe HS. They did "The Little Mermaid". For a relatively small school, they do a really good job! Saturday before the play Arleen, Rob's mom, (aka, my ex) had us all over for an early Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings! Thanks Arleen! Through the rest of the week it was catching up with all our friends we hadn't seen since we left town! Great memories, thanks!

Some passing thoughts!

We have been on the road now for 2-1/2 months, we have been having the time of our lives, and it's surreal in a way, we are in our little "house" always the same inside, but in the morning we open the shades and it's different views most of the time. (I think the longest we have stayed in one place has been 7 days at a RV resort outside of Moab, UT and that was pay for 5 nights and get 2 free, how you pass that up?) 

While in Minnesota we stayed in our Townhouse, snug as a bug in a rug (after I got the water turned on and the water heater fired up) but waking up in our house bed the next morning felt really odd, almost like "I dreamed I went to these places, but here I am here". Anyway, I guess I digress!

Our current plan is to be in the San Diego area by Wednesday, Nov 24th. We start our first SOWERs project in Jamul, CA on Monday, Nov 29th!

Our $10/night camp spot!

It was a little cool in the morning, but tolerable with a banky!
Starr actually had humming birds check the flowers out on the blanket!

Humming bird pic 1

Humming bird pic 2

Humming bird pic 3

Leaving route 66 behind and onward to Black Mesa Winery & fruit flies!

 Oct 1st, Starr and I have been on the road for a month now. Well, technically I suppose you could say 2 weeks with the hiccup in South Bend, but, for argument sakes, one month! So far we are loving the this lifestyle. Scenery has been great, company has been fantastic!

Like the title says we are putting the route 66 spiral map away for a while. It's still on my bucket list to see it thru, probably in chunks as we wander.

Things started getting serious today! We are definitely into mountain driving! Steep grades, sharp switch backs and driving in the clouds with rain and the occasional snowflake!! Bessy worked flawlessly! We even learned that when you get into higher elevations you get spit on, things like catsup, mustard, you know things in squirt bottles! Even the drink bottles with push buttons to open the opening so you can drink has the audacity spit on you! I guess the pressure increases in sealed bottles the higher you get!

Our route for today!

We are on our way to spend the night at at Black Mesa Winery, a spot we found thru our Harvest Host App. the drive, after we got thru the inclement weather was fantastic, we were driving past shear walls, it was wonderful!

We arrived at our destination, Black Mesa Winery, checked in and was told where to park, right next to the compost pile. We backed in, unhitched and started the set up. Starr opened up the front door, grabbed the steps to pull them down to the ground (We have steps that lift up inside the trailer when not in use), the next thing I know, I hear a bang and then Starr screaming and laying on the ground holding her shoulder. It seems the steps have two gas springs that act as a counterbalance so a wee little person like Starr can lift it up and down with little to no effort. The cylinder anchor that it mounts snapped in two causing the step to come crashing down just missing her head but hit the front of her shoulder and knocked her down. It kind of broke the skin and left a bruise for a few days. Contacted the step manufacturer, sent them pictures of the mount and they sent a new anchor mount for no charge*.

It took a little work to disassemble the cylinders to able to shut the door over the steps, meaning, I had to leave the screen door open, remember I said earlier that we had to park next to the compost pile? Well, they had just dumped the grape skins and what ever else the don't use when they make wine and the compost pile was RIPE! and it had attracted fruit flies and we had the door wide open. guess where the all went? In our trailer! It took over week to be rid of them all with a jar, apple cider vinegar and a funnel, they eventually went and drown themselves in the cider!

*(Note: As of this writing it is Oct 28th, we are at an RV Park in Escalante, UT waiting for our accumulated mail to be delivered "general delivery" the anchor assembly is one of the items we are waiting for! I have been in charge of lifting the steps up & down for the past month as they seem to weigh a ton!)

The entry!

The parking spot, compost pile on right side (not actually showing in the picture)

View of the vineyard from the dining window

Bessy unhitched, vineyard in the back ground

The broken anchor assembly

Route 66 revisited, Sep 26th -Sep 30th, 2021

 

I found the picture below on one of the Facebook RV sites I follow. Yes, it looks like an ordinary container of jiffy pop popcorn, but it serves a more practical purpose in an RV, see below!

RV's have smoke alarms, and carbon monoxide alarms. This, my friends, is a fire/heat alarm! When it starts popping, its time to bail from the RV! And as an additional bonus, when the big disco looking ball happens, the light from the fire will be dispersed better to guide your way out, PLUS, if you hang by the exit, you can grab a handful of popcorn on the way out for something to eat as you watch it burn!!!  FYI, this will also work for stick and morder homes also, If interested, please comment and for one low payment of $50 I can fix you up! Keep following for more useful tidbits!

Back to the issues at hand!

On Sunday Sept 26th we left the brewery and continued our trek across Missouri. I am continually amazed at God's handy work and the varieties of landscapes he has given us! The hills going across Missouri are incredible! I always thought of it as flat, but no, it isn't, Bessy got a good workout!  We stayed on the I40 freeway all day, decided to get a hard day's drive in, plus, it’s very time consuming getting on and off all the different stretches of the 66 route. We spend the night at a Boondockers Welcome site in Mannford, Oklahoma, at the home of Edd Alex about a half hour west of Tulsa. We had the option here of spending two nights so we opted for that so we could do some laundry the next day. It was kind of funny, I missed Edd's place and had to turn around (I'm getting pretty adept in turning the rig around in tight spots!) we pulled into his driveway, I got out to introduce myself and to announce we had arrived. I rang the doorbell, no answer, rang it again, still know answer. Figuring that they stepped out somewhere, I went back to the truck, read the parking instructions and parked as per the instructions, unhitched and leveled the unit. This place let us plug into their electric and use their water so I connected those two up. Walked around the front of the trailer, and in my peripheral vision I saw this man, standing behind a garbage can in front of the garage, looking at me. Needless to say, it surprised the dickens out of me and I jumped and let out a gasp! After the initial shock ended, I said "Hi, you must be Edd, I'm Dennis Babcock" to which he replied, "No, Edd lives two doors down" After an awkward silence, he starts laughing and tells me he funning with me and welcomes to his place! It seems his doorbell doesn't work and he didn't realize we had arrived!

 

Edd Alexis' home and our parking spot!

The next day we had business to take of. We located a laundromat in a nearby town, found an urgent care for Starr… oh yeah, Starr had something wrong with her foot and was sure she was going to start dropping toes! Turns out she had a severe case of athlete’s foot. Seems all the rain we were in the previous few days got her shoes and socks pretty wet and never got a chance to dry really well! We ended up with enough salve for her feet for 100 people (8 tubes). She said she thought that was a little much but the pharmacist told that she might as well take it, that was the standard qty! So... if anyone needs salve for that sort of thing, we can fix you up! Sep 28th found us back on the road. We got back onto the Route 66 kick. We discovered it was a little better marked in Oklahoma then it was in Missouri! We found the Anchor Drive In at Bristow, OK. It was on the route and was active during the peak of the Route 66 era. Definitely a greasy spoon, but the burgers, onion rings, slaw and strawberry shake was great! Starr had fries, corn on the cob & a chocolate shake. Oh, and all the peanuts you could eat, I was in heaven!! Outside the Anchor In, Starr's adjusting her glasses or is in the process of slapping me! Interior and some of the memorabilia on the walls Yummy Food!! Not much left! We continued on to Chandler, OK and found a cute little route 66 museum. The most interesting item I found was a 15 min video of a guy who took the route in the early 50’s from Chicago to a university in Arizona. He mailed Mama a letter almost every day and lo and behold she kept them all in her attic and he discovered them after her passing. That inspired him to drive the route again and retrace his steps. As he was being interviewed he was reminiscing of all the things that had changed. Outside the museum! Building a little fuzzy, need to brush up on my photography skills! That night we stayed at the Texas 66 RV park in Shamrock, TX. We had a storm roll thru, looked like was going to be nasty, but turned out to be nothing! The next morning I found some friends on the other side of the fence, seems it’s also a wanna be cattle ranch besides a RV park! Texas RV Park sign Mural on one of the walls I thought was kinda cool Storm front coming in Our spot for the night Finally, the sunset after the clouds blew over! And our neighbors across the fence! Sep 29th we are back on the road. According to our route 66 book there is a vintage Conoco station/garage there that was the backdrop in the cartoon “Cars” (Disney 2006) so I had to stop and see it, besides, I had to run to town and fill the truck up! While we were there an old Ford panel van and a 66 Chevelle (I think 66) stopped by to take picture in front of the station. They were from Chicago and were driving the route in their vehicles, they looked to be having a good time. Since I’m a Ford guy, I only took pictures of the panel van! The guy assured me that it was all Ford parts in the rebuild!  Also, tucked in behind the station, Starr saw a C&H feed & supply building (C&H is where she worked at for 20+ years), she's thinking they expanded their business! (For those unfamiliar with that, C&H is a distributor/manufacturer of electronic components, highly unlikely they would open a feed store in Texas!)  (https://www.thomasnet.com/profile/01200757/c-h-technology-inc.html) Vintage Conoco Station. Ford Panel Van, very sharp New C&H building! Onto New Mexico! Again, I had pictured in my mind that New Mexico was a flat, barren desert, not so much, at least the northen part we were on! That night we stayed at a Walmart parking lot in Las Vegas, NM (NM not NV)! I’ve not had good luck staying in Walmart parking lots but we couldn’t find any spots in the area in Boondockers or Harvest Host so, whatta gonna do?? I spent the whole night thinking that our rig was being vandalized, so, not a lot of sleep for me! Come to find out, they were redoing the roof of the store and could only do it at night! Once I figured that out, I did manage to get a few hours of sleep!  Entering New Mexico Walmart Parking Lot, Las Vegas, New Mexico This bring us to the morning of Sep 30th and the end of this post