It's Monday afternoon and another day has gone.  Today we finally started laying tile, but first I want to tell you about our weekend.

Our weekend started Thursday evening with a nice cookout at one of the members of the church.  Bill and Linda, past NOMADS, had invited the team to their place for the evening.  The pastor and his wife, and another couple from the church were there.  Bill grilled hamburgers and hot dogs.  The burgers and dogs were great, but the fixins that the ladies prepared were even better.  We had a chance to see a large flock of wild turkeys walk through Bill's back yard.  One of those turkeys would have made a good cookout on the smoker.  This evening was the perfect end to our work week.

Friday morning with a trip to Laughlin Air Force Base to get Sharon's ID card renewed.  The drive to Laughlin takes about thirty minutes from Brackettville on very straight roads, and at a speed limit of 70mph.  70 doesn't sound bad until you realize that the highway, US90, is mostly two lane.  Back home they might post 55 on it.  Upon arriving at the security gate at Laughlin I asked the security guard where pass and ID was located.  The guard, a civilian security employee, wasn't very sure where it was, but tried to tell me anyway.  I would loved to have been the driver in the car behind me watching this guard giving me directions.  Imagine taking your left hand and waving it across your chest in an arc motion.  Well, that is what the guard was doing.  He was trying to tell me that he thought the building I was looking for had a curved drive in front.  He kept using the curving motion to indicate the curved drive.  He told me that it would be the only one with a curved drive.  Right.  There were three buildings with a curved drive.  I decided to find the Air Force security police station and ask there.  Finding the police station was simple, find all of the police cars.  A sharp young NCO told me where I needed to go, he even went outside and pointed the building out to me.  Now we were on the way to customer service.  Yeah, the military now has a customer service center.  I guess after being retired from the Air Force for 23 years some things do change.  It only took a few minutes for Sharon to sign it and be led back to the ID office.  I thought we were going to have to really wait awhile due to the many young military personnel waiting in the lobby.  Shortly after Sharon was called to the ID office a young NCO came and requested everybody else in the lobby to follow her.  They were all young Second Lieutenants in processing to the base.  Laughlin is a pilot/navigator training base, so I guess they all are there for flight training.

After we left Laughlin we headed into Del Rio for Home Depot and lunch.  When we got into Del Rio I missed the turn to stay on US90 that would take us to Home Depot.  That was not a big problem until we got to the US/Mexico border.  Good thing I was able to turn around without crossing into Mexico, we didn't have our passports with us.

We did find Home Depot without any problem after we turned around and got back on the main road.  Sharon has been doing some painting and need a new paint brush to do some trim work with.  After she selected the brush that she wanted we were ready to leave, but it was a little early for lunch, so I had time to just roam around Home Depot.  For those that know me well you know that I love roaming around in Home Depot, Lowe's, Tractor Supply, or any other toy store like that.  At eleven o'clock, Sharon said it was time to go for lunch.  Oh well, all good times have to come to an end.

We had decided to go to Rudy's BBQ for lunch.  Several of the locals in Brackettville had highly recommended it to us.  The first thing the cashier asked us is if we had ever been there before.  When we told her no, she gave samples of some of their BBQ meat.  The smoked turkey and the brisket were very good, so that's what we had.  The food was very good, and a lot of it.  So much food that we had enough left to take home and have for dinner that evening.  Rudy's is a Texas chain, so if you are ever in Texas try and find one, it will be worth your time.

We headed back to Brackettville for a nice relaxing afternoon doing laundry.  The RV park's laundry facility has three washers and three dryers.  That's not many machines when there are probably fifty or more RVs parked in the park.  Sharing the machines with two others, was not too bad, just took about four hours to do two loads of clothes.  It really didn't matter, nothing else to do but rest.

Saturday started with a nice breakfast.  The winter Texans, those that come down south away from the snow and cold up north, sponsor the breakfast to raise funds for their many activities during the winter.  It is also a good time of fellowship with the other RVer's in the park.

After breakfast, Ralph, Virginia, Sharon and I, headed for Eagle Pass, Texas.  Eagle Pass is about 50 miles southeast of Brackettville.  Sharon and I have been to Eagle Pass many times before on our way to Piedras Negras, Mexico, on mission trips there.  We have always driven into Eagle Pass from the northeast, went to Walmart, then into Mexico.  This time we went in from the northwest.  We had never realized that Eagle Pass was such a large town.  We went into the downtown area and were surprised at the many downtown businesses.  We parked and walked around town for awhile.  We went into one little grocery store that we had noticed from the street that had a large party department.  The party department was as nice as going to Party City.  Sharon and Virginia both picked up a few items from the party department.  When we were checking out the owner of the store came up to us and started talking.  He was a very nice gentleman.  His family had been in business in that same location since 1938.  We were going to lunch after we left the store, so we ask this nice gentleman if he could suggest a place.  He suggested two places, one we found out was closed on Saturday afternoons.  But the other, the Charcoal Grill, was open.  His recommendation was a good one.  We really enjoyed the restaurant and the food.  After lunch we head back to Brackettville.

When we got back to the RV, Sharon and I decided to take a golf cart ride on some of the many, trails at Fort Clark Springs.  The trails are for hikers, bicycles, and golf carts only.  We had a nice ride and saw some deer and wild flowers on the ride.  Some of the deer were in one of the residents yard where the home owner was feeding some of the deer from his hand.  They are very pretty deer.

Sharon and I spent the rest of the day again just relaxing.  I know, sounds like we relax a lot.  Well, we do.  But we make up for it Monday through Thursday.

Sunday was another wonderful day at church.  The Methodist church in Brakettville is very blest with the pastor and his wife.  The little church was almost standing room only that morning.  There were many visitors that were traveling through the area, or had just arrived for a long stay.  The people of First Methodist are some of the friendliest I have seen outside of our home church at Fairview.

After church we had cook-out at our RV.  Sharon and I had bought some brats at H.E.B., a Texas grocery chain, that I had wanted to cook.  the package of brats was too large for us, so I thought it would be good for a cook-out.  Ralph, Virginia, Kent, and Martha brought all the fixins to go with the brats.  Turned out to be a very nice afternoon.  We all got a chance to talk and share more of our NOMADS adventures with each other.  Then is was time to get ready for Monday.  REST.

Now back to laying tile.  The women also got back to work on their painting.  The sanctuary is about half done, and looking great.  The women are having a lot of fun climbing up and down ladders, getting up on the scaffolding, and even paint dying their clothes.   The men got right to work on the floor.  We spent a lot of time measuring and laying out the starting point for the tile.  We wanted to make sure that the tile would come out even on the sides and into the back rooms and kitchen.  Once we were satisfied that the layout was good, we started laying tile.  Our time spent laying out the floor for the tiles paid off.  The tile is going down very neatly, that is square, and straight.  We are almost half through with the main part of the floor.  We still have the two small classrooms and the kitchen to do, along with the other half of the main floor.  Laying the whole tiles, 12" X 12" square, is simple once it is started correctly.  The hard part will be when we start cutting in the small pieces along the edges.  But we have plenty of time, so we can be patient.

Like to leave you with some pictures of the past few days.

                                                These are the turkeys in Bill's back yard.

Some more turkeys in Bill's back yard.  Oh, I'm wrong, that's Ralph and Bill watching over the grill as the burgers and dogs cook.

This is the Casa De La Cultua in Del Rio.  Sharon and I stopped by there to see what it was.  It is a culture center primarily used to display art of the community, and for dance and exercise classes.  There was art work from the local schools on display.  Many talented students had their work displayed there.

                    Walking the streets of Eagle Pass.  Virginia on the left, Sharon on the right.

                                       One of the many flowers we saw on our golf cart ride.

                                                Another one of the flowers along the trail.

                                              Axis deer in one of the residents back yard.

                        Martha looking excited about being up on the scaffold to do some painting.

                Sharon painting some trim around one of the stained glass windows in the church.

                       Ralph on the left, and Kent on the right, laying tile in the fellowship hall.

                   The floor in the fellowship hall, half done.  Many boxes of tile yet to be laid.

I probably won't post again until Friday, so you all have a great week, and

Remember, God Loves You

Here it is, the end of our first week on the project at Brackettville First United Methodist Church.  As usual, we have accomplished more than we expected to in the first week. 

Tuesday morning started with breakfast at the church.  The minister and his wife, Joe and Francis, have an early morning breakfast for some of the local high school students, and we were invited.  It was a great way to start the day getting to meet some of the kids in the town.  There are usually about four to ten young people there, today there were eleven, counting the NOMADS. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday we continued with the removal of the old vinyl flooring in the fellowship hall and painting in the church sanctuary.  As you can tell from the pictures below, removing the old flooring was not an easy task.  The old flooring was not glued completely, just at the seams and along the walls.  The seams were glued very well.  The floor had to be completely stripped before we could be a sealer coat down prior to the new tile.  We finally got the floor ready for the sealer by the time we finished on Wednesday.

The women continued to work on painting the sanctuary.  They are using three different shades of a rose pink.  The shading of the different colors looks great.  At times, when some of the light colors are shaded from the sun, it looks darker pink.  This minister's wife, Francis, has been directing the color scheme.  She has also been helping with the painting, mostly by getting up high on the scaffolding to paint.  They are about half way through with the work.  I will have to say that they are doing about a good a job as I have seen.

Today we put the sealer coat on the concrete in the fellowship hall.  It is a very thin milky liquid that we put on using paint rollers.  The new concrete, about 750 square feet, took the most sealer.  The new, pores concrete really soaked it up.  The older concrete, about 1600 square feet, having already been sealed once, and the glue from the old flooring, went much faster and covered easier.

Tonight one of the church members has invited the team over for a hamburger cookout.  It will be a nice way to end the week.  Also, looking forward to a nice weekend of relaxing and doing some chores.

                     Breakfast on Tuesday morning.  That is Virgina in front leading the way.

Here's Bill and Ralph working on removing the old vinyl flooring.  They are using a heat gun and scrapers to get the old material up.  Some of the glue had really hardened.

                                      Martha is painting the dark trim around the door frame.

The ladies have been doing some painting on high.  This is after they had taken down the scaffolding to paint the area above the arch.

                                  This is what the floor looked like on Wednesday morning.

                          Ralph and Kent working hard to remove more of the old flooring.

 

Me trying to figure out where all the old flooring is coming from.  Seems like the more we remove, the more there is to remove.

 

 
All of the old flooring finally removed by Wednesday afternoon.  We have swept, vacuumed, and dust mopped the floor.  Tomorrow we seal it.

 

Thursday morning.  This is me putting on the sealer coat.  This will prevent any dampness from coming up through the concrete.

 

Here's Ralph with a big smile.  He is happy that we have finally gotten the floor ready for tile.  We will start installing the new floor on Monday.

Until the next posting, and

Remember, God Loves You

The team is all here, and we have started our project here at the Brackettville First United Methodist Church.

After a day of catching up on laundry and grocery shopping Saturday, Sharon and I continued with a day of rest.  It is amazing how much your body says to rest after doing some heavy work for three weeks. 

Sunday we attended church at First.  The service started off with some great praise music led by the church Lay leader.  He played an electric key board and led the singing.  After a few minutes the choir came out and joined in.  The music was a great way to start the service, got everybody involved.  We really enjoyed the greet and meet part of the service.  The Lay leader ask everybody to stand and greet each other for a few minutes.  People walked all around the church welcoming visitors and just chatting with friends.  The minister then preached  a very inspiring service on the beginning of Lent.  After the church service, the congregation walked across the street from the church to the fellowship for a pot luck lunch.  The people here in southwest Texas know how to eat.  And, you know me, I had my share of a little bit of all of it.   YUM YUM.

After lunch Sharon and I decide to take a little drive to see some of the country side.  About 22 miles north of Brackettville is the Kickapoo Caverns State Park, that was our destination.  On the way we passed the site where the movie "The Alamo" was made, yes the one with John Wayne.  The site used to be opened to the public, but has been closed for several years.  I understand that the complete movie set in still there.  After we got to Kickapoo State park we started looking for the cavern.  We could locate it.  The park office was closed, so I guess if we have time, and want to go back, we will try again.  We did get to see the Stuart Bat Cave.  We were to early in the season to see the bats.  Starting later in the spring the bats come out in droves.  Would be exciting to see.  When we left the park we decided to continue north instead of heading south right back to Brackettville.  We went north, and we went north.  Did I tell you that we went north.  We saw nothing but some more nothing.  I finally had Sharon get the GPS out to see how far we were from civilization.  We were a long way.  She put in Brackettville, we got directions back.  No, the directions did not take us the way we had been, it took us a shorter way.  I was a nice drive seeing nothing.  Well, actually, we did see some cattle, sheep, goats, horses, and a crew putting in an oil line.  We finally got safely back to the RV after about four hours.

Today we started our project.  After morning devotions, the men and women split to do different jobs.  First the men took scaffolding to the church sanctuary and put it up.  We also took down some speakers off of the wall.  Never knew how heavy speakers were until I was up high on a ladder trying to take them down.  After accomplishing this, the men went back to the fellowship hall where we would be working.  We are removing about 1500 square feet of old sheet flooring and installing 2300 square feet of new flooring.  The old flooring took some work getting up what we worked on today.  I got to use one of my new tools taking up some of the old glue.  Yes, Mel, I use my oscillating saw, it works great.  We also did some patching of rough spots in the new concrete.  The concrete is in very good condition, we just had a few spots to fix.  We also cut out space at the bottom of the door frames to slide the tile under.  Yes, Mel, we used the oscillating saw.

It was a good day.  Looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow.

                          Brackettville First United Methodist Church, Brackettville, Texas

                                          Some of the scenery we saw on our Sunday drive

Some more of the lovely scenery we was on our drive.  Yes, miles, and miles, and miles, of the same thing.  Tried hard to see a real tree.  No did see. 

Here's Sharon doing some painting of the door.  No, she didn't paint the stained glass window.

 
Ralph, the team lead on the project on the left, and one of the church members discussing how we are going to lay out the tile.  You can see the old vinyl floor covering that we have to remove.

More for you all in a couple of days.

And, always remember, God Loves You

It is a beautiful, bright sunny, but cool morning here in Southwest Texas.  Sharon and I arrived in Brackettville at about 1400 yesterday afternoon.  The drive up from Taft only took about five hours.  Mapquest calculated the time at just under four hours, but I don't drive the RV at the speeds that I would in a car.  It takes just a little longer that way.  Steve and Leanne Kess, one of the other NOMADS on the Taft project, were heading for Kerrville, Texas when we left Taft.  They had made that trip several time and knew of a route that we could take to keep from going to San Antonio.  So, we decided to follow them.  I think that without Steve's leading me the way we went, we would have hit a lot of traffic around San Antonio making the trip longer.  Steve, thanks for the fine routing.  Scenery along the back highways is much better than on the interstate too.

We are at the RV park at Fort Clark Springs, which is just across the highway from the town of Brackettville.  Fort Clark was an old army fort that was established in 1852.  It was closed in 1946, just after WWII.  Some of the famous army Generals that served here were General's Patton, and Wainwright.  I will post a little more about Fort Clark during our stay here.  The park is very nice.  There a lot of Winter Texans here.  For those that aren't familiar with Winter Texans, they are northerns that come south in their RV's for the winter.  Many from way up north.  Of course, for us southern boys, anything above the Tennessee-Kentucky state line is way up north.

Ralph and Virginia Wiggers, our team leaders for this project were already here when we arrived.  We are parked next to them.  They took us for a little tour of the large city of Brackettville.  If Ralph hadn't gone down the same streets two or more times, the tour would have taken about five minutes.  It is a typical, small Texas town.  I was impressed with the many old buildings still standing.  Many made from the local stone, sort of a sandy yellow color.  Fortunately there is a nice grocery store since it is at least 35 miles to the closest big town.

This morning I went to a breakfast sponsered by some of the Winter Texans.  For $3.50 they serve you all you can eat pancakes, eggs, sausage, juice, and coffee.  It was pretty good.  But, I did get some pretty good stares when I ask if they had GRITS.  Oh, well, guess I will have to wait on the grits.

With the work at the church, which I believe will be installed a new tile floor in the fellowship hall, there are many activities planned for us.  The church has some plans, and the RV park has many activities to participate in.

Just a final note on our Taft project.  On Thursday, Valentines day, the local Methodist churchs sponsored a luncheon for the senior citizens in the district.  It was very nicley done.  We had a great lunch, I had a chicken dinner, some others pork.  There were a couple a men who sang song's from Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin fame.  They also did a Blues Brothers act.  They were very good.  Then there were a couple of dancers that danced some ball room dances for us.  One of the dancers was a very good looking young girl.  You would think that they would know better to have a dancer like that in front of us old men.  Heart attack time.  Oh well.

After lunch we went back to the house we had been working on and finished the clean up which included loading the left over building supplies onto a trailer to be taken back to Lowe's.  To close out the project we had a house blessting service.  The pastor of the church, John Saint, did a very nice job of the blessing service.  Sue and Brian Dixon were so happy with all that was done, and enjoyed the house blessing.  The NOMADS gave them a new bible for their partially new home.  We will miss the whole gang at the Taft First United Methodist Church, and Sue and Brian.  I hope we can get back there some other project.

Well, I guess I made a mountain out of this mole hill story.  Hope that all are doing well.

Remember, God Loves You

Well, we have done it.  Today we finished the work on the house.  We started the day out in cool, damp weather, but by mid-afternoon we were in warm, sunny weather.  The temperature got up to 75 by the time we finished today.  The project went much better than we had expected when we started almost three weeks ago.  You can see by the pictures below what a big improvement was made from the beginning to the end.  I will give a little explanation with each picture.

This is how the house looked when we started.  Another NOMADS team had worked on part of the house for the three weeks prior to our arrival.  They got things started by completing the north side of the house, we picked up from there.

This is where we were by noon on the first day.  We were learning what to do on this part.  We picked up the idea pretty quick.

This is where we were on Tuesday morning, day 10.  We tore out the siding on the back and finished the siding on the left side of the porch.

By lunch on day 9.

This part of the back porch we are going to cover with hardi board siding and paint.

End of day 10.  We have attached hardi board panels to the right side of the back porch and painted the back wall.

The right side of back porch and the back side that was painted.  You can see some on the unfinished hardi board, it is the parts that look yellow.

Here's Leanne caulking along the spaces in the trim work.  You can tell by the way she is all bundled up that the morning was cool.

Art and Sue are working on the back porch windows.  Sue is doing touch up painting on the trim.  Art is installing hardi board trim around the windows. 

Steve is up on the back porch roof paint the eaves.  He painted the overhang white, then painted the wall part brown.  Glad he enjoyed doing that part, I am not the best at working on roof tops.

Here everybody is doing their job.  Everybody had something to do to help finish up the final steps in the completion of the house.  Some were doing trim, some were painting, some were caulking, and some were just cleaning up.

                                                       The completed back porch.

Behind the green door is the hot water heater. Painted it green to match the front door.

                                                            The completed house.

The team with Brian and Sue Dixon, the home owners.  From left to right:  Brian Dixon, Art, Sue, Sharon, Steve, Sue Dixon, and Leanne.  I am behind the camera.  We were all so excited about the completed job.  The house went through a complete transformation.

Along with the getting to know Brian and Sue Dixon, we got to know a lot of the members of Taft First United Methodist Church.  The minister, and the entire congregation made us feel very welcome.  Many of the members provided snacks for us on the job site.  We enjoyed home made cookies, blueberry muffins, fruit, trail mix, and drinks such as juices and plenty of bottled water.  We also got to participate in the church services.  Along with the Sunday morning services, we attended a prayer and healing service, a Shrove Tuesday service, and Ash Wednesday service.

Tomorrow, the very last day of the project, we will start our day a little later than normal.  Several area churches are giving the community seniors a special Valentine's day luncheon.  Since we are all seniors, we have been invited as the churches guest.  Looking forward to that, we have already seen the menu.  We will then go back to the house to to final clean up.  We have a lot of building materials that will be returned to Lowe's.  We will load it all on a trailer that belongs to one of the men of the church.

On Friday, Sharon and I are off to Brackettville, Texas, for another project.  We start that one on Sunday with a get together with the team leaders and other team members.  Looking forward to the next step.  Always a very rewarding time no matter what the work entails. 

I start the blog again from Brackettville.

Remember, God Loves You

 

Yesterday, Sunday, was a day of relaxation.  The team all went to the early service at church.  The 0900 service is the Informal Service, and is held in the chapel instead of the main sanctuary.  We sang several praise songs that were accompanied with a bass violin, piano, guitar, and drums.  Really livened up the service.  After a great sermon by the minister, we were dismissed.  The rest of the day was just spent sitting around taking it easy watching some TV.

Today we finished what we had left from Thursday on the house.  We also started a new section and will be finishing that up tomorrow.  We have plenty of work left, but will finish up on schedule.

                            We installed the house numbers today, a sign we are almost finished.

                                                              The finished south side.

We tore off the old siding on this section today.  All we have to do on this wall is install the hardi board.  The attachment on the side houses the hot water heater.  We will paint it.

This section is next.  We are going to remove the old siding and replace that with new.

Have a nice day, and

Remember, God Loves You

MARDI GRAS! in south Texas.

Today the team went to North Padre Island for the Island's fourth annual mardi gras.  Prior to going to the Mardi Gras, we went to the Padre Island National Seashore.  Art and Sue plan on visiting there after we finish our NOMADS project.  The park has a program to help rescue sea turtles.  The park rangers watch for the turtles to come ashore to lay their eggs.  When they do the rangers dig up the eggs and take them to a lab to let them hatch.  Once they hatch they return them to the ocean.  The rangers announce when the release will be, and people come to wish the baby turtles well on the way.  We then went down the road to the Mardi Gras.  The Barefoot Mardi Gras was really different.  The parade was done on the beach.  We drove onto the beach and parked along the route of the parade, that was really neat.  Prior to the parade there were vendors selling t-shirts with the event logo on it and a man selling tomales.  Sharon bought a t-shirt, I bought some tomales.  The tomales were very good.  I would have to guess that there were several hundred cars parked on the beach, and many more on golf carts and bikes.  The parade started at about 1300 led off by a U. S. Marine Corps color guard.  Then the many floats and vehicles gave us a good show of fun and ingenuity.  The parade lasted about an hour.  Art and Sue suggested a pizza buffet they had been to on a previous trip to the area,  so off we went for pizza.  The salad bar and pizza was very good.  There was a good selection of pizza, from one with pineapple to the good old pepperoni and sausage.  After lunch we headed back to Taft.  On the way we crossed part of the bay in Port Aransas on a ferry.  It was a short trip, but enjoyable.

Spent the rest of the day just resting.  We work as hard at having fun as we do on the project.  It is nice to be with good friends and enjoying each other's company.

                                                   U. S. Marine Corps Color Guard.

                  The lead group announcing the North Padre Island Barefoot Mardi Gras 2013.

                                                  The Royal Court of the Mardi Gras.

                        Like to hear what those horns sound like when he tries to honk them.

                                              One of the many floats powered by golf carts.

                                                     This was Steve's favorite float.

                                     This was my favorite float.  Yes, and I will stick to that.

                                                               Sharon liked this one. 

                                           We all like this one.  That is Thor hanging around.

The group showing off their collection of beads.  Steve didn't have enough so he decided to take some of Leanne's.

             Even the dog's were getting into the act.  Show's that you can train an old dog new tricks.

                                                                   The car ferry.

As you can see we had a lot of fun.

Looking forward to going to church in the morning and resting up before starting back to work on Monday.

Remember, God Loves You