We are home!

After 12886 miles, 11 states and almost 8 months on the road, we arrived home yesterday at 10:45am. 

This is what we found in our front yard when we arrived home.

These were put up by our friends at our Church and our Bible study. 

What a nice welcome. 

First Sower project - Camp Cho-Yeh - Livingston Texas - Part 2

One of the weekends that we were here was family open house. Families could come and see the facilities that their kids would be using during their week of camp. Of course Sue and I had to check out the facilities.

Below is the climbing wall.

Sue & I throwing tomahawks into wood stumps. 

I am practicing with a wrist rocket. 

I am trying the bouncer. I had a blast on this thing. Why didn't they have these things when I was growing up?

While we working our volunteer project, the camp let us eat in the dining hall when ever they served meals. During the 2nd week they had a special luncheon they arranged as a thank you to us and Dale and Cheryl. The head camp director came over and personally thanked us for volunteering. They were all so very appreciative that we were there.

Delicious meal! 

It was hard work and we were sore each evening and it really stretched us out of our comfort zone but it was a blessing to be able to serve at this camp.

We definitely look forward to our next Sower project. The fellowship with other Sowers working the project, and the camp staff was also a real blessing. 

Here is the area they set aside for volunteers that come with their RV's to park. Full hookups were provided. 

The only negative besides the high humidity was these pesky caterpillars that were all over the place. Every time you put down a tool or a board they crawled all over it or tried crawling up your legs. They were very annoying. 

Next time we pick a project to serve, we will not pick south Texas after March.

First Sower project - Camp Cho-Yeh - Livingston Texas - Part 1

For April we chose to do our first Sower project at Camp Cho-Yeh in Livingston Texas.

Below, Sue and I with another Sower couple, our friends (Dale and Cheryl Curtis), that we met in 2013 at our first Escapade in Gillette Wyoming. 

From their Web site: Cho-Yeh is one of the best Christian summer camps and retreat centers near Houston, Texas.  Our Christian summer camp is loaded with activities like archery, paintball, horseback, riflery, blobbing, wakeboarding, tomahawk throwing and more!

Their mission statement: Camp Cho-Yeh's mission is to be a place where Jesus Christ transforms lives through meaningful relationships and outdoor adventures.  Here at Cho-Yeh, we believe that Christian camps are uniquely capable of impacting lives for Christ. 

They need volunteers to assist with many projects. Sue and Cheryl worked in the camp office with filing. She purged old camper applications among many other updates to their filing system.

The first week I worked with a camp staff member to demo (remove moldy dry wall) a guest room and to complete the remodeling process in another guest room.

There was a lot of black mold on the wall paper and drywall. 

Below, I am putting new ceiling lights. 

The 2nd and 3rd week Dale and I finished up the remodeling of 4 camp shower houses.

Installing new cubbies for the campers towels and clothes.

New drain line for guest washer and dryer needed to be attached to existing sewer line buried here.

Putting up Hardie Hardiebacker cement board to trim shower house window air conditioner. 

The last week, Sue and Cheryl worked on painting the one of the new directors living quarters.

Dale and I always made sure we did not miss break time which consisted of sitting on the front porch of a nearby cabin with a cool drink.

Shrimp Boat Manny's and a trip to the Big Thicket National Preserve

Being in southern Texas I had the desire to taste some Cajun cooking. We had heard about Shrimpboat Manny's that is in Livingston Texas near where we are staying for the month of April.

Dale, Cheryl and Sue and I headed over here for a Cajun cuisine dinner. We ordered a pound of craw-fish for an appetizer for of us to try.

They are heavily seasoned with a hot Cajun sauce. We only ate the tails and it is a lot of work to just get the meat of the tail out and then you end up with less meat to eat than you would get from a large shrimp. Some people suck the juice out of the shell body but none of us were interested in doing that. there also a small bit of meat in the small claw but we did not try that.

For dinner I had a nice sampler that had hush puppies, jambalaya, crawfish etouffee and red beans with rice. It was very good.

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The next day we headed to the Big Thicket National Preserve about a 60 minute drive from Livingston. This area is where the glaciers from the north pushed northern plants into the south and where the ecosystems collide and merge.

From the website: "This national preserve protects the incredible diversity of life found where multiple habitats converge in southeast Texas."

There are a lot of nice hiking trails and bike trails.

We all wished we had brought our bikes with us on this day trip. 

The first trail we walked on the mosquitoes were so heavy and we had applied bug spray. Someone had warned us in the parking lot they were bad and they were correct. 

Big Thicket has four insect-eating plants. These are pitcher plants, sundews, bladderworts, and butterworts.

Below is a couple of the hundreds of pitcher plants we saw. 

I wish I could bring some of these plants back to Illinois. 

We had a great afternoon seeing all this diversity.