Shelves Up

Didn't do much on Saturday, other than run some errands in Crossville.

Attended another great Sunday morning service at Cumberland Fellowship church in Crossville. Kathy & I have been attending there for around 15 years, whenever we are in Crossville. It seems like every time I am there they have grown a little more, which is great.

In the afternoon I put up the last 2 shelves. We had a light rain during part of the afternoon that didn't do much other than wet the ground. I didn't carry much out to put on the shelves because I didn't want to have to clean up the cabin floor after tracking in dirt from numerous trips.

Potter's Hardware is supposed to deliver a load of sheet rock and 2x4's tomorrow. I need to get the rest of the stuff moved from the cabin to the shed so that Marvin and I an start hanging the remaining drywall starting Tuesday.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Long Time Between Posts

My life must be boring to go this long with nothing to post, or, perhaps more likely, I've just been to lazy to do a post.

Lydia, Kathy & I had just arrived in Tennessee when I did my last post. Got to see the "giant Idaho potato" on our trip in to get groceries.

We went to Fall Creek Falls State Park. Kathy is spinning Lydia.

 

Dean bought some sparklers and was giving Lydia a lesson in sparkler use.

They were smokey!

But she enjoyed them.

She also had a great time spending many hours taking advantage of Uncle Tom & Aunt Mary Lou's lake.
Back to Missouri Thursday, July 6th. Traveling is tough.

We stopped for lunch at a McDonalds that was being renovated. Lydia was the first one to eat on one of the new tables. The manager gave Lydia & Kathy free ice cream cones.

It has been HOT in Missouri! Frequent heat index temperatures 100-107 degrees. Kathy had the idea to take the kids to the park in California, MO early one AM, before it got beastly hot. They had a good time.

I had an appointment with an orthopedic guy while in Missouri to talk about the torn ligament in my shoulder. ( Its been torn since 2009 but its getting worse) It was at the point where I couldn't even pick up Nolan without significant pain in my right shoulder, but I could split wood without pain. Figure that one out. I went because I wanted to know if I was making the repair more difficult, or impossible, if I just continued to let it go. I found out that not having it repaired now was not going to make the repair more difficult. My options were surgery and 12 weeks of time before I could pick up 50#, or try a cortisone shot. I opted for the cortisone shot. It has helped, only 1 Ibuprofen since last Tuesday.
I am back in Tennessee. Drove here Wednesday, July 19th. Thursday I spent 45 minutes in the AM and another 45 minutes in the PM weedeating. I still have another hours worth I'd like to get done before heading back to Missouri.
Friday AM I went to town in the AM. Had breakfast at the Triple D Diner, one of my 3 favorite places to eat breakfast (all in Crossville) and ran some errands. Then came home and put up the first shelf in my shed.
Before

 After

Looking at the photos makes it embarrassing that I spent at least 3 hours out there getting cutting and installing the shelf. I was soaking wet with sweat when I finally came in about 6 PM. PTL that the heat index here was only in the mid 90's, it was 107 in Centertown.

Kathy, Kelsey, Lydia & Nolan headed to Indianapolis yesterday afternoon. They stopped along the way and spent the night in a motel with a pool. They are now in Indy to visit Doug & Anthony. This is the week that Cindy's church goes to Indy, from Edon, OH, and does work at the Little Sisters of the Poor. Kathy plans on working there some.

The blog is now officially up to date.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Arrved Safely in Tennessee

We (Kathy, Lydia & I) arrived at the cabin about !0:30 last night, a 13.5 hour trip, normally 11 hours. Traffic wasnt bad until we got to wthin 40 miles of Nashville. Speeds were 5-40 mph during that entire 40 miles. Traffic wasnt any worse than normal on the east side of  Nashville until we were almost to Monteray TN. It slowed down to a crawl for a couple of miles and then stopped completely. We didnt move for 90 minutes while 1 emergency vehicle after another zoomed by us on the shoulder. 6-8 cop cars, 8-10 unmarked pickups with flashing lights (volunteer firemen?), an ambulance, a fire truck & 3 wreckers. We saw a helicopter circle the road ahead of us and it appeared to land, probably to evacuate the critically injured. Once we got moving again we saw the accident site. It was less than a mile from us but was over a hill and around a curve. I was driving then (i only drove about 40 miles of the 578 mile trip), Kathy saw 1 badly damaged car that probably went over some guardrail and rolled numerous times.

Not a Lot Happening

The weather has been hot here. Temps in the high 80's and low 90's. So far no days with a heat index of over 100 but I think we did have one with a head index of 94. It's 5PM here and the actual temp is 91. No more 90+ days in the 10 day forecast so that will be nice.

Kathy watched Nolan a couple of days last week and both Mon & Tue this week. Lydia gets off the bus at the top of our driveway at 4:30PM. Hadly, the neighbor girl who is in Lydia's class and who lives in one of the houses where our driveway intersects the road, came down here for an hour or so last night. Lydia is up playing at Hadly's this evening. Andy normally picks her/them up 5:30-6:00. Tonight she is staying until 8:00PM.

Nolan in Kathy's chair "reading"

We had lightening strike close to the house Saturday night. It fired the power supply on our modem and damaged the modem. I had a good power supply left from the last modem that went bad. I get it back up and running but the speeds were HORRIBLE, as low as 0.3Mbps. I finally contacted CenturyLink yesterday and they had a guy out here this morning. He replaced the modem and now we are up to over 7 Mbps. (just checked & got 7.26 down & 0.77 up)

Friday I helped Larry Farley build some more concrete forms for about 1.5 hours in the AM and right after lunch I went back over for another hour but the foundation wall was almost finished. Monday I went back and worked a couple of hours stripping some of the forms. 2 hours in this heat is all this fat old guy can handle 😀. Yesterday I helped a couple, Billy & Maggie, move. Billy is a firefighter and he had lots of guys (big strong guys) helping him. I went over with my truck and trailer, 1 of 5 trucks and trailers, and helped but didn't need to lift anything heavy.

Sunday I went to Freshwater Church in Jefferson City again. I have a meeting with the Pastor set up for next Wed. I've got some questions to ask before I change my membership. Of the 5 churches I have tried it is the closest to one that I think I might want to attend. I would strongly prefer a non-denominational, house church, but I can't find one in this area. Freshwater is a Baptist church and I'm concerned that it is to top heavy. I want to attend a place where the donations go to missions, not maintenance of the facility & management.

This morning was our Men's Fellowship & Bible Study. Only had 4 guys today but we had a good time. Gary, one of the four, was just back from a several week long trip out west. Sounded like he and his wife had a great time. I probably should have mowed the lawn this afternoon but I put it off until tomorrow.

Time to go. Lydia just arrived from Hadley's and Kathy will be heading to a 6PM Bible study.

God is good, may He bless you and yours

Back in Missouri

The overnight sail from Ketchikan to Vancouver was uneventful. Sunday's trip from Vancouver to Kansas City made for a long, boring day.
We had to put our bags out, the bags we did not want to carry with us on the airplane, before we went to bed Saturday night. They were picked up and taken to the airport. We picked them up at the Vancouver airport Sunday morning.
We had breakfast about 6:15 AM, while still on board, made a final stop back in our room to pick up our carry-on luggage and then met in one of the large rooms on the ship about 7:10. We received vouchers for the bus ride to the airport and were moved out onto the pier in bus load size groups. I think there were 6 busloads of us going to the airport that morning. The bus ride to the airport took about an hour. By the time we collected our luggage that had been delivered to the airport it was nearly 10AM. Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 2:10PM and we found out we could not check-in for the flight until 11:10AM, so we sat in the main terminal area for an hour.
While on the bus ride to the airport the bus driver talked non-stop. A couple of points he made were interesting. In the 1980's the population of Vancouver was around 150,000, today it is over 600,000. We saw MANY condos being constructed. The driver told us that every one of the high rise condo units was sold before construction was even started. In some places, not the condos we saw under construction, people are buying 125 square foot units to live in, a 10'x12' room. (It seems like I have told you this before. If I am repeating myself I apologize.) Many of the condos are being purchased by people from China. They are used for vacation homes and sit empty most of the year. Gasoline in Vancouver is almost $7/gallon, a Big Mac meal is about $11, a gallon of milk is about $13, a pound of local cheese costs $15, a dozen eggs cost about $6. (Just across the border in Bellingham, Washington a gallon of gas costs $2.50, a gallon of milk costs less than $3) He said the prices are this high because of taxes. His family lives about a 5 minute drive from the US border. Most weekends they drive across the border to fill up their car, and a couple of gas cans he carries in the trunk. They also stock up on certain groceries. I would have liked to ask him about his views of socialism and all the "free stuff' provided by the Canadian government. He never complained about all the "free stuff", just about the high taxes. I guess he liked the free stuff as long as someone else was paying for it, just like in America. He bought stuff in the US to avoid paying the high taxes.
When we did start the airport check-in procedure it seemed like we stood in lines a long time but it only took an hour to check-in for our flight, check our baggage, go through Canadian security and go through American Homeland Security screening. Once through that we found our flight was delayed for a half hour.
The landing in San Francisco was BUMPY. I think we bounced twice before finally settling on the ground. I guess it was very windy. We landed over 40 minutes late but that was no problem because our flight to Kansas City was also late. (It is interesting that both our Alaska Airline flights to Fairbanks were on time. We flew United from Vancouver to San Francisco to Kansas City, and both flights were late.) It was after midnight, local time, when we finally got off the plane in Kansas City, about 15 hours of travel time.
Kathy had made hotel reservations for us in Kansas City, before we left Centertown. We were able to leave our van in their parking lot while we were on vacation, at no cost, and they provided us with free shuttle service to and from the airport. Airport parking fess would have cost us more than the cost of the room. Monday we (Kathy) drove back to Centertown.
Nolan was here Tuesday, Wednesday & this morning. Lydia gets off the school bus at the top of the our driveway. She gets off the bus around 4:30. We have been driving up to and waiting for her, the temperatures are in the 90's every day. It HOT, especially after 2 weeks with highs in the 60's.
I mowed the lawn Tuesday. It wasn't to bad considering it had not been mowed for 2 weeks.

After school snack time.

 Nolan being a ham.

Kathy is up picking up Lydia right now. Lydia is "sleeping over" tonight.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Photos

 There are 2 ready mix trucks headed somewhere on this barge.
Mule train.

One of the mule train stops. The ship is docked back downstream from the river.

 The fill required to make this place to store cargo containers all came from the spoil at an operating gold mine in the area. It was a LOT of fill.

 ship repair facilities in ketcikan.

 cruise ships parked. Our ship had to wait for one to leave before it coul get to the pier.

 Boarding a life boat (tender) to get to shore.

Ketchikan gets an average of 12.5 FEET of rain a year.

From Ketchikan

Thur - Juneau
The ship docked in Juneau at 8:30, right on time. The Captain, and crew, made up almost 2 hours during the journey here from Haines during the night. We were 2 hours late leaving Haines because a guy on the ship was sick enough that they had an air ambulance come from Juneau to get him. A Doctor in Haines was called to look at the guy late Wed PM. He said the air ambulance was needed, as opposed to taking him to Juneau on a ferry. (I think the ferry ride is 3 or 4 hours. The local volunteer fire department EMS people picked up the air ambulance crew, brought them to the ship, helped get the guy off the ship and into the ambulance and took them back to the Haines airport. I hope the guy had insurance for the air ambulance. Earlier Wed the driver who took us 444 wheeling told about a friend of his who had to use the service.The bill was $35,000.
We were off the ship and waiting for our bus when it arrived. We first went to the Mendenhall Glacier. We saw it when we were here before. It is impressive to see. It has been receding since 1750, 267 years, but it seems that the global warming people have their knickers in a twist because they think man is responsible for causing it to recede quicker in the past 50 or so years.
Then we went down to the waterfront and boarded a boat to go whale watching. We spotted the first whale before we were hardly away from the dock. We were on the boat about 3 hours and saw several more whales. We slowed or stopped when they were spotted so we typically got to see each one multiple times. None of them jumped up in the air. They just came up got a couple of breaths and went back down for 7-15 minutes before coming up again. We stopped at an island lodge for about an hour for a "salmon bake" The food was quite good.
After returing to the area where the ship was docked we walked around Juneau for an hour or so. Even though it is the state capitol it would be at the bottom of our list for places to visit in Alaska. It is just to commercialized. think about being in a large VERY EXPENSVIVE flea market or craft store; that is Juneau. Jewelery place after jewlery place, fur place after fur place, diamond store after diamond store, and on and on. The scenery is great once you get away from the downtown, but to get away you have to have a boat or an airplane. There are no roads in and out of Juneau.
We left the dock at 5:30PM and are headed to Ketchikan. We will dock there tomorrow morning. We don't have any excursions planned while there. We intend to just walk around and enjoy the sites.
Friday - The overnight trip to Ketcikan was smooth. We arrived at 11AM, right on schedule. Ketchikan is much larger than I rembered. Yesterday's information packet said that we those who wanted to go ashore before 2PM would do so via a tender. We anchored in the harbor because all the 5 berths were full of cruise ships. The crew dropped at least 6 lifeboats into the water and those were the tenders. We had lunch on board and then rode to the dock area in one of the life boats (tenders). They are enclosed, which was good because it is in the high 40's and drizzling. We were back aboard by about 2:30, not much to see in Ketchikan if you don't want to buy souveniers made in China or diamonds. One block had 7 diamond stores in a row. Another block had on one side and 2 on the other side. The only explanation I can think of is that there are a lot of foriegners on the cruise ships (and there are, 90 Australians in just one group on our ship. the ones we have talked to are nice folks). These people may be from socialist nations, like those in Europe, that have huge Value Added Taxes (25%) included in the purchase of amost every items. If these folks buy jewelery while on vacation they may try and get away with not telling the customs people in their home countries. If they don't get caught, and they probably would not, they get away without paying the 25% VAT tax.
We have enjoyed our Alaska vacation and would like to see more of Alaska some time in the, but realistically that probably won't happen. If we did come back we agree that it would not be on another cruise. Even with the week long tour prior to getting on the didn't allow us the flexibility we like. We would like to spend more time around Anchorage & Fairbanks. We would probably fly into one of them and rent a vehicle.
AAARRGHHH!! My keyboard or tablet just went nuts and erased a lot of what I just typed, so I had to retype it.
I will see if I can get this posted now, while we are in port and have cell service. I might even attempt to post some more photos.
God is good, may He bless you and yours.