Sunday, November 2
The Ebenezer Baptist Church was having work done on their building this week, so they combined their two services into one large celebration service at the Georgia Baptist Conference Center auditorium this morning, enabling the volunteers to attend church almost without leaving home. Many of us met at the auditorium at 10:30 for a worship and praise service that also honored Pastor Andy Childs and his family on the fifth anniversary of their call to the church.
There was a large banquet at the dining hall following the service, but Barbara and I elected to go back up the hill to Big V for a simple, quiet meal. Most of our meals here have been with large groups, and we were enjoying having a nice quiet weekend and hanging out with a few of our friends.
Sometime in the middle of the afternoon Bob and Nell came by and invited us to ride up to Toccoa Falls with them. They have been wonderful about showing us some of the most beautiful places in northern Georgia, and this would be someplace that wouldn’t require a lot of travel.
Nestled in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, 95 miles north of Atlanta, Georgia, and 65 miles south of Greenville, South Carolina, is Toccoa Falls. It is located on the campus of Toccoa Falls College, a four-year, fully accredited Christian college.A meandering stream flows through the lower part of the 1,000-acre, wooded campus from the base of the 186 foot high waterfall. This spectacular waterfall, higher than Niagara Falls, is a popular tourist attraction and campus retreat. The short 100-yard path to the falls is handicap accessible.
Toccoa Falls is the site of an earthen dam that broke on November 6, 1977. Thirty-nine people lost their lives during that tragic event and an additional sixty six were injured; all of the casualties were people associated in one way or another with the college.
A worldwide outpouring of money and volunteer support led to a massive effort to rebuild and repair the facilities on the campus.
After taking a tour of the falls (and more than a few photographs), we made the obligatory trip to Wal-Mart for a little Sunday afternoon shop-looking before returning to the campgrounds.
When we got to Big V, several of us decided to go back to town to have our evening meal at Captain D’s Seafood Restaurant. John and Lynn, Bob and Nell, and Barbara and I, along with newcomers John and Margaret met up for a delightful evening of good seafood and great conversation.
Later, we had another campfire up behind Big V with the eight of us continuing our talking (along with drinking coffee and eating slices of pie), singing, and getting better acquainted with John and Margaret, who will be with us for the final week at GBCC.
Monday, November 3With the seniors’ fall conferences completed, things started to slow down a bit this morning. We had a new group come in for several days, an annual conference for the Georgia Substance-Abuse Counselors. But, there were only a little over a hundred of them, so our general dining hall duties were greatly diminished. Several of the ladies were kept busy setting up for breaks by the group, and the laundry crew had the same old, same old, but most of the men were able to get on to some other tasks.
Bob, John M., and I were assigned to assist in the dishwashing room immediately following the morning and noon meals, but with the smaller crowd, it didn’t take long to knock out the dishes and pots and pans that were used…then, it was on to other things.
Our main job for the week was to do some painting around the place. There are two steel-framed covered walkways leading from the King Hotel lobby to the chapel. I don’t know how long it had been since they were last painted, but they were both showing signs of aging, with badly rusted places and faded, peeling paint.While a couple of the guys started spray painting the tile ceilings of the walkways, the rest of us grabbed steel brushes, scrapers, and sandpaper and went to work chipping away the old paint and brushing out as much of the rust as we could. This task wasn’t made any easier by the fact that we had to stand on ladders and do contortionist acts to get to many of the bad spots.
I’ve never been a painting fanatic, and the experience today just reinforced my belief that preparation and painting are a special calling. But, by the end of the day, we had the steel scraped, brushed, and primed, and the ceilings had two coats of white paint sprayed on them. We all had looked at the unfinished galvanized trim that was mounted on the inside facing of the walkway roofs and decided that it should also be painted the same beige color as the steel. After scraping steel, my job was to get a vinegar solution and rub down the galvanized trim in order to remove the invisible corrosion and leave a clean base so the paint would adhere.
On the face of it (so to speak), it was a fairly simple job…climb up on the ladder, spray on the solution, and wipe it down as far as I could reach. Then, climb down, move the ladder, and start over again on a new section. Everything went well until I got to an area that was bordered by some very mature holly bushes. Now, I don’t know who wrote all those Christmas songs about the beautiful holly, but I will guarantee you that whoever did never came down off a ladder and backed full-force into a holly bush! I’ve had bad experiences with cactus in the past, but those couldn’t begin to compare with working around these beautiful, but body-lacerating plants.
But, I finally got the job done and someone came behind me to roll on the base layer of paint, and soon we were done for the afternoon…not a bad days’ work, and one made all the more enjoyable by the camaraderie of a great bunch of guys with whom I was working.
Barbara: My assignment this week was to help the new dessert chef Heidi in any way she needed me. This was a real treat…pun intended…since Heidi allowed me to really help and was very patient with my endeavors. Not only did I learn several new dessert recipes, but I also learned how to cut a pineapple properly, use the industrial mixer, and arrange desserts in an eye-pleasing manner (which has never been all that important to me…my philosophy was always…here it is…now eat it!)Since I was in the kitchen, I also was able to help out sorting silverware, putting clean dishes and pans up, set up the dessert tables for the meals, and just about anything else that came along!
Jim: Tonight…dinner in the dining hall (we didn’t even have to wash dishes after this one) devotional time with the volunteers, and then a quiet night in Big V.
Tuesday, November 4: Election DayToday was pretty much business as usual. The volunteers met at 7:20 for our morning devotional and then walked over to the dining hall for another great breakfast.
Bob, John M., and I stuck around after breakfast to help with the dishwashing and then headed back outside to join the paint crew. It was a gorgeous morning…perfect for a lot of things, but since our job was to paint, that’s what we did.
Barbara: My day, like Jim’s set out as a pretty much normal one. Heidi had things so organized that I was able to slip out once again to track down the other volunteers and capture their activities on digital (can’t say film anymore!)
However, one event that morning really sent my mind in overload. Let me explain.
As Heidi and I were working on one of the desserts, she took a huge pan of
whipped topping out of the fridge. About the same time, Eric, the head chef came by and gave the topping a couple of huge turns using a large spatula. Since I was busily placing cookie bars on a platter, I paid little attention to him until he said, “Barbara, I’m wondering if this stuff is still good.” I looked up and found the spatula very close to my nose and before I could do anything, I had a nice size glob on my nose! I swore revenge right then and there! However, the best my feeble mind could come up with on such short notice is shown in the photo on the right…puny revenge at best! Surely I can do better later!Jim: Since everything had been cleaned and primed yesterday, we only had to put on one coat of paint on everything, but much of the work was done in the crevices and corners of the ceiling area and was quite time-consuming. In fact, we worked all morning with little, if any, break, and still didn’t have a couple of small sections completed. But, lunch time is not negotiable, so we broke at noon to go back to the lunch room for our meal.
Since the noon meals this week were being served in the hotel lobby, the volunteers were given a room close to the serving room. That worked out fine for us, but involved moving all dishes back to the dining hall when everyone was finished, and the conference attendees took considerably more time to finish their meals than we did. As a result, our dishwashing crew didn’t get finished until after 2:30. We were pretty well whipped by that time, so Barbara and I went back up to Big V for some rest while someone else finished off the last of the painting on the walkways.
Tonight I went through the usual dishwashing routine after supper, but since Barbara was still feeling poorly, she stayed put for the evening. One of the conferences had scheduled a late night dinner so most of the women were busy with that which meant that our normal evening devotional and prayer meeting was called off. Therefore, when I finished up with the washing, I headed back to Big V for the night.
Wednesday, November 5
It was our turn to do the morning devotional, so we got to the room a little earlier than usual to prepare. We based it on an email that Margarita and Maria sent to us a while back, and was entitled, “The ‘U’ in Jesus.” As I read a short poem, Barbara did her Vanna impersonation and held up sheets of paper with key words on them. Afterwards, we had a prayer service raising up our newly elected leaders and asking for God’s wisdom and guidance as they assume their new duties.
The rest of the day was devoted to our regular assignments. After breakfast I helped with the dishwashing crew and then we went out to join the paint crew again. While the volunteers were working on the covered walkways the past two days, conference center maintenance employees were power-washing a large concrete retaining wall across from the auditorium. Our first job today was to put a couple of coats of beige paint on the wall.
With several of us attached to the business ends of rollers and brushes, we whittled a one-day job down to a little more than half a day. In fact, when we had finished the first and second coats of paint on the wall, Bob and I left the rest of the crew to paint stair railings and facings while we moved over to the King Hotel to start painting the outside staircases leading from the parking area to the second floor.
We took a short break for lunch and dishwashing and then returned to the painting job where we worked until mid-afternoon before stopping to clean up.
Barbara: What a successful day I had! Not only did I get to help Heidi but I found a perfect way to exact my revenge on Eric…just can’t believe though that I didn’t photo op the moment! It began like this…Eric had gone into his office and closed the door; so I grabbed some aprons, a cart, and began building a barrier for him to have to cross to get out of his office. This was a rather dicey feat since he has a huge glass window connecting the office to the kitchen. However, with persistence and adaptability, I finally concluded my handy work. Now to patiently wait for him to come out!
Oops! What I didn’t know was that he had an employee in the office with him…then I worried if this might have been the wrong time to be playing pranks! However, by the time I had that knowledge, it was too late…his door opened and I heard him laugh loudly and ask, “What! Dustin, did you do this?” (Relief flowed through me! He wasn’t angry!) Next he blamed Andy as I gloated that he had no clue…didn’t even suspect me.
As he slowly came by the dessert work table, it finally hit him. I was the culprit! He was in awe of the fact that he never saw me come by his window so he never suspected me! Revenge is sweet!
And…just for the record…I really did a lot of work today, but tricking Eric was my ultimate achievement and I forgot to document it with the camera! Alas, that’s how it goes…I remember to photograph others and forget my crowning moments. Weep, weep.
Jim: Again, it was a quiet, short evening as we retired to Big V after dinner and the evening devotional.Thursday, November 6
Happy birthday to brother-in-law Cal in Roswell!
We went down the hill this morning facing our last full day of work at the conference center. Our plans were to get as much done as possible today, spend the afternoon packing Big V for travel, and moving her down to the main parking lot so we could hook up the trailer and be ready to leave tomorrow morning.
As plans go, those plans worked well. After the morning devotional and breakfast, we all went about our regular duties. It didn’t take long to knock out the dishwashing, and soon Bob and I were back at work painting outdoor staircases. It seemed like a fairly easy job at first, but it entailed a lot of climbing, bending, and twisting to get to all the spots that needed painting.
We completed two and a half sets of stairs before lunch, and then returned to the job to finish afterwards. Luckily, we finished the paint and the painting at exactly the same time, but only because David brought over a little paint that was left in his can from the place where he had been painting…just enough to take care of our last step.
Barbara: Actually this day was a bittersweet one since we knew it was time to move on, but we had such a good, tiring, and enlightening experience that part of us hated to leave. The friends we have made and the memories they have given us are so very special. Once again, we found that the quantity of time means relatively nothing compared to the quality of time one has with people.
One noteworthy occurance happened later in the day when Nell went to the restroom in the main lobby of the King Hotel while we were waiting for supper. She came rushing out and grabbed Bob…seems as though the snake in the photo on the top left had taken up residence in the restroom…And…go figure, Nell wanted it removed!
Jim: We cleaned up our mess and then Barbara and I drove back up to the campground to begin the task of getting Big V ready to travel. It took about an hour to get everything put together; then, while Barbara drove the Vibe down the hill, I followed in Big V. Once in the parking lot, it didn’t take much time to hook up the trailer, load the car, and move off to the side of the lot to find a parking place for the night. Fortunately for us, we were able to park in a designated RV space that even had a 50-Amp hookup so we wouldn’t have to run the generator.
The volunteers all met at the King Hotel lobby a little before dinner. It was enjoyable to sit around and visit a little before the meal. After dinner, we all went back to our meeting room for the evening devotional. John and Lynn led our music tonight and Billy led the prayer service. We finished early (for us) and several of the volunteers retired to the lobby of the hotel once again to visit, but we were whipped and went out to Big V. Barbara was asleep by 7:45 and I followed pretty quickly after that.
Friday, November 7
This was it…our last morning at Toccoa. Since we were already in the parking lot, it was an easy walk over to the King Hotel lobby and then to our “upper room” where we held our daily devotionals for the last two weeks and where we met to get our work assignments for each day.
Following the devotional time, those of us who were leaving today took care of some last minute “check-out” procedures, while John W. gave out the work assignments to the volunteers who were staying through the day or until tomorrow.
We then went to breakfast, said our farewells, and had our group picture taken (several times, on several different cameras).
When we had hugged and shook hands all around, Barbara and I headed on out to Big V to begin our journey for the day, one which would be Point A to Point B (we just didn’t know where Point B would be, but we sure hoped it would be well past Atlanta).
The trip was relatively uneventful…we stopped at a Flying J truck stop about 30 miles north of Atlanta and got gas for $2.05…well below what we had projected when we began this trip on September 16. The trip around Atlanta was a breeze; all we had to do was pick the right lane, stay behind the truck ahead of us and ahead of the truck behind us, and forget about the 55 MPH speed limit (from the speed of the vehicles in our lane and that of the cars passing us, we began to think the 55 was just a mild suggestion).
After a brief stop at the Alabama Welcome Center, we fired up and hit the road again, hitting intermittent light rain along the way, but maintaining a constant 60 MPH, the most fuel-efficient speed limit for Big V.
We had planned along the way to make it to the Birmingham area, stop at a Flying J, and call it an early day; but, we managed to find one of those rare Flying J’s that didn’t have adequate RV parking, so we just gassed up and went on down the road to Tuscaloosa, where we could overnight at the Wal-Mart Super Center. Well, that was certainly an idea, but one that worked out just as well as the Flying J. The Wal-Mart parking lot was not big rig friendly…very tight turns and very slanted parking places. We did go in to buy some groceries and other necessities, but decided when we came out that it would be in our best interests to get away from there as quickly as possible.
So, we crawled back into the 5:30 traffic and found our way back to I-20 and headed west again. Just a word of caution…if you are thinking Tuscaloosa, try thinking something else. The traffic lights were evidently programmed by the lowest scoring entrant in a traffic management class, or by a fired city engineer who hacked into the computer system and left a little land mine that went off a couple of days after he left the state!
Thankful to get Big V and the trailer out of that mess, we motored on down I-20 until we got to the final westbound Alabama rest area, where we pulled in, opened up the right side slide-outs, and set up camp for the night. If you are thinking about great rest areas, think Alabama…clearly the most beautiful and easy in/easy out rest areas we’ve ever seen.
It being Friday night and football time, I logged on to the KSVP website in Artesia and listened to the first half of the game in Roswell with the Goddard Rockets, but the long day took its toll on me and I shut the computer down at halftime and went to bed well after Barbara’s journey to bed by 8.
Saturday, November 8
We took our time getting around this morning. With two days before we had planned to get back to Mineola, we had more than enough time to get ready to leave. While checking email and the online newspapers, I found that Artesia had taken a revenge beating from Goddard last night, but that the Bulldogs were still eligible for the playoffs. At the same time, Liberal got walloped by Hutchinson last night in the first round of the Kansas playoffs and can now focus on basketball.
We finally got away from the rest area and drove into and across Mississippi, stopping at Vicksburg to spend the afternoon and evening at the Ameri-Star RV Park beside the Mississippi River.
It was a very pleasant afternoon and evening. In addition to relaxing, we managed to get all the laundry caught up and watched the Texas Tech and Oklahoma State football game from Lubbock. Obviously, we were cheering all the way for the Red Raiders, who made an outstanding showing in the game and now have to gear up to meet the OU Sooners in a couple of weeks to either determine a clear winner of the Big XII South or throw it into a real jumble.
Sunday, November 9
We woke up this morning prepared to just take it easy, have a leisurely breakfast at the casino across the street (the RV park gave us complimentary tickets), and then get away around 11:30 for a drive to Shreveport, where we would spend the night before heading to Mineola tomorrow.
But, after waking up and thinking about it, we decided that we’d been on the road long enough and it was time to get back to Texas. So, we packed everything away, closed up Big V, and were on the road by 8:30, happy to have a plan.
Traffic was light to moderate all day, so we didn’t have any trouble making our way down the interstate. Along the way we made another grocery list and stopped at Wal-Mart in Ruston, Louisiana, to buy groceries and take a short break.
The most frustrating part of the day came when we reached the Flying J just west of Shreveport. We needed both propane and gasoline, but had to get the propane first. There was no attendant on duty, so Barbara went in to find someone while I stayed with Big V. We waited for quite a while, and while we were waiting, a couple of other people brought portable propane tanks up to the pump station.
The attendant finally came out, but instead of taking the hose to our tank, he went directly to one of the portable tanks and started filling it. The lady who was standing there with the portables immediately apologized to us and then the attendant realized what he had done. However, there wasn’t anything he could do about it, since he would have to change nozzles to fill our tank. So, we just waited until the portables were filled and then we got our load of propane.
With that done, I pulled Big V forward and topped off the gasoline tank. It took us nearly an hour and we could see that there was no way we could get to Mineola before dark, but we decided to press on, since it wouldn’t be all that late when we got there.
Aside from a 4-mile traffic jam around the Kilgore exit, the rest of the trip was uneventful and at 6:15 we pulled in at the Mineola Center. It didn’t take long to get the Vibe off the trailer and the trailer parked and disconnected from Big V. Then, all that was left was to back Big V onto one of the spacious (and nearly level) concrete pads and set up shop for a few days.
With Big V ready for living again, we drove over to Mother’s house to let her know we were home. Since I always call her on Sunday night about the same time, I decided to play a prank. I would pull up to the front of the house, call her, and while she was talking, I would use my keys and let us into the house and tell her we were home. However, that plan went to heck in a hurry when I dropped the keys between the car seats and couldn’t get them out and talk on the phone at the same time. Barbara frantically tried to retrieve them, but with that not being accomplished well either, so I had to ‘fess up that we were there and needed her to come open the door since Ernie and Billee were at church.
Of course, she was surprised and glad to see us. We sat there and visited until Ernie and Billee got there to join in on the conversations. We all visited for about a half hour, but Barbara and I were beat, so we said our goodbyes and drove back to the civic center where we quickly fell into bed…tired, but glad to be back with family after 56 days, 2,676 miles in Big V and 1,600 miles of local driving in the Vibe, and travel through seven states.
Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves; they will never cease to be amused.” – Church Signs
Back at our Mineola home with fond memories of Georgia, the people, and the beautiful fall Toccoa scenery! (Notice that the water in the top right photo appears to be a conglomeration of colors from the reflection of the trees rather than the blue it was!)
Jim & Barbara
