CAMPING FILLMORES

Well, this is it....THE END of our mission sagas.  We are now back home in Utah, but we had a whirlwind finish to our Bear Creek Camp mission, so we didn't have time to post our last blog until now.  We just want to give you a glimpse of what transpired during our last two months at the camp.  After the campers were gone for the season we were finally able to tackle some of the jobs on our long list that we didn't have time for earlier.  Reminder...this shows some of the big jobs...there were many other smaller jobs completed during this time period.

This small retaining wall had been falling apart long before we arrived at the Caretakers House because the blocks were originally installed with every other row upside down, so none of the blocks were locked together as designed.  Bruce took the whole thing apart, while also re-routing the downspout run-off to head to the street rather than flood our parking area.

When the wrap-around deck was taken off the house (due to drainage problems resulting in water in the basement) some of the siding was removed as well.  Bruce put new siding up and made it look great.

It also needed new trim to go around the new sliding glass door, which wasn't available, so Bruce found some aluminum flashing sitting around which he bent to the proper shape, painted, and installed. These are before and after pictures.  At some point a new deck will be installed.

The green bean plants you see in the corner of the picture was the extent of our "garden" this year.  We tried tomatoes, but they didn't do well with the deer munching on them.  We were able to get a hand full of beans from our little plants.

The dining hall and kitchen lights were the old florescent tubes which weren't doing so well, so Bruce replaced 88 of them with LED tubes, which required re-wiring each of the circuits.  Earlier in the year he  replaced the lights in the Maintenance Building, the Warehouse and also the 4 cabins.  While working on the lights he realized that we had resident bats in the dining hall. They were living in the rafters and coming in through the chimney. This one is alive and not happy!

Drainage is a major problem throughout the camp, and when pipes get plugged they create quite a bit of back up water.  Bruce designed and created this grate with the help of a Stake President from Cincinnati and Bill (the bigger guy) who put in a lot of hours at the camp.

Speaking of run-off damage...we worked hard to create a "beach" at the lake, but the run-off from the hill kept washing away the soil, so a large retaining wall had to be put in place.  It was a huge and heavy job! The lake is an ongoing work in progress.  

Another drainage issue occurred at the Maintenance Building where rain run-off needed to be channeled from the front and back rain gutters, running into a pipe at the back of the building.  Previously, it would run inside the building under the sliding doors.  Bruce needed an adapter to put both rain gutters together, so he heated up a PVC pipe, used wood blocks as a form, and made his own adapter.  It was pure genius!

While on the subject of the Maintenance Building and rain, the roof on this building had six sky lights which all leaked on whatever projects we were working on at the time the rainstorm hit...which was often.  Bruce and two other guys, replaced the skylights to prepare for a new roof which a local roofer is going to donate to the camp.  Did we happen to mention that the Church Missionary Department does NOT like it when 73-year old Senior missionaries are up on roofs.

That last statement brings us to another project that was done for a house hit by a tornado in Dayton, Ohio.  They needed volunteers to replace a roof, so of course Bruce got involved.  He is taking the picture, so he is also on this roof.  Bruce's other rooftop experience was when he went up on top of the dining hall to repair some flashing around the chimney, which was leaking water into the building.

This picture shows the pump house which holds the accumulators and valves that direct the water to the whole camp.  The door was off before we arrived and needed to be replaced.  Of course no stores had the right size, so Bruce came to the rescue and special ordered a door, and then I painted it.  A few weeks after  these pictures were taken, the pump house was pressure washed and painted, so it looks a lot better now.

Another project involved helping a mother and her son in our ward with a trailer that they recently moved in to.  See if you can spot the problem with the bathroom and the kitchen sinks.  Again, Bruce came to the rescue.  We spent a couple of days working on other issues in this house, but you get the idea of the shape it was in.

Another job we did off-site was installing a plank floor for a young family who just bought a house.  We did the living room and the hallway leading to the bedrooms.  FYI, we didn't pick the colors.

This is the extent of my "flower garden".  It looked really nice until the deer got to it.

A lot of trees were taken down the past 9 months due to their proximity to power lines, buildings, or the poor health of the tree.  Although I personally didn't cut down the big trees, I was involved in the clean up of branches, leaves and logs.   In fact, for our 50th anniversary gift I bought myself a smaller sized, battery operated chain saw with a 12" blade.  After I got it I went crazy cutting down lots of dead trees, offending bushes, or anything else that got between me and my chainsaw.  I felt empowered!

.          Tree coming down

Bruce was their for the felling, but not for the clean-up.  He had a lot of other work to do.

At this point I was able to pull out my little chain saw and help with the exfoliation of the tree tops.

While Bruce was doing the hard stuff I mowed grass, cleaned up fallen trees, worked on the cabin floors, kept the latrines clean, and managed the marking, grooming, and documentation of the hikes, (which was my personal passion on this mission).

One of my favorite hikes was the Waterfall Hike, which you can only go on when there is no water running.  You are literally walking up the creek bed, and when you encounter a waterfall formation, you scramble up on it, and hike up to the next one, and then the next one after that.  A walking stick is highly suggested for this hike due to the uneven terrain.  I even offered a variety of walking sticks at the trail head for our hikers.

Our daughter Jan was visiting with Quincy, so we took them on the waterfall hike!

Another favorite hike is the Creek Walk.  On a hot, humid day, it is the perfect hike! Our Son-in-Law, Jason Francis and his bishop were the first to venture to this charming spot.  Here are several of our grandkids in the creek.

Another hike incorporates an Above-and-Beyond segment which culminates at the "Grand Staircase".   The hill at this point is quite steep, so the Francis family decided to build the staircase to make it safer.  Marcie and her kids began the project, then Jason put a LOT of hours working on the hill.  I jumped into action and took the staircase to the top.   There are a total of 126 steps to the top of the hill.  The beginning of the trail began with using logs as the steps, secured with wooden branch pegs. Then we became more sophisticated and used treated 4X4 lumber secured with two lengths of rebar, which are pounded through the lumber and into the hill to stabilize each step.  This is the beginning of the trail.

There was a large fallen tree blocking the trail, so Bruce cut it up using my 12" chainsaw.  I was amazed it cut through so easily.

 

At the bottom of the trail, close to the creek, we hit rock while trying to secure the steps.  Once again, Bruce came to the rescue with a hammer drill, making it possible to pound the rebar through the stone.

On our last Saturday at the camp, the Francis family came up to bid us farewell.  I saved the last two steps of the Grand Staircase for Jason to install.  It was a proud moment.

A job well done!

One of our outings with Marcie and Jason's family was to Dale Griffin Bike Park in Terre Haute.  It was a lot of fun....and FREE!

They had trails of differing difficulty.

This floating bridge crosses the lake.  No....we didn't ride our bikes across...we didn't want to end up IN the lake.

Our release date was actually September18, but because Bruce was still involved with putting in 7 new windows in the Caretakers House, he remained an extra week to get the job done.  I, on the other hand, went to Northern Kentucky to watch Stephanie and True's 7 kids for 10 days while they went on a cruise.

The kids had fun taking turns making dinners, splashing in the rain and playing outside. Here you see Liberty playing hide and seek at our house. It was a great hiding place because the other kids couldn't find her.

Back at the camp on the last weekend with the kids, we took them to church with us in our Connersville Ward.  Because the piano player wasn't there, our granddaughter Praise volunteered on-the-spot to play for the meeting and did a great job!

Besides the deer which we featured on an earlier blog,  other animals frequently seen at camp included the following:

Raccoons, snakes, turtles, hummingbirds (we had two feeders), and lots of annoying gnats and mosquitos

We saw the actual snake a couple of times, but it loved to leave it's skin behind to show us how much it was growing.  The skin was taller than I am!

These are mushrooms, not to be confused with wild animals.  No, we didn't eat them, but according to our research we probably could have.

One of the highlights of this mission was visits from some of our children and 17 grandkids.  We hosted 3 of Shellie's kids, and her husband Jason, The Francis family and their 6 kids, Stephanie and her 7 kids, and Jan and her youngest son, Quincy.  Here are a few of the Grandkids visiting us at the Caretakers House.

The last job we did before leaving Bear Creek Camp was to winterize the 4 cabins by putting a black plastic moisture barrier on the floor of each crawl space, and then putting electric heat tape on the water lines, then wrapping them in foil-backed insulation.  Because we were using electric heat tape, that meant that Bruce had to run electricity down into each crawl space.  This picture shows the outside opening access into the crawl space.  This is what we were doing THE DAY BEFORE WE LEFT!

The new electrical boxes made it possible to have lights on the job.

In the bunkhouse, to get from one side of the cabin to the other to lay out the plastic we had to belly crawl under the support beams in the dirt. It was challenging and we hit our heads more than once.

This beam needs to be repaired.  We hope the next missionaries can handle it....we ran out of time.

It took some planning to lay plastic around all the cinder block supports in the crawl spaces

This folding chair was found under one of the cabins...can't imagine anyone using it down there!

The next day, after saying goodbye to our work buddies, Todd and Leslie Laney, we packed up our truck and headed home, leaving behind some cherished friends and many precious memories. The Laneys were skeptical as to whether or not we would get all our stuff into the truck, but we did it!

This picture of us and the Laneys was taken on our last Sunday in Indiana,  They were fun to work with and we felt like this initial missionary team was able to get a lot of work done in the time we had.  We saw many tender mercies where situations could have turned out very badly...but they didn't.  We are thankful to our Father in Heaven for his watchcare over us, and for the prayers of our families.