We made it to Missouri. Connie & Roland (Frank's friend from his days in the Peace Corps) have made us very welcome at their home in St. Charles. We're being treated to all sorts of St. Louis delicacies including "toasted ravioli", "gooey butter cake" and tomorrow we'll have barbequed pork steaks and Fitz' rootbeer.

Today we also got to add Indiana & Illinois to the list of states visited. Remember the problem yesterday of the VW not starting & how John read it was probably a problem with the ignition switch and he just needed to wiggle it a certain way? Well, let us just add that Mary & Patty have now "push started" the VW in Ohio, Indiana & Illinois giving the addition of the states to our map a whole other meaning! Luckily Roland found a VW mechanic within a few blocks of their house. A new starter is being overnighted from California and they'll put it in tomorrow while we visit the arch & the brewery.

Mary woke up at 3 this morning, the rest of us at a more respectable "east coast" hour. Judy fixed us a wonderful breakfast and Cousin John did another quick check of the van. He discovered the spare tire on the front was "slightly" under the recommended pressure, about 35 lbs. under. That corrected, we waved goodbye and started for the west coast.
First stop, Allentown to say hi to Uncle Jules, John's uncle and Mary's great uncle. They added Pennsylvania to the state map while we were there.
Then west through Pennsylvania and more of Penn. and more of PA etc. etc. Finally, we were able to add West Virginia to our list and finally Ohio.
One last adventure before camping for the night. We stopped just outside of Columbus to buy gas and the battery appeared to be dead. John, not at all sexist, had Mary & Patty push it while he popped the clutch to start it. One battery charger purchase later we arrived at the campsite where upon reading the VW manual John discovered that if he just jiggled the key switch it would start with no problem and no charging. Hooray! The campsite we're at is only for RV's. We look very small in comparison.

Mary has arrived and with less luggage than John came with! John will have to take lessons. Although the photo doesn't show it too clearly, Mary is putting New Jersey on the VW's map. The first state of many yet to come. We depart for points west in the morning - probably on our time and not European time.

John & Cousin John hard at work on the front end. You can look at the tops of their heads and know they're related. Anyway.... John's adding of brand new shock absorbers to the front end proved to be "slightly" wrong. The good news is that Cousin John knows all, added several washers to "pad" it out, and now the VW no longer sounds like a bucket of bolts every time you go over a bump. The other good news is that Cousin John saw that John's installation of the new brake line was "slightly" off... so they got a new brake line connection which Cousin John fitted and now all is well! So it's ready for the road once again. Mary's plane is on schedule so we'll pick her later this afternoon.

We made it to New Jersey with no problems! Emily arrived at the house right on schedule and we were on the road by noon. Had spiedies, a Binghamton area specialty, for lunch before leaving New York. Then on to New Jersey, shedding layers of clothes while we drove. It was 50 when we left New York and, like all VW's of the past, we had no heat. New Jersey is considerably warmer! Now if Cousin John can figure out what those strange noises are coming from the front end.... Stay tuned.

Getting ready

John has filled all the VW's little compartments with tools, extra oil, little gadgets etc. I'm hoping there will be room left for what Mary & I need to take. However, the beds are made and there's enough food on board to last us a while. Helen even dropped off a big tin of Amaretto chocolate chip cookies for us to enjoy along the way. After trying one this morning I can assure everyone they won't last long!
It's not too clear in the photo, but John affixed a decal of the US to the side window. It comes with a decal of each state for us to add as we pass through them. So far New York, Vermont & New Hampshire are filled in from our trip last summer. Everyone keep your fingers crossed that we'll be able to fill in a lot more on our trip west this summer!

Our two weeks are over and they were great! We highly recommend it to any of you looking for something different to do. Everyone in our group got along so well... it was sort of like VISTA but in a very shortened way, and we came away with a whole new set of friends. And we accomplished a lot more and a lot less than we expected but together we provided them with a 1,000 hours of extra labor which put them much closer to getting the houses completed. The last day was rainy so we mostly worked on inside projects except for the crazy Irishman and Polishman who were working on their PHD's (post hole drilling) in a light rain. They did manage to get their holes dug, concrete poured and posts set and filled in for one of the porches.
The VW did us proud and held it's head up high next to the big RV's. Patty, especially, is looking forward to staying with friends on the trip west this summer. The VW is comfortable and cozy but...
We just discovered that we hadn't set up this blog to allow for comments. I think we've got that corrected so you should be able to add your own comments in the future. We'll try this again when we start heading west on June 12th.

Dennis, our site supervisor, invited us all to his home last night. It is absolutely beautiful. He and his wife built it from a kit 23 years ago. It's like half of a grapefruit turned upside down and set into the ground with windows on the southeast and southwest sides and the rest covered with earth. It's 50 feet in diameter at the bottom providing the living space on the first level and bedroom space on the second level. All sorts of interesting angles and spaces. Attached in another earth structure for the workshop and garage. The temperature when unheated is the 52 degrees ground temperature and is very easy to heat in the winter and cool in the summer. They said it was very easy to build. Do John & I need another project???
Another day of door hanging, vinyl, roof and porch work.
Tonight is John's community chorus concert in Sherburne. All the work crew is going to either provide support or make cat calls... They said if they see me fall asleep that will be a good indication.

Some photos from today's build. Patti cutting the last strips of vinyl siding. Larry & Ted are working on completing the last side of house one. John, Sean & Dottie completed the gable end without getting electrocuted.
A field trip tonight to our project manager's earth house in Cooperstown.

A new week begins

We all came back refreshed and ready for another week at work. Red our dog went for a week's vacation at Bruce & Leigh's as the forecast this week calls for some rain and our social calendar is filling rapidly for evening activities.
We are within sight of finishing the siding on 3 sides of the third house which will complete the exterior fabric of two of the three buildings. The doors are all hung in house two thanks to the door crew. We took pictures to send then realized the disk was not in the camera. So much for good intentions.
A new heater in the VW has made the evening and mornings much more pleasant.

The door hanging team successfully completed all the single doors in one house and their first double doors! A mighty effort!!!

The porch team on house two and the siding team on the other house. John says "vinyl siding is the pits to install. Thank heavens for caulk!

This if Friday evening and we get time off the weekend. Our RV buddies have us lined up to go as a group to the Robin Williams movie "RV" or something like that. We had seen the previews and deemed it a must miss but going with this folks should still be fun.

Photo 1 is John at the end of yesterday. In case you can't tell there were snores coming from that body.

Picture 2 is our group this morning. The guy on the right is our construction manager, Dennis. He's an absolutely wonderful man to work for!

Photo 3 - The homeowner is the Melissa (sorry we weren't able to upload the photo yesterday) and the guy is Byron, one of our fellow workers. The kitchen cabinets for the 3 houses we are working on have just arrived.

The Work Begins

Days 2 & 3 - Our first day on the job, Monday, was varied and interesting. These folks are building 3 houses at the same time and they are all enclosed so we are doing finish work and exterior add-on tasks - i.e. - John & Larry dug three 4 ft. deep holes and mixed and poured concrete footers in those and two others. We also worked on cutting and attaching window jambs. Patty & Carol spent most of the day hanging interior doors w/jambs. We have several more to go so willl have plenty to keep us busy for a few days.
We've met the owner, Melissa, of one of the houses. Her kitchen cabinets are being delivered in the photo and we hope to help put them in while we're here.

Day 1 - RV-Care-A-Vanners

Sunday, 4/30/2006
John & Red in the VW, followed closely by Patty in the Chrysler, had a smooth and uneventful journey to Oneonta, NY. The campground is fine, run by 2 pleasant fellows (Vaun & Jim). We head up the line of several humungous RV's with very pleasant people. It turns out our team leaders lived right across the street from Pat & Wally Borowiec in Brockport. Small world!
We had a group meeting to get to know each other and learned the in's and out's of the build. We start tomorrow in the a.m.
We were treated to dinner tonight at the local Methodist Church (Brooks BBQ chicken which is famous here in CNY). So far no complaints.

Our First blog....

Welcome to our brand new blog...We are about to set off in our VW bus for a two week build with a Habitat For Humanity project. We will post photos and info during the next two weeks (starting Sun, April 30) and this should allow us to keep in touch.

JHG