Our Traveling Tribe

On Monday night, I heard Vaughn talking on the phone to a friend of his.  One of the things that he said was (roughly), “Seeing pictures of tornado devastation is like looking at a picture of the Grand Canyon.  No photograph can come close to capturing the intensity and magnitude of the real thing.”  It’s true. and I’m sure we don’t know the half of it.  (all these photos are from the Samaritan’s Purse clean-up efforts in Calhoun, GA 2/13)

When we first pulled into Tuscaloosa in 2012, and drove through the tornado ravaged areas, we were shocked at the vast and incredible devastation that we saw.  And that was an entire year after the tornado had ground through the town.  No amount of pictures or even news footage could have prepared us for the overwhelming sense of sadness and despair for the victims that we felt.  We wondered, as we saw each bare foundation, or damaged home, who had lived there, whether they survived, and where they were now.  We were puzzled about the large Xs that we saw spray painted on houses, and later learned about the search and rescue code that had been widely used in the vast searches after Hurricane Katrina.   They were used in Tuscaloosa and Joplin.  Now we are seeing those same images come from Oklahoma.
The area the tornado affected is so immense, that rescue teams resorted to using the X method of marking standing structures that had been searched; a method that tells the rescue teams, who come behind the search crews, what they will find in each location.  In Tuscaloosa, we learned (and are sharing because maybe others are curious too ;) ) that the 1st slash (/) in the X is drawn when the team enters the home to begin the search, the second slash, the backslash, is drawn when they exit the home, making the ‘X’.  The X forms 4 distinct areas for the searchers to denote findings.  In the 12:00 position, the spray painted numbers will tell at what time, on what date, the house was searched.  At 3:00, they note any personal hazards (rats, gas leak, sewer gasses..), and at 9:00, the search team puts their personal code, their signature if you will.  The 6:00 compartment is the one we are always looking at as we wonder what the story of each home is – at the bottom of the pie, is where the number of victims is denoted – alive victims, and those deceased (ie.  3A 1D).
In Tuscaloosa, over 2 years after the tornado, there are still a few vivid Xs on abandoned, damaged homes that never were rebuilt or bulldozed.  The X still marking each one of those shells, tells part of the story of the now decrepit home that sometimes was never revisited by its prior occupant.  Some people were in such despair that they just walked away, never looking back.  You can go into many of these homes, to find clothes hanging in the closets, and long-rotted food still in the fridges.

All that reminiscing about what we saw while we helped rebuild homes for families displaced by the Tuscaloosa tornado of 2011, makes us wonder about the future of the towns in Oklahoma and Texas that have seen similar destruction in the last couple of weeks.  In 2 years from now, how many Xs, on skeleton houses, will stare down on passersby?  How many families will still be displaced from their homes because they cannot handle facing the enormity of their circumstances alone; physically and/or mentally?  How man families will still be in temporary housing because they don’t have the skill or funds to repair their homes.  (Not everyone has insurance, and sometimes insurance either won’t cover, or is insufficient for the damage.)

One of the most precious things that we took away from our first disaster relief clean-ups in Calhoun, GA, and Shuqualak, MS, was the discovery of just how much it meant to people to have help and support in dealing with the overwhelming tasks of returning to ‘everyday’ life in the aftermath of a tornado.   Sometimes it meant cutting up and hauling off huge trees that were blown over and covering their yard (a task many cannot physically do, nor afford to hire someone else to do), sometimes it means tarping someone’s roof so their house doesn’t leak until the roofers can get there, sometimes it means a group of men getting together to flip back over a shed tossed around by 160 mph winds.  We saw and felt first hand, in our 4 weeks of rebuilding in Tuscaloosa, how thankful and loved people feel when others, often people that they have never met, and maybe have nothing in common with, come and minister to them through physically helping them get back into their own house by laying concrete for the foundation of their new home, or doing remodel painting after their home has been re-drywalled to remove the water damage.
The most common comment that my volunteers hear is some variation of, “I can’t believe that people would come all the way from ‘wherever’ to help ME.”   At the cleanups that we helped with this spring, we met people that had traveled from the town next door (or really, next door!), from Tennessee, Ohio, Idaho, South Carolina, New Mexico, Georgia, Alabama, Illinois, Kansas, and Indiana (those are just the states that Beth remembers other volunteers being from!  they don’t know where most of the volunteers were from!).   Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand that not everyone can get up and go to pick up tree litter or sift through house rubble, and it’s not everyone’s gig to paint or lay sod.  But for us, it IS ‘our thing’ to physically get out there and minister to those people, hurting from the effects of a disaster, by putting our muscles and building skills to use, helping others.

And that is why, even though we just got back to our hometown (where we usually spend the whole summer), we will be hitting the road again in just one week!   This tribe is heading to Oklahoma to volunteer in the relief efforts going on there (check out Samaritan’s Purse if you would like to find out more about who we will be volunteering with).    A 1458 mile roadtrip (each way) wasn’t in our schedule, but we know that God is calling us there.   “Make sure you are doing what God wants you to do–then do it with all your strength.”
~George Washington

For the past 4 weeks, we have been parked at our dear friends’ house.  The first two weeks were spent house sitting for them, and the second half we played/visited/lived side by side, with us parked just out their front door.  It was fabulous.

Remember Jake and the pickle juice?  Come to find out, this is why he did it…

Jake has an insatiable sweet tooth, and apparently Beth and her BFFs dared him to drink it, with the promise of his own chocolate pecan pie if he did.  Olivia makes the best chocolate pecan pies!  Jake said it was well worth it. 

We pulled out of our BFFs’ house on Sunday.  The kids are missing being connected at the hip with their friends, and we are all missing the sweet fellowship we have with these special people! 

This past Friday, Eli and Greg drove 4 hours east to little Reed Point, Montana, to take part in the Stillwater Tactical Challenge.  They stayed 2 nights in a public campground, in a tent, in the rain, ‘roughing it’…

This was their first Stillwater shoot, and the only information they knew about it was from the website.  The fees were $100/shooter/course.  Initially, they were going to sign up for all three courses, but they decided at the last minute to only do one.  They signed up for the Dynamic Short Course since it sounded like the course most like what their training would prep them for.  They ran a mile, shooting various targets from all sorts of positions, with both their ARs and their 9mms.
The experience was definitely a new one to them, and they were pretty disappointed when they saw the courses and found that the descriptions weren’t very accurate and the boys would have done much better if they would have signed up for the short standing course instead.   But, considering that Greg shot with open sites (takes more skill than using a scope), they believed the site for shell count, and they didn’t have enough mags for their pistols, I thought that they did great!  They placed 13th out of 17 teams; and some of these guys had really expensive and tricked out guns and traveled a long ways to the shoot!

On Sunday, the guys participated in the .22 Round-Robin competition.  Initially, the top 8 guys were supposed to go into a Round Robin double elimination event, but the weather was rainy, so at the last minute they changed it to the top 3 shooters getting prizes.  Guess who was in 4th and 5th places… 

The boys enjoyed their brotherly-bonding time.  They didn’t get home until late Sunday, and were already talking about the courses next year – now that they know what it’s really like, they will shoot all 3 courses, take different uppers for their ARs (they have them, they just thought the course was different and the ones they took would work better), and be more accurate on their shell count.
They both won door prizes (everyone wins something); Eli won a single-point tactical sling and a Sure-Fire flashlight ( ), and poor Greg – he won 300 rounds of 9mm brass! LOL!  He has thousands already at his apartment waiting to be reloaded! ROFL!!!  Even though he wasn’t too excited over his door prize , he still had a fun time…(with Eli’s camera)

As for the rest of us, we are CAMPING at a local campground.  Dry camping – no water hookups, no electric, no sewer.  We’re pretty thankful for our onboard generator, 30 gallon fuel tanks, and big fresh water and waste tanks!  Ever since we got back this year, I’ve had the oddest feeling that I needed to get everything in order and be ready to hit the road again at any time.  I just got off the phone after 20 minutes with Vaughn trying to figure out a way to pull out again.Right.Now.  We SHOULD be on our way to Oklahoma to help with the tornado cleanups.  It’s become our passion.  But the reality is that we haven’t been home long enough to have the $6k it would take for the 12 of us to drive the 1458 miles down there and volunteer for a month (we really need an online job we can take with us!).  Vaughn can’t concentrate on his work, and the bigs are trying to figure out a way to go without us! LOL!  There were tears in his voice as he was imagining what it must be like down there, after seeing, first hand, in Tuscaloosa, Calhoun, and Shuqualak, the devastation and hopelessness a tornado brings to an area.   He also knows the renewed hope, and the encouragement and love, that having people come in and volunteer their time to help those in need brings to those same storm victims.

If you can help those being affected by these storms, in any way, especially volunteering elbow grease to help clean up the debris, please do so - and let us know so we can live vicariously through your love for others!
Our prayers are with Oklahoma City…

This spring, we were able to try out a review copy of one of Spanish for You!‘s year-long unit studies.  We received Estaciones (Seasons), which is a 24 to 30 week program, which teaches your students about Spanish words based on the calendar/school/seasons.

Spanish for You! is geared towards children from 3rd to 8th grades, but there is obviously some leeway here, as the program is based more on teaching around themes, and can be utilized with multiple children of differing grades.

The Estaciones curriculum consists of a printed softcover book and downloads that include 2 MP3 audio files (one of author reading the book, and the other of a native speaker reading through the book), and PDFs of the book, lesson plans, over 200 self-correcting worksheets, and flashcard templates.  You can even check out sample pages here.

The 57 page book consists of 5 units: calendar and weather, fall and school, winter, spring, and summer.  Designed to be used 4 days a week, with each lesson taking between 20 and 40 minutes (for some of the lessons that took up to 40 minutes, we broke the lesson up between 2 days), the lessons concentrate on hearing, speaking, and writing the Spanish language.

We found this program to be a good starter for learning Spanish.  And while I did not care for the amount of printing that the program required (I felt it was much easier to manage the audios/lesson plans/worksheets in hardcopy, but many travelers and space challenged will love that you don’t have to tote all the pages all the time, just print when needed…), I did appreciate that the lessons didn’t take all day, and that the curriculum prints in black and white (much cheaper than color ).  There were lots of teaching suggestions for interactive activities like fun games.  I liked that I had the option to do different levels (teaching the same thing, but at different depths) at the same time, and the kids would be learning the same thing so they could ‘talk Spanish’ together.

One of the best things about Spanish for You! is the price!  So many foreign language courses are hundreds of dollars, but Estanciones is $64.95 for the softcover book and multiple downloads including all materials for grades 3 – 8.  You can also purchase just one grade set (3-4, 5-6, or 7-8) for $39.95.  Currently there are 2 programs published: Estaciones (Seasons) and Fiestas (Holidays/Celebrations).  Coming in June, is the one that we’re most interested in – Viajes, which is ‘travel’ in Spanish!    (at least I think it’s ‘travel’ in Spanish! LOL! ;) ).

You can click here to find out what the rest of the crew thought of Spanish for You, including reviews on the Fiesta curriculum!

This past Saturday was our first experience in pistol shooting competitions.  Just Eli and Jake signed up this time; we thought we should probably find out what it was like before we put everyone in.  It was the best time, and Vaughn spent it lamenting the fact that he hadn’t registered! LOL!

The shooters had an order to shoot in, always rotating one up when they got to a new course.   The boys were some of the first to shoot, which wasn’t so great since they were new – they liked it when they rotated into the last spots because then they could watch the other shooters and get to know the course better.
Watching the shooters before them (everyone on the range has to have eye and ear protection, shooting or not)…

When a shooter is up, the timer will ask the shooter if he understands the course…

When he was sure he understood how to complete the course, the timer would hold a special rectangular timer up by the shooter’s ear.  Depending on the course, the shooter would have to start with his hands down by his side, in front of him, or up in the air…

When the timer buzzes, the clock starts ticking, and the shooter can move for his weapon and complete the shots required for the course.
The timer is actually really neat – the man holding it would move along with the shooter, keeping the timer somewhat near the pistol – the timer recognizes the gun shots, and marks time at each shot – when the shots are finished, the timer goes back to the last shot fired, and stops the time there; there is no operator error in the shot times – and they are recorded to the hundredth of the second.
For this course, which was one of the favs because it was so straight-forward and quick, the guys had to retrieve their gun, shoot the rectangular steel targets each once, then hit the steel (round) plate.  The shooter can hit the rectangles in an order they would like, they can shoot as many bullets at each (if they miss) without penalty other than the extra time it takes; a missed target is a 3 second penalty, and hitting the stop plate is mandatory to stop the time.  In this bay, the shooter repeated the course of fire 3 times in succession; the worst time was a scratch while the other 2 counted towards your overall time.

All the courses were not so straight forward and easy.  Some require you to remember different details about how they are to be shot – this course was ‘free hand’ (any way you want to hold your gun) and 4 shots, for the first part of it…

then you run to the next station and have to shoot the target twice using your weak hand.

Next, run to the 3rd placement, with a mandatory clip change on the way (that’s where you would drop your empty clip out, and quickly slide in a new, loaded magazine – you know, the reloadable thing that holds the bullets (insert snarky comments here about Sen. Feinstein thinking you could use up magazines then there wouldn’t be any more out there…).  At the third station, using your ‘strong arm’ (the one you normally shoot with), you would hit the target twice, then knock over 3 steel targets, then shoot the steel stop plate to stop your time.
After each shooter has finished shooting, they have to clear their gun – which means to drop their magazine (eject it out of the grip), empty any bullets still in the chamber, and then holster their empty weapon.  After the person in charge (not really a range master since they are just over one of many groups) says the course is cleared, then everyone goes out and resets the course for the next shooter.  Jake is resetting some of the steel targets – when these are hit, they tilt over backwards, and then have to be stood back up…And Greg is taping hits/bullet holes.  The course has tape the same color as the cardboard body targets, and after each shooter, they cover any holes up, so that the can easily see where the next shooter hits.  The white ‘body’ next to the brown one, is a hostage – shooting a hostage carries a pretty heavy timing penalty 

The boys brought me a flower…   We had a break between courses while we waited for another group to finish.
Tailgate lunch!

Some of the courses had multiple different things you had to do, including different positions you had to shoot from.  The guys would go over the course before the first shooter.  On this course, you had to start with a magazine loaded with 7 shots; shoot the first 6 steel targets,  then reload while you walked to the next stage, where you had to shoot the clay pigeons that were set on stands, moving while shooting.   After taking those out (you shoot until you hit them, so some shooters are doing multiple magazine changes), the terrorists had to be taken out, 2 shots to the kill zone (misses or hitting out of the kill zone earn penalties) from a prone position (laying down), then hit the steel stop plate.

The boys waiting their turn;  another shooter was up, with Greg ’on deck’ (he is next), and Eli in ’the hole’ (after Greg).   

Greg drawing his weapon after the timer has beeped…Greg loves the challenge of shooting ‘under the gun’ – he had his score (time) figured up within minutes of leaving the range even tho the official scores still haven’t been sent out! LOL!

He loves the different courses; they are set up differently for each shoot – you don’t know what you’re in for until you get there!

We found out all sorts of good-to-know info from our first shoot.  What to expect, to bring way more rounds than suggested (LOL!), to show up early for registration since last registers shoot first (!), and different things that each boy needs to work on…

At the shoots, everyone pitches in after each shooter to collect their ‘brass’ (empty shell casings).  If the shooter likes to reload their shells, then everyone gives them back their brass, but if they don’t, whoever wants it can keep it.  Since some of the shooters didn’t want their 9mm shells, we have hundreds of rounds to reload now.

The courses were quite varied – on this course, after the time beeped, you had to draw a card with your strong hand, look and see if it was red or black, then shoot the center targets with the corresponding color cards.  After you shot the 3 middle targets that you had to, you had the option of shooting one of the terrorists on either side, BUT you HAD to shoot the card (HIT the card) on the target that was the same color as the one you drew – if you hit it, it was a 10 second minus (which means you could get a negative time on this course!), but if you missed, it was a 10 second penalty!  Eli just went for the 3 targets in the middle, then shot the stop plate to stop his time.Greg, Eli, and Jake had a great time, and the other boys, and Vaughn, can’t wait to start joining in.  After going and watching, I know that Beth would really enjoy it too (she stayed at the camper with the littles – we are parked at her 2 BFF’s house, so she wanted to stay home So, who knows, maybe it really will become a ‘family activity’ for us! 

We are checking out other shooting competitions – there are quite a few different kinds! – and hoping that there is another one in our near future.  In the meantime, the guys can be found reloading, dry-firing with rubber ammo (live ammo is pretty expensive right now!) and practicing magazine changes, and firing real rounds to get ready for the next shoot.
Good clean fun!!!

The summer of freedom has already begun! LOL!
We are feeling so empowered to do things that we have wanted to do, but didn’t have the time for before.  One of the things that the boys have wanted to try their hand at, is shooting competitions – both 3 gun, and pistol.  Greg (our oldest), shoots them for fun, and all the boys have expressed an interest in doing the same.  Comps are always on the weekends, and if we were hosts, it would be hard to get away for the shoots very often.
BUT, now that we are foot-loose and fancy-free, the boys can give it a whirl.  (and Beth if she’s interested!  She says that she will compete if her dad buys her that new pistol and has it dipped! LOL!)
So, that is what we are doing tomorrow.  Which means tonight they are getting their weapons cleaned and ready to go…While traveling is fabulous, there are some wonderful things that come with being stationary also!  Being in Montana for a few months will give the boys a chance to join a local shooting club, to get the chance to go to different kinds of shoots to see if/which ones they want to pursue practicing for, and give us the chance to reload what we’ve shot up in the last year! LOL!  I don’t know if this is something that the kids will want to do long-term (or which kids are committed), but I do know that I’m still so excited that our time to re-group is also going to be a time of exploration for us – finding new places we love to camp, spending time with family and friends, and getting to try out new experiences! 

We’re pretty excited about it all! LOL!

You know that feeling when you have plans?  Set plans?  The feeling is a suppressing, constraining weight that says that you are held in by the boundaries of whatever those ‘plans’ entail?

We HAD plans.  Plans to be camp hosts this summer.  We just found out that we won’t be hosting.  The couple that was in this particular campground last summer, who ‘for sure’ weren’t coming back due to health reasons, are back (previous hosts always get first dibs).   That, plus the fact that I didn’t get our multi-page application paperwork (both physical and online), background checks, fingerprinting, and (apparently) quality communication with the supervisor, done while we were on the road this winter (I don’t do stuff like that On The Road!!!), means that we aren’t going to be camp hosts this summer.  Apparently there was a due date for signing our lives away, and I missed it! LOL!!!

I hadn’t known that hosting was such a hovering burden; I realized it when I didn’t feel bad at all.Not.for.One.second, when I found out that the site had been taken by the previous hosts.
Then I worried that the kids would miss being hosts, but when I asked Beth about it, all she had to say was, “Well, maybe it’s for the best, can I go make some tea?”…  a few  remarks from other parts of the tribe were, “(excited smile) Maybe we’ll get to do something fun this summer now!”, “I heard. So?”, and “Good!  Now we won’t have to come home from work to do the ranger’s work too”.

I don’t know what I was worried about.  I think that we enjoyed hosting last summer because it was new.  But doing the ranger’s job all summer, and babysitting the park because certain employees are syphoning fuel and supplies (and maybe $4k worth of camping fees) apparently got old for the whole tribe, but we didn’t notice.  We won’t miss being lied to about the ranger’s ’wife’ when it turns out she isn’t really his wife (his wife is at home 90 miles away with the kids!), or 1am appointments with loud drunks that don’t care that other people in the park are trying to sleep.  We will not be upset that we don’t get to babysit the park all day, every day, and be woken up at 7 in the morning by someone that wants to know if we have any sites open, or can we save them a site until they bring their camper out.   So, while we won’t have the full hookups that a host site provides for our tribe, our time will be our own once again.  And we are all so excited!!!
Well, in reality, Vaughn isn’t quite as excited as the rest of us; he doesn’t care much for the moving every two weeks thing that comes with staying in public campgrounds.  He won’t miss the camp hosting duties At All, but he will miss the full hookup site! 
The only thing that we might have missed about hosting, was meeting all of the campers!  But, then again, we will STILL be meeting them - we’ll just be camped next to them! LOL!

So, due to the overwhelming lack of disappointment over not hosting again this summer, and due to the overwhelming lack of support for finding a different camp hosting gig, we won’t be applying with the other 2 agencies that have summer hosting jobs around here.  We will be camping, we will be playing, we will be exploring once again.  And that is so much more our speed than being confined by a schedule and a single camping site.   Gee, we might really get up to Glacier this summer with the RV, we may now have time to spend a few weeks at our fav Park Lake (which we neglected last summer for the first time in 9 years), and we WILL have the time and the freedom for day-long road trips (we still don’t have our Jr. Ranger badges from Big Hole National Battlefield).  We will get to camp in our old haunts, including staying at a campground where some of our adoptive camping grandparents host!

You know that saying, When God closes a door, he opens a window?  Well I think this time, God closed the bathroom window and opened up the French doors! 
The more we realize how much of our lives have been given back to us, the more giddy we get about being back home and having the chance to again experience why we love Montana so much!    <3

When we first pulled into Rapid City, the kids asked if we could stay a day and go to Watiki water park like we had done the first year that we traveled.   We initially said no since we planned on driving to Helena the next day, but after waking up to snow, and Beth looking at the website and finding that we were in the off-season and that tickets were only $8,  we decided that maybe we could take a swim after all…So, after hanging out in the RV in the Cabela’s parking lot all day, with the furnace running non-stop, we warmed up the van for 15 minutes, drove 1/2 a mile away, and hit the lazy river… Watiki is (obviously) indoors, and the keep it 86 degrees year-round.  We suited up, and that was the last I saw my kids! LOL! When the kids weren’t on the lazy river…They were rocketing down their 2 favorite slides…

I guess that they kids are in fine physical condition - they climbed those 3 stories worth of steps, non-stop, for 5 hours.
Caleb wasn’t a very happy camper, so one of us was always sitting out with him.  The big kids helped out with watching the other littles…But for the most part, if we wanted to see the bigs, we had to wait for them to shoot out of the bottom of the slides.  No-one got hurt,

and they slept really well that night! LOL!Everyone had a blast.
Except for Caleb… 

you know how he is with water! ROFL!

Watiki was a great ‘last hurrah’ during our first year out traveling, it was a great ‘last hurrah’ for this year too.

If you find yourself in Rapid City, be sure to try out the Watiki Water Park - and tell them the TicknorTribe sent you.  Ok, don’t really tell them we sent you - they won’t have a clue what you are talking about    Anway, it’s a fab place to spend a few hours (or all day on the weekends!).As for us, we are back in Helena, staying in our RV of course, cuz it’s our home, but house-sitting for friends for 2 weeks.   While we love being home to see our bigs and friends, catch up on chores like swapping out clothes in storage, and get some other errands done (like a passport for Caleb), now that we’ve been back for 10 whole days, we are ready to hit the road again! LOL!
We just reserved our first campsite of the fall – and are already planning a 3000 mile road trip in September (but then coming back for hunting season).    We’re planning a summer trip to Glacier, scheduling to run 2 fireworks stands, and  have lots of plans for getting together with friends this summer.  We are counting on the summer going by quickly! LOL!  
In the meantime, we are looking forward to becoming camp hosts this summer on one of Montana’s most popular lakes.  

After our wonderful, but way too short, time in Mississippi with Samaritan’s Purse, it was time to make a break for home.  We had promised friends that we would house-sit for them while they went to Texas for 2 weeks (lucky!!!), and we needed to get back to our bigs.  We love to travel, but it sure was a lot easier being on the road for most of the year before we had 2 grow up and stop traveling with us!

We hit the road…and had 3 nice, but very long driving days.  On Monday, (last Monday, not yesterday! LOL!), we pulled into Rapid City, SD.  It was chilly and rainy when we pulled in at 10:15pm.  We hadn’t been there 10 minutes, and the rain turned into… Snow!
This is what we looked like the next morning…Obviously, we had no business being this far north, this early! LOL!  It.was.freezing.

And we weren’t the only crazy ones, we had company – a couple in a Class C from Alaska had also spent the night in the Cabela’s parking lot.  We both sat it out the next day, and didn’t pick up jacks.  We ran and got them some RV anti-freeze since they didn’t have a toad, and we all just hung out on Monday not wanting to risk it on the roads… 

We KNOW that the best time to come back to Montana is the middle of May.  Not a bit before.
There is something pretty special about grown kids, and good friends, tho, that makes braving the bitter artic cold   worth it all.  

One of the things that I love the most about our traveling lifestyle, is that it gives us the opportunity to do so many unique and interesting things.  It also often affords us the chance to do activities that we might not otherwise get to do without the freedom all our wheels give us.
One of our favorite things to do is to volunteer with Samaritan’s Purse.  This past winter, Vaughn and the bigs got to spend 2 weeks doing tornado rebuilds in Tuscaloosa, AL (we did 2 weeks there last year too), 4 days of tornado cleanup in Calhoun, GA, and 3 days of tornado cleanup in Shuqualak, MS.   In fact, if you look at my bigs’ wardrobe, they are mostly made up of dozens of identical t-shirts – all either red or orange, and they all say ‘Samaritan’s Purse’ on them!  They can even tell you which shirts they got from which location – and the memory always brings a smile.

Shuqualak (pronounce sugah-lock  -tho we heard it said half a dozen different ways! LOL!) was not anywhere on our radar for a route home, but when you get the chance to do something you love, what is a 500 mile detour???A tornado hit Shuqualak on Thursday, April 11th, and we were on the road, heading to help with the cleanup, the next day.  Because of a tire blowout, we didn’t get to MS until Monday, and began to help with the cleanup on Tuesday morning.  It was lots of chainsaw work and muscle flexing to help clear fallen trees, and also some roof tarping. My tribe ran into old friends – people that they had met on other builds/cleanups, and met lots of new friends too.
Disaster relief is hard, dirty work…But the blessings outweigh the difficulties.  They have been able to meet the neatest people; not just the rest of the crew, but the homeowners too!  And after spending anywhere from a whole day to a few hours cleaning up their property, the crew always presents the homeowner with a bible, and prays with them after the work is done… they become pretty fond of the people that they meet…Volunteering with SP has been such a blessing to our family!  The staff is incredible, and the opportunities to go to someone’s home and help them, often doing work for them that they both cannot physically do themselves, nor afford to have someone else come in and complete for them.  Most of the volunteers sleep at the church – there are separate rooms for each girls and guys; the volunteers bring any cots or air mattresses and their own bedding.   Because my tribe usually stays in our RV, my crew has to get up a bit earlier to make it to group breakfast.  In Shuqualak, which is in a very rural area, there was nowhere for us to park our rv.  We finally found a church camp that let us camp there for $20/night; it was a 30 minute drive, so my tribe had to get up and be on the road each morning by 6.  They would get to the church in time for breakfast at 6:30 along with devotions, followed by making lunches, loading tools into the trucks for the day (on cleanups, volunteers sometimes use their own trucks, so Vaughn would always drive his), and have a time of prayer before heading out.  

The teams would head out to their first location at about 8am.  They would talk with the homeowners, help in any way that they could, mostly cleaning up downed trees, then have their bag lunches, onsite, at about 12.   Then it was back to cleaning up for another few hours.  The teams would usually find a good stopping point at about 4pm; the teams stagger when they would stop for the day so there weren’t long lines for the shower trailer.  Everyone had extra clothes, and would clean up for dinner.  Those that could help with preparing dinner, would, and others would unload tools or help in anyway that they could, but it was mostly free time.  Dinner would be about 6, followed by ‘share time’ at 7.  Sometimes home owners would come in and share their story, but share time is mostly where the volunteers shared about their day – how they were blessed, what their experiences meant to them, maybe anything that touched their hearts about what a homeowner said…  After visiting, everyone had free time again; my tribe usually got home well after 9pm, then were back up at 6 the next morning.

Sometimes the host church is huge and has facilities to host the many volunteers, like in Tuscaloosa where the church has dorm rooms, shower facilities, and even a cafeteria.  In more rural locations, like Shuqualak, the churches tend to be smaller, and do not have the facilities to meet all the cleanliness issues of dozens of sweaty and muddy volunteers   Samaritan’s Purse is prepared for any situation – here in Shuqualak (and also in Calhoun, GA), SP brought their own shower trailer.  The trailer contains 6 separate shower rooms, and provides it’s own hot water with a large on-demand heater that is fueled by 2 large propane bottles…The trailer parked in front of the shower trailer is for the onsite SP chaplain; for Shuqualak, there were 2 couples, one couple stayed in the church building.

The host church in Shuqualak had a nice building that they opened up for use by the volunteers.  Wednesday nights, after a day of volunteering, are one of the most fun times - the volunteers always eat a meal with the host church body…The SP experience has been so great for my tribe!  Vaughn said that he seldom sees Beth, after a day of clean-up; as soon as they arrive back at the host church, Beth disappears and can be found in the kitchen with the cooks – helping to prepare, serve, and then clean up after supper.  She loves it and has made some wonderful friends with the adult women that she has met – and I’m so thankful how these women take her under their wings and disciple and befriend her!

Even my guys get that from some of the men there – Vaughn would tell me how he would look over, and there would be some man, with a hand on each of Jake’s shoulders, and be right in Jake’s face (or one of the other boys), uplifting them and encouraging them to continue to make wise choices.  Then the men would slap the boys on the back, and they would go off and continue to haul branches out of someone’s yard.

This clean-up was Thomas’ first opportunity to volunteer with Samaritan’s Purse.  The minimum age for volunteering is 14 – Thomas turned 14 last month.  Vaughn has been self-employed for 15 years, but currently, working for Samaritan’s Purse is his dream job.  The rest of us love SP too, but the idea of settling down for a job is a hard one to swallow for us gypsies.  I wonder if they have a job where you just go to a place and get the volunteer efforts going, then get to move on to the next job!?! LOL!Our 3 short days in Shuqualak were wonderful for my 5 volunteers, but it was time for us to head back to MT. And while we are glad to be back ‘home’ seeing our bigs and visiting friends, we are already counting the days until we can be back on those chainsaws and ladders, helping out with disaster relief!

We left Cumberland Gap on a Friday afternoon, headed for Mississippi and a Samaritan’s Purse tornado clean-up.  We were going to jet there quickly because clean-ups are worked 7 days a week, but since it was just beginning, they weren’t starting until Monday.
Since we had a little bit of extra time, on Saturday we stopped by the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, located on the border of Georgia and Tennessee.  We stopped at the Chickamauga site first, and the rangers there were kind enough to let us leave the RV parked alongside the road, in the park, for the day.  We would have parked in the big rig parking lot, but it was full of cars, and we could not navigate it.  The ranger apologized, and said that people in cars and trucks constantly park there even when there are regular car spots.  

In the visitor’s center, we watched the short film on the park, and checked out their museum…The museum is spread out between a couple of spots on either side of the building.There is even a fabulous gun collection that was donated to the museum by a private donor, and is housed in the visitor’s center. There are more than 300 rifles and carbines, and a few pistols. We thought that these sections of trees, with cannon balls embedded in them from the Civil War battles, were very interesting – check out how the trees continued to grow around the balls… A sign from the slavery display… There are cannon placed throughout the park… Chickamauga was a victory for the Confederates in Sept. of 1863. The park is beautiful with treed areas and wide open fields.  Like all the battlefields, there are a lot of memorials placed throughout the park (over 1400)… We saw quite a few people enjoying the park from horseback, or riding bikes.  One of the most unique things about the park is this lookout memorial… We didn’t count the steps to the top, but it was an easy climb… and the view from the top was gorgeous…  We drove all the roads in the park (in the van), and checked out a bunch of the memorials, but we didn’t do any of the hiking paths since we still wanted to get to the Chattanooga location the same day. The kids did as much of their Jr. Ranger work at the Chickamauga site as they could, then we drove over to the Chattanooga site.   There they have the cutest little visitor’s center… 

that has a cute little gift shop and a small room where this incredible painting is displayed…Across the street is Point Park… Inside Point Park, are more cannon… 

and memorials… 

The trees in the park were flowering… The kids finished up their Jr. Ranger work, and we turned their stuff in at that cute little visitor’s center.  Then it was time to run back to Chickamauga to pick up the truck and 5er, then hit the road to get a little closer to Mississippi!  We did get a little closer, but just a little…

before we were stopped with a blowout!  On the Alabama/Georgia border, we had a tire come apart. (course, if you ‘like’ The TicknorTribe on FB, you knew about it right when it happened! LOL!)   It was our first blow-out in nearly 4 years of being in our RV, so we really can’t complain!  And, since the tread wound itself around the axle, it didn’t damage the rv or the other tires, which we are so thankful for!  The guys had to cut the tire off the axle with a pair of bolt cutters (WHY do we have a pair of bolt cutters in the RV?  I have no clue, but we sure were glad that we had them!).  But with all my big guys, it wasn’t long before they had us back on the road!