June Journal

Things moved somewhat slowly on the house building project this month, but at least we are making progress in the right direction!

On Saturday, June 3, Linda went to a Hoedown at our church; a barbecue luncheon for the widows in our church, with all ladies invited for the fellowship. A group of young girls from a nearby Irish Dance Academy performed for us – it was a fun time!

One of our neighbors has an excavator and pulled up stumps for us, and hauled them off. Jim was going to rent a track hoe, but this worked out well!

We had been waiting since May 10^th for the State Environmentalist to come see that we had moved the brush and debris from the area where the secondary septic field MAY go someday – she must see that the ground had not been disturbed before we proceed. Well, she finally came on June 8 and we are good to go on getting our septic tank and field going! The sub that will put that in will also do footings for the house, He wants to do the footings first – so we need to get the stumps removed, do some grading and prepare for the survey team to come mark the corners for the house and detached garage. Progress at last!

Fortunately, the Environmentalist came by before Jim left the property to meet for lunch at the Loveless Café with a couple we met on our Alaska Caravan! Morrie and Keron are from Sacramento, CA.

We also saw them a few more times the following week when we both were staying at Grand Ole RV Resort. Jim gave them a tour of the Yazoo Brewery. Ooops – no photos!

On the 11^th, after the worship service at Stephens Valley Church, we celebrated one of our members 100^th birthday!

Linda had never been to a 100^th Birthday celebration until she went to her Aunt Dee’s in April, and less than 2 months later, another big celebration for Mr. Jim!

We had a nice lunch followed by cake and ice cream.

On June 15, we left Tanbark Campground in Dickson and moved again to Grand Ole RV Resort. Acey had 98,003.3 miles, Thor 119,252 and Heffie 87,898. Our cars are really piling up the miles since we can’t park Acey near our building site. We hope to be able to move her to the building site next month – we’ll see!

Jim got the temporary power post set up and requested an inspection on the 19th.

On Wednesday June 21, it was approved to be hooked up! The next step was for the electric company to put us online.

Our niece Julie flew in on the 21^st, and Linda picked her up at the airport. They drove out to Sparta to Julie’s father’s house to see if they could find a few things and to visit at Findlay United Methodist Church. It was a surprise that the little church where Bruce had been a member had a remembrance time of her father. (Julie had thought she was just meeting with the pastor and choir members that were friends to Bruce) Julie played a few hymns on her flute, and they had a sweet time meeting the members and a few of Bruce’s neighbors that had been invited.

Bruce always said he lived “on the mountain”. It was drizzly, but we stopped at the viewpoint to take a look!

Royce drove in with the girls on Friday and we all met for dinner near the hotel they stayed at. Chris also came and was able to update Julie’s computer and order a much-needed fan for it.

Saturday, the last stumps were dug up.

Several truckloads of stumps have been hauled off and still lots more to haul away!

The fan for Julie’s computer also arrived on Saturday, so Chris got it installed!

Linda’s brother Rob drove up from south Florida and joined us for Church and family time afterwards. We had a wonderful lunchtime; Eve and Amanda played a game with Gwyneth and Violet. We had great fellowship with all present but didn’t get photos of everyone!

Then we visited in the hotel lobby for a while. The girls drew a house on the computer!

Soon, Rob and Eve left to go to the NASCAR race – they had this planned for several months!

It was a fun day with our family!

Monday June 26, Royce, Julie and the girls headed out in the morning – we sure enjoyed our time with them! Jim was at the building site and the temporary power was hooked up; we can connect Acey to electric now!

Once we have the water hooked up – and gravel for a driveway, we can park Acey on-site and cut down on driving so far (70+ miles round trip from the RV park to the building site in Pegram). Linda ran a few errands and headed to Eve’s for lunch with Rob – and Marlin. Once Jim got back from working at the building site, we went to Yazoo and enjoyed some craft beer.

Rob unexpectedly had to leave on Tuesday – he had a roof leak that needed to be attended to. We had hoped he would stay until Saturday morning – but we packed in some good times during his short visit!

The serpentine belt in Thor’s engine broke that evening – so Jim replaced that on Wednesday morning; thankfully it didn’t happen on the interstate at high speed!

Friday was our last day at Grand Ole RV Resort, and perhaps our very last stay here! Chris and Eve came for dinner, and we played some Mexican train. Heavy storms were moving into the area; Chris and Eve both left just before the big deluge hit!

We left Goodlettsville on Saturday morning July 1 at 10:55 with 98,068 miles on Acey, Thor had 120,335 and Heffie had 89,319 miles.

We drove through Nashville…

and arrived at Tanbark Campground in Dickson about 12:15, right before another big thunderstorm hit! We plan to stay at Tanbark for 3 weeks.