Our new Bus!

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(New Life Ranch)

We have some exciting news; we traded motor homes! We have now have one with a slide in the living area and a second slide in the bedroom! The slide in the bedroom is what we were wanting, as that turns the bed to the side of the room, and allows the whole back wall for closet! We have found, and I have mentioned, that it’s not the amount of clothes we need, it’s the variety of seasons~~I was forever moving the warm clothes out of the totes in the basement of the bus and putting some of the summer clothes down there. Then we’d move to the next location and need the summer clothes back. On this project that change takes place in two days’ time! Now I have all of our clothes in the bedroom at one time~~a very handy concept! And all of our shoes! That’s what we were after, and what we ended up with is a rig three years newer, 50,000 fewer miles (which wasn’t really an issue, because ours could have gone for another 100,000 miles). This one is also three feet longer, which makes a big difference when your whole house is 38’! The slide in the living room is about a foot deeper than the other, so that gives us quite a bit more floor space. Our new one is the same make and model as the old, which really pleased Bob, because he liked how the old one handled. It’s interesting to see the changes Newmar made in three years~~outlets, for one. They have lots of outlets and phone jacks now, whereas our old one had quite a few extension cords running from the outlet to the place we wanted that thing. As much as we loved the old one, the new one is that much better.

If you’re wondering how the move took place, here’s how you do a driving-home: we drove our old one to the town where this was, about 75 miles from here, on Friday, parked with the two doorways across from each other, put stuff in totes and carried it back and forth, unpacking as we took each one in. It took us about ten hours to clean the new, move the stuff and clean the old. We were back in camp by noon Saturday. Pretty bizarre! In the move, though, my cordless mouse seems to have made an escape~~it was with my laptop in the old one, and not with my laptop in the new one. Every tote was unpacked, we know nothing was left in the old one, and still no mouse. I think when we find that missing sock from the dryer we’ll also find my mouse….and I’m now the proud owner of a new mouse in my new house!

Sunday afternoon we had a housewarming, and dedicated the bus: to our use, and God’s glory. It was a very special.

It’s very cold (mid 40s, but windy and soooo damp) and cloudy and rainy. Our tour on Friday was to the Sam Walton Museum in Bentonville, AR, which is where Sam bought his first Ben Franklin, which he later turned into Wal-Mart. After that museum, and lunch, we went to a Native American museum. It was an indoor day, which the weather required.

Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you about Tuesday night! After our social get-together Bob and I decided to go to the hilltop behind the camp, and look at the stars (really!). When we got up there we found Mike, who is head of the amateur astronomy club at John Brown University! He was setting up telescopes to view with the campers; he had a 10” aimed at Jupiter, a 12” aimed at a star cluster, and a 16” aimed at Andromeda, which is the closest galaxy to the Milky Way. We came down and told the others, and then got back up there before all 60 sixth grade campers appeared! It was awesome~~Andromeda has a small galaxy revolving around it, and that was also visible. It was just overwhelming.

One more little note; my job right now is inputting responses off the evaluation cards from the campers in 2009. There is one question that reads “Would you like to return to New Life Ranch?” There is a yes bubble and a no bubble; one camper filled in the yes bubble, and then in the margin he wrote “heck yeah”. That made me laugh!

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