Florida – “Care-A-Vanners”

Bill (in white) & others on the build site

We spent the month of November as RV Care-A-Vanners in Fellsmere FL. Care-A-Vanners are RVers who volunteer with Habitat for Humanity building houses for the community. The Care-A-Vanners get free or cheap RV hook-ups in exchange for working on the build site. 

Grace Meadows, a Habitat for Humanity community in Fellsmere FL

Habitat built this entire neighborhood of over 50 homes, adding 5 new houses per year. Here are some of the completed homes.

We worked from 7:30am to 3:30pm 5 days a week and it was hard work. Each day involved new tasks and so we contributed to various projects in the construction process, with Barbara doing easier jobs. We worked along side local volunteers, future homeowners, some Care-A-Vanners who arrived later in the month, and a bilingual supervisor who amazingly juggled people with wide ranging skills and all the aspects of running a building site.

Here are some of the trusses Bill made for the three sheds.

Among other tasks, Barbara taped the windows and drew chalk lines.

Bill built the major beam for the front porches on both houses and all the supports. Wish we had a picture of the beams being installed by a fork lift.

It was fun to watch the transformation of the houses and we were glad to have the opportunity to participate in this great organization.

Early November: Just the frames of two houses right after Bill & Ricardo installed the first porch beam.

End of November: Two houses with porches, trusses, plywood, safety rails, and some windows

Washington DC & Virginia – Aviation Museums

We spent July on the road visiting parents and all siblings except Barbara’s brother Ron. We were very close to Ron’s house in Northern Virginia, but he and his family were in Alaska. Nevertheless we stopped there to visit both of Smithsonian’s Air & Space museums and complete our aviation theme.

We parked at the Wiehle-Reston East Metro stop – the west end of the silver line.

All we had to do was stay on until we got to L’Enfant Plaza, but there was a train derailment at Falls Church. So we were bused directly from McLean two stops to Ballston (yellow stars on map) where we got back on the train. We’ll revisit that map later.

Despite the detour we made it to the Smithsonian’s Washington DC Air and Space museum before its 10am opening. The DC Smithsonian gets the most prestigious and unique planes. We saw most of the planes with more attention on the World War II planes, Bill’s particular interest.

1903 Wright Flyer

Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis

only remaining Macchi C.202 Folgore (Italian WWII fighter)

The derailment was not cleared when we returned midday, so we were bused from Ballston to McLean, except this time it was a two-hour ride through congested city streets with stops at East Falls Church, West Falls Church (not even on the silver line), and Tysons Corner (one stop beyond). See map above. Lots of irate passengers left the bus at Tysons Corner, but bypassing McLean meant a large additional fare, so we stayed on the bus. After a wait, we got the train at McLean and when it stopped at Tysons Corner we saw all those who jumped off early. What an adventure!

At Reston we took a bus to the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport. This museum has a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, a Concorde, the Space Shuttle Discovery, and countless other planes from every era. Again, Bill spent more time in the World War II section, as they had some unique German and Japanese planes.

Air France Concorde

Space Shuttle Discovery

 We never heard of an Airphibia before – a plane that could turn into a car.

And we liked how Airstream made quarantine quarters for the returning Apollo 11 astronauts.

We also looked in the restoration hanger, where we saw a Martin B-26 Marauder in pieces. Bill’s dad had a friend that flew them.

Florida – Heathcote Botanical Garden

While in Florida visiting Barbara’s dad, we went to Heathcote Botanical Garden in Fort Pierce. It was a hot day and we weren’t sure what the blooms would be like, but we were pleasantly surprised.

We weren’t sure what this was, but it looked cool.

We saw some butterflies in the butterfly garden.

The name of this plant caught our eye!

There was a Japanese garden.

One thing this garden is known for is its collection of bonsai. This one was even blooming.

Glad we had the chance to do a little outing with Barbara’s dad. 

Florida – Aviation Museum

After seeing the Air Force’s premier aviation museum, it seemed only fitting to head to the National Naval Aviation Museum at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida.

 

As we approached our destination with less than 4 miles to go, we hit stand-still traffic. We sat and sat. Then all of a sudden we heard a loud Whoosh right above us followed by other Whooshes. Bill immediately identified the source: the Blue Angels. People in the cars in front of us were getting out to watch the scheduled practice. That ended up being one of our more interesting hour-long traffic jams. 

We saw 5 Blue Angels practicing.

(picture from the web)

After the traffic jam/air show we parked our trailer at the campsite and headed to the museum. It is much smaller than the Air Force’s museum, but it gave us the chance to see some Navy planes not in the Air Force museum. Bill was particularly interested in the World War II planes.

Goodyear FG-1D Corsair

Grumman F6F Hellcat

General Motors TBM Avenger

Bill observing a North American SNJ Texan

There were many other interesting displays: planes from other eras, space vehicles, blimp gondolas, a giant screen theater where Barbara saw a National Parks movie, and interactive exhibits. Here are some older Blue Angels displayed in the signature diamond formation, only 18” apart.

And here is one of the president’s helicopters known as Marine 1.

On our way out we took a quick peek at the Pensacola Lighthouse.

Alabama - "Sweet Home"

Alabama is a new state for us. We are now down to 3 states in the 48 contiguous states that we have yet to visit. 

We spotted a Saturn 1B rocket at the rest area as we entered the state. Parts of it were designed and manufactured in Huntsville. The Saturn 1B is the little brother of the Saturn V rocket that took Apollo to the moon.

Saturn 1B, Alabama rest stop

We found a letterbox at the rest stop so Barbara can add Alabama to her letterbox list. We also stopped at a little airport in Evergreen, Alabama where we hoped to find a letterbox hidden four feet from the front of an old plane (a FJ-3 Fury). Since we were given permission to touch the plane - we poked and prodded it even opening a nice little compartment, but we didn’t find the box. :-(

FJ-3 Fury, Middleton Field, Evergreen AL

Then we camped at a pleasant campsite. We’ll have to come back some day and explore more of Alabama.

Since “home is where you park it” for us right now, we could say “Sweet Home Alabama” for one night.