Saturday: Exploring St. Louis

After a lovely morning sleeping in, we all eventually piled into the cars and headed off to Grant's Farm. Grant’s Farm is a combination Budweister Clydesdales, zoo with giant elephants (one of whom is named Bud and can do cool tricks), petting zoo, amusement park, and amazement. We had fun playing with and petting pygmy goats, watching the elephant show, and seeing the huge horses.
Next we headed off to the Arch. It really is a magnificent sight, even if you’ve seen it before. Some of us didn’t realize that you can actually go into the Arch – from far away it looks so small. We had fun going through the museum below, and compared the height of the Mississippi with previous years (it’s high!).
For supper we trundled off to Union Station where all got to try different restaurants. Then we wondered by the Fudgery – a magical place where they not only make fudge, but they also sing and entertain you. We watched an entire “show” and got free samples – YUM!
Then it was time to head back for orientation and to be reunited with the rest of our group – Lori, Tom, Colleen and Jim. Hooray!
Words we would use to describe the day:

hot. sweaty. amusing. fun. adventuresome. spontaneous. memorable. unforgettable. sick to my stomach (that was Alyssa ). lovely. pickle.

(thanks to Gloria, Rachel, Bob, Logan, Heather and Alyssa for their help with this update). 

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A little game: match the caption with the photo!
Bob’s sandwich | getting in line | bookmark Mike made of “stuff to look for” through this week | The Arch | Licking the Arch (don’t ask) | chillin’ | fudgutainment | COWS! | The group | On the train ride | Grant’s cabin | COW! (we could have touched this guy’s horns as we went by – eep!) | Photo op at Grant’s Farm | Alyssa makes new friends | Bud the elephant – all 16,000 pounds of him

Here goes!

Good Saturday morning from St. Louis!

We had about the smoothest start yet as we piled into our cars and headed down here yesterday. The weather was beautiful, the kids had great attitudes, and we just enjoyed the 9ish-hour trip down here.

We did see a Volkswagen Bug completely engulfed  in flames somewhere in the middle of Illinois - looked like everyone was ok, so it was fun to watch in awe as everything burned from hood to tailpipe.

The traveling traditions are fun: we know we will not leave on time - this time we rolled out of Appleton at 10:30 after an 8:00 meet-up time. We stopped at the Cahokia Mounds just before crossing into Missouri. From there we looked over the city and prayed for it and our time here. Then we landed at Steak n Shake for a traditional time of pretty much taking over the restaurant and taxing the patience and good humor of the serving staff, before finally landing at New City.

There are nineteen of us now, and more will be joining today - good times to follow!

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Ready or not, here we come!

Looks like fifteen-ish kids with a handful of adults peppered in here and there are making ready to head to St. Louis for a week of serving fun.

Prayers appreciated!

that’s a wrap

Today was a nice wrap-up for the weekend. While we had to get up much earlier than any of us liked in order to clear out our stuff from rooms that would soon be needed for Sunday morning activities, it did mean we were breakfasted and packed well before the start of the main service at the church where we were staying. We had a brief gathering where Dan, the pastor (and Mike’s brother) shared the story of the church and what they’re up to. Then we drove over to The Source to get a nice group shot of everyone on the ramp. Church was encouraging (Dan taught on civility based on a passage from Titus 3 – pretty timely given the crazy political situation), and then we hit the road! Lots of sleeping happening on the way back, but the tiredness is “good tired” – we had a great time, worked hard, laughed and overall just really were glad to be a part of the craziness for another year.

yesterday…

So – normally we try to get out picture updates throughout the day and a summary out at the end of the day for work trips. But yesterday took “work trip” to a whole new level. We got as far as taking pictures – but to actually get them out to Facebook or to the blog was just one step too many.

We had three main projects going on:

Dan Klein & his son Kevin worked on replacing a window with a door (to help The Fallout building meet fire code). They were successful – though there was a touchy moment there when the door might have been hung to swing the wrong way. Crisis averted, all is well, and folks can now easily egress via the back of the building thanks to a ton of hard work from Lori and others to clear out the hallway.

The Source has a new once-foreclosed-upon house that will be joining to their transitional housing network – it’s pink and is decorated with dolphins, flamingoes and cranes, so another group worked at “The Crane House”. Ryan and Sara worked on drywalling inside, while Jeremiah, Christy, Mike, Messiah, Alyssa, Myster, and Nate worked on hauling, making and pouring cement for a sidewalk and digging post holes. They made it! By the end of the day the cement was covered to protect it from the coming frost and the posts were mounted and aligned and ready for the next stage of a storage shed project.

A third large-ish group worked on building a wheelchair ramp into the Art Coop building. That may not sound like a big deal, but the ramp needed to loop through a deep alley so needed a significant support structure in order to be set up correctly. Todd was crew boss for that project with a great deal of help from Tom – and they were joined by Lori, Jake, Ramiro, Antonio, Nick, Ryan, Alyssa, Myster, Messiah and Angela. A bunch of folks circled around and helped with additional projects here and there, pitching in where ever it was needed. Mike’s nephew Walker joined in as well – he’s been on other trips with us so it was neat to see and work with him again. After an 11-ish hour work day, (added to all the setup work from Friday), the ramp was installed! It still needs a railing and finishing, but all things considered it was quite an accomplishment.

The exhausted group packed up the trailer and headed to the Y for showers, followed by supper at Pancho Villa – a restaurant near The Source that has become a favorite. At around 10:30 we headed back to The Fallout where Peter shared a bit about the history of The Source, as well as the story of how they came to acquire the Crane House. Then it was back to the church and it wasn’t long before the building was dark and quiet.

It was a nice day

The day was a nice one. Okay, the early start was probably NO ONE's favorite, but sleep deprivation aside, folks got up without being too snarly, got their lunches made and their breakfastses had, and were on the road without too much trouble. After a stop for contemplation at the Basilica of St Mary, the group landed at the Fallout. They keep having such cool projects for us to do there! This time around the big project is to build a wheel chair ramp. But there are smaller ones too - demolitioning and cleanup and all sorts of stuff. We came back a bit chilled and (some of us) quite dirty, but all that was taken care of by hot pizza, showers at the "Y" and a fun evening outing. Yep, we went to ComedySportz for our evening activity. It really was hilarious - it was fun to see each and every kid getting pulled into the fun and activities of the group on stage. So now we're tucked back in at the church. The plan is to try to get a good night's sleep... we have a ton of work ahead tomorrow!

MPLS.

Well, we made it. Here we are in Minneapolis for our Fall Work Trip. The trip over was fairly uneventful - aside from one van getting nearly blown off the freeway by an oblivious UPS truck driver. It's going to be coooold this weekend so we'll have to keep moving... which kind of works for a work trip I guess! On the trip: Nick M (who we picked up in Eau Claire on our way through), Alyssa, Rachel, Sara, Angela, Lori, Christy, Jeremiah, Tom G, Todd, Mike-the-leader, Antonio, Ramiro, Myster, Nate, Messiah, Ryan, Jake... and someone else but I'm drawing a blank at the moment.

Up for today - breakfast, packing our lunches, a trip to the Basilica, and then WORK! Peter has heaps o' projects for us, including building a huge wheelchair-accessible ramp. Let the fun begin!