January is always filled with Carolyn knee-deep in year-end financial reporting, giving statements, and of course IRS and sales tax reports. Pat goes back to working 40-60 hours plus a week to support our time off the road. As we have said before, the ministry usually pays for the travel expenses but does not pay us... and we have bills just like anybody else, so Pat's job, at this point anyway, is essential. Once the year end reporting is complete, Carolyn begins the task of booking the year's tours. So our time at home is not as "relaxed" as some might think. There is always work to be done!

March 15, 2007 we started out for MCC Rehoboth, Rehoboth Beach, DE…  We arrived after driving for 2 and a half days in POURING rain.  We pulled into the church and our long time friends Shila and Mary were there to greet us and get us plugged into power.  They are experienced RVers and knew how to do everything we needed! 

The following day, Shila and Mary returned to help us set up… the rain had stopped long enough to get the equipment inside the church.  But when I opened the compartment doors, I noticed that the carpet was wet!  It is always something, isn’t it?  We elected to deal with it later and just get set for the concert.  We were set up rather quickly with help from a few church members and retired to the RV to rest a little and then dress for the concert.  They were to have a spaghetti dinner and the concert was to follow…  The concert went well and afterward everyone scrambled to get everything taken down and loaded into cars and SUVs.  We didn’t want to put our equipment in the RV compartments until we had a chance to look at them in the daylight and determine what was wrong. 

The next morning at 6 a.m. (yes you read that time right!), all the vehicles carrying our equipment arrived at the church service location to get us set up for morning worship. Since the church met in rented space, we weren’t able to set up until morning.  Our experienced helpers got us up quickly and we went back to the RV to get dressed….  The service was great!  The congregation was wonderful!  After the service, we again loaded our equipment into 2 cars and went back to Shila and Mary’s new home on the beach!  (J Our job does have a few perks!)  There we spent the afternoon talking and catching up with Shila and Mary… we also enjoyed our time with their friends Jo and Nancy, before retiring for the night to the driveway and our home on wheels!

We spent the next couple of days with our friends.  It had been several years since we’d had the luxury of spending much time with them.  On day two, we decided to take a look at the compartments, and to the best of our knowledge, there was no plumbing leak!   Thank You God!!  We think that the hours of intense rain we drove through must have seeped up through some rust spots on the compartment base!  J And that is under warranty!!!  We decided not to take any chances with the equipment, so with Mary’s help we found trash bags and XXL and XXXL Ziploc bags in which to pack everything!  NOTE:  We now, as a rule, store all sound equipment in plastic bags! 

For trip home we had perfect spring weather:  sunny and warm!  We stopped at our favorite little farmers market in Virginia for some of the best homemade cream Easter eggs you have ever tasted!