Florida

Alright, it's taken some time, but I've uploaded all my photos into my Yahoo album. Click here to see the album. I'd recommend viewing them as a slideshow.

Now I'll tell you more about just what we did down there. Amy, Tara, Kate, my mom and I all headed down to the Port Charlotte area on Sunday, February 19th. We spent Monday through Friday working on a home that was heavily damaged by Hurricane Charley back in August 2004.

The five of us stayed in some donated trailers on a church property. All volunteers in town helping with hurricane rebuilds could choose to stay there if they wanted. And since there were only five of us, we were teamed up and bunked up with a group of 19 folks from a UCC church up in Connecticuty. They were a very fun group.

The volunteer trailers were actually pretty nice. There were bunk beds, but having been on many a mission trip - these sure beat sleeping on a church floor. Plus, we were staying by a church I had visited only days after Hurricane Charley blew through. I was down there for work travel, so it was neat to see how far the area had some since then.

The home we worked on was in real bad shape. The guy who lived there was 69-years-old, and really didn't have any nearby family or friends to look out for him. Thus, his home sat there wind and water-damaged for more than a year. The results were horrible. The roof had huge holes in it and the inside was full of mold and worse. He was a bit of a packrat, too, so that made cleaning it out even worse.

When we got to his house on the first day, I made sure to go for the roofing job. I didn't want to be stuck inside a house with mold all week, so I quickly scaled the ladder soon after arriving.

Not that the roof wasn't also going to be hard work. It was covered in heavy tile shingles, and they all had to come off. What a workout!

Amy and Mom got stuck doing some yardwork the first day. Earlier that morning they warned us about the perils of fire ants, and Amy got to experience that first-hand. I remember looking down from the room into the back yard and seeing Amy standing there with one pant-leg off. She'd found them. Or rather, they found her. She escaped with only a couple bites, but they're still itching this week from what she tells me.

My mom is a real trooper, she stuck with in the inside of that moldy, bug-filled home almost the entire week. She and another team of women from the Connecticut UCC church went to task with the kitchen and living room - bringing out bag after bag of moldy items and scary things. She said she'd rather be doing that than be up on the roof with us. She also assured me that I was right in choosing the roof. Apparently along with the mold inside, there were whole armies of spiders, giant roaches, snakes and rats. Yikes. I can handle snakes and rats, but spiders - especially large ones - would send me running.

In any case, the roofing team worked pretty quickly and efficiently. It was nice to have some folks on the roof who'd done that sort of thing before, they were helpful in guiding us to each task.

Oh, and since I just touched on the scary interior of the home - The homeowner himself, Dave, has not lived in the home since Charley. He lives in a FEMA trailer in his backyard. I can't imagine the feelings of not being able to do anything with your home for that long and just watching it get worse each day. I also imagine it was overwhelming for him to see a big army of volunteers show up the first day. Amy describes it well on her blog - I think the first day for him was hard, but he got used to it and then I think realized that people do care about him.

I don't think I can remember enough from each day to tell this story as a timeline, so I'll just share the stories as I remember them.

I certainly learned a lot about roofing, that's for sure. I got to help remove shingles, take out molding decking, and then hammer some back in. I also learned way too much about drip-edge and facia, and tar paper.

On the last day, finishing the roof was held up by permits, so I ventured inside to help with tearing out some modly drywall. While inside, I paused to watch some of the crew rip out the old door and doorframe. One guy took a crowbaw to the frame and ripped it out. It mostly crumbled due to rot and termites - but as it crumbled away much more came out.

Out pour several small snakes, roaches and the largest spider I've seen in some time. I had to take a break outside for an hour or so. Eeek.

I eventually headed back in and went back to the demo work. It's hard to say that I enjoyed punching out drywall in what was once someone's home, but to say that I didn't enjoy putting my foot and hammer through some walls would be false. I just hope the next crews can bring Dave's house back to the way it was. Or at least liveable enough.

We also had some fun on the weeknights last week. We played mini-golf one night, and Kate beat me by one stroke when I choked on the final hole. Tara schooled us all, though, by getting three holes-in-one in a row.

We also went to Englewood Beach on the Gulf one evening and watched a beautiful sunset. We saw some dolphins swimming by, too.

Kate had to leave us Thursday afternoon, and then Tara flew out Friday night. Overall, the work week was really awesome. I'm glad I got to do it and wish I could do things like this more often. I think the whole crew had a lot of fun no matter what we did. Also, there's nothing like wearing shorts and a t-shirt in the middle of February. I'm sure my brain was confused.

Anyway, I think everyone should try a mission trip like this at least once in their lives. I did them all through high school and college, and I know they shaped my life and helped me choose the career I'm in now. Plus, they're just a really good way of reminding us that we need to care for neighbors - whether we know them or not.

Moving on, once last Saturday rolled around, it was just Amy, my mom, and I left to do some fun stuff until our flights left on Monday. Saturday we headed down to Punta Gorda and hung out at an artfest in the morning. Boy, I felt young. The whole place was crawling with senior citizens.

Also, please, senior citizens of Florida: stop driving. I lost count of how many times we were almost hit last week.

Anyway, after the artfest, we headed over to the Babcock Wilderness Ranch for a wilderness eco-tour. I think they put "eco" in there just because you're outside. I doubt driving an old modified school bus through a swamp is the most ecologically-sound way of preserving the environment. But, the tour guide was extremely knowledgeable on all the wildlife and plants and reminded folks about endangered species and loss of habitat.

We saw tons of alligators and wild water birds. We also saw the many cows on the ranch, and even the two Florida cougars the ranch folks are taking care of.

Once that tour was done, we headed down to Ft. Myers to the Lee County Manatee Park. We didn't see any manatees, unfortunately. The tour guides there said the Gulf was warm enough again that they wouldn't be seeking the warmth of the canal system there.

Also in the park, I tried to stuff my mom into a kayak. The story behind that (which probably isn't as funny when it's retold) is that while planning this trip, I listed off a number of things we could all do on our three days off at the end. Kayaking was on there. I told my mom that kayaks are nicer than canoes, they're more comfy and easier to use, I think. She responded with the phrase, "You are not stuffing me into a kayak." If you know my mom, you can picture her saying this - that's why it was so funny. So the trip became us occasionally bringing up about how we were going to go kayaking one evening, or spend a whole day in a kayak.

Sunday was spent on Sanibel Island - which was so totally beautiful and amazing that it's hard to describe. The beach is covered in shells, the water is almost clear - and dolphins were swimming right off the beach! So amazing.

From there we headed over the "Ding" Darling Wildlife Refuge. Wow - even more amazing. There's a four mile trail through the park that we went along. And so many beautiful birds and critters were just hanging out near the trail. I'd recommend it to anyone headed down there.

Our final day in the area was spent at the Boston Red Sox spring training complex. Oh man - so awesome. Thanks to my mom and Amy for letting me do this, it was so cool. I took endless photos (especially of Trot Nixon), so hopefully those won't bore anyone. We saw all our favorite players and more. I even got an awesome souvenir.

The story on that is as follows: After watching the training workouts for some time, the three of us decided to go sit on a secluded bench near one of the practice fields. I noticed a baseball just on the other side of the fence. Nobody was near it, but it had obviously been used that morning during the batting practices. Who knows who could have hit it? Anyway, with Amy and mom posted as non-chalant look-outs, I dug a small hole near the fence and reached my hand underneath. Score! My very own official spring training ball! And on the way out, we saw GM Theo Epstein - and mom muscled her way through the crowd to have him sign it.

That was one of the best souvenirs of the trip!

And that's all I can think of for now about my eight days in Florida. If I think of more stories, I'll post them. Hope you enjoy the photos!