Rotary Project

Port Orford, OR

Rotary Project June and July, 2014

Our current Rotary project is to build 3 vendor booths for the up-coming BiMart Country Music Festival at Cape Blanco.

We are able to build the booths close to the site of the Festival because one of our fellow Rotarians is the owner of the ranch where the Festival is being held.

We are at the McKenzie sheep ranch on Cape Blanco.  Three Rotary clubs have joined forces to build these 10x20 foot buildings.  We have Rotarians from Brookings and Gold Beach partnering with the Port Orford club.

Two of the booths are for other vendors, who are contributing materials for all three.  The Port Orford Rotary has access to a portable sawmill, and the three Rotaries milled most of the framing materials.  (See my blog post 6/15/2014).  The sheathing plywood, roofing, electrical, plumbing and such will all be donated material from the other two vendors.

Yours truly in the window to the left (on the phone) supervising the eager crews.

Friday June 20th

My brother Nick came down from Salem for a visit on Friday the 20th.  Nick rode down after work on his 850 Honda Pacific Coast motorcycle (apt name eh?).  We hung out at home and caught up with what is happening in our lives since we last saw each other in November last year.  We took a long walk through town just before dusk and talked at home until nearly 11PM.

Saturday June 21st

Jeff's Birthday.  Nick was generous enough to come with me on Saturday and help build the food booths.  Nick's construction experience got him assigned to do all the layout work, and the crews were highly appreciative.  I have really fallen out of the habit of getting good blog photos.  After Nick left on Sunday I realized I didn't get out the camera even once.

Saturday night, Joan took Nick and me out to dinner at Griff's- I had their crab pasta, and it was delicious.  We finished up with coffee and pie- excellent!

Sunday afternoon- Monday and Tuesday more work on the Rotary project.

Wednesday and Thursday were rainy, so I got a rest break from what has been a marathon of work days.  Wednesday Joan and I drove up to Bandon for Joan's prescription meds, and groceries from the Price n Pride grocery store which has a better selection of vegan foods than our local Ray's Market.

Thursday June 26th

John and Dawn Pierce, two of Joan's former co-workers were in town and came to the house to see us.  Jeff had to leave for Rotary lunch, so we suggested going to dinner together and continuing the conversation.  To our surprise, we found out that it was John's birthday, and they ascented to sharing their celebration dinner with us.  We met them at the Port n Starboard restaurant, ate some good food, drank a bottle of Pinot Gris, and had a wonderful time.  After dinner we were invited over to the house that John and Dawn were renting on 13th Street, on the edge of Garrison Lake.  John and Dawn are shopping for a house to buy, here in Port Orford, and are looking at a lot of the properties we had considered when we were looking, so it was fun to compare notes.  We talked until 10 PM and considering that we have to pack up the motorhome and head for Grants Pass tomorrow morning, we excused ourselves and headed home and to bed.  We promised our good friends Jim and Sara McNeil that we would help out at the wedding of their youngest son Chris.  The wedding is at Jim and Sara's house near Merlin. (more on the wedding in the last post)

July 8th
Jeff's been working nearly everyday on the three booths.  Doesn't sound like it would be that hard, but we are volunteers and we still have metal roofs, electrical wiring, interior plywood paneling, countertops and shelves, vinyl floors, doors, porch and stairs, caulking and paint....

Our crew- hard at work

July 26th- 

Finally ready (well almost) for transport to the site.  The Festival wanted our booths set starting at 7AM today.  We had to load them on a tilt bed trailer and road them the 1/8 mile to the Festival site.  Still have doors to set and landing and steps to build.

By late afternoon, we were told by the Festival organizers we could not work on the booth again until Wednesday.  That means finishing up last minute items on all 3 booths AND getting them stocked and ready to serve food  Wed-Thursday.  Festival opens on Friday.

Here's a picture of Jeff's "work truck".  Our X-90 Suzuki has a fairly large trunk and I took advantage of it's capacity to haul all my tools, including a 12' folding ladder.

Wednesday July 30th

The Festival grounds set-up crew is still hard at work,  and the vendors get today to get their areas set-up up.   The Rotary booth still needs a working back door, shelving, soda machines, miscellaneous trim and caulking.  I'm so ready to be finished with this build.

Thursday July 31

The Festival is here!   Lots of people began arriving today in RVs and with tents.  The vendors are ready to roll.  Tomorrow the burgers begin flying out of the Rotary Booth and the dollars in.  I work two shifts Friday and one Sunday so this will be a busy weekend.  Then some well deserved rest will be taking place.

Your Traveling Friends

Jeff and Joan