Volunteering over the weekend

On our last workday, Chef Jeff let us know that there would be a *large* group on campus for the weekend and that he and his staff could use help if we were willing to volunteer. We decided to volunteer to help serve for breakfast, lunch, and supper on Saturday, and breakfast and lunch on Sunday.

Before that started, we went for a walk on Friday evening -- the torches were burning down at the beach...

... and the sunset was pretty behind the palm trees.

At the end of our walk, we sat outside talking with some of the other Sower couples on our last night all together (some would be leaving early Saturday morning). We were near the worship center and could hear the band testing their equipment...

Carl looked in to see what was going on - there were just a few folks and a lot of chairs in there, preparing for the next couple of days.

Chef Jeff had told us to come to volunteer at 9am. We got to the dining hall at about 8:45am and the line was out the door...

... and there was a crowd inside!

It turned out that the large group (400 or so) had arrived to breakfast early...

... and everyone was scrambling to get the food and drinks out for them.

When the rush in the service lines was calmer, Carl took a couple of pictures inside Dewey Litl Loj of the guests dining...

How about that chandelier?

At lunch and supper, we were better prepared and all came early to their posts -- except the guests, who came at their assigned time. We were better able to handle the group without the long waits. Carl was handing out plates at the entrance and trying to get people to use all 4 lines, while I was working the drink delivery.

On Sunday morning, this was in the "lull before the storm" - a smaller group of 150-200 women dined first - and helped us realize that a plan to have them self-serve their beverages wasn't going to work for the big group.

We ended up putting the drinks into cups for the participants to pick up rather than having them self-serve.

Service line for breakfast

Between these two groups, I think nearly every bed on campus was occupied. Chef Jeff said that this is how it is all summer long, but he is staffed for it in the summer. During the winter, there usually are not this many participants.

We enjoyed volunteering at meal duty and getting to interact directly with participants at the camp!

The Murals of Lake Placid

In our various visits to the town of Lake Placid, we have seen many of the murals around town, and have posted pictures of a few on this blog. On Friday, since we had the day off, we borrowed the "Murals of Lake Placid" magazine that those of us who are visiting are sharing and headed into town to look carefully at a few of the murals.

We started at the Mural Art Gallery where we watched a short video about the murals, and then looked at artists' plans for the murals. When an artist is proposing a mural, they produce a version of it for approval before beginning; those proposal art pieces are in the art gallery -- so you can see small versions of the murals without walking around town... but that kind of defeats the purpose!

We left the Mural Art Gallery and looked on the side of its building for this first mural:

Town of Murals - How it All Began

Many of the descriptions told us about hidden items on the mural, causing us to examine it a lot more closely!

Along the same wall was a second mural:

The Scrub Jay's World

 On the other side of the building:

The Old Post Office

 Around the corner...

The Talk of The Town

 On the other side of the street...

Tea At Southwinds

This is identified as being the "Dewey Litl Loj" which is the building on the Lake Placid Camp and Conference Center where the dining hall and seating is located, as well as some guest rooms upstairs.

Caladiums in a small garden between buildings (more later in this post about caladiums)

Birding

A mythical creature statue in the little garden by the Birding mural

Turpentine Industry

Painted on the front windows of a storefront:

Lake Placid Drug Store

Caladium Fields - we were not able to get a very good picture because the parking lot next to this mural was being re-surfaced, so we couldn't get in front of it.

Dwayne and I often had caladiums in the front garden of our house in Coppell. It was interesting to realize that they were probably produced here in Lake Placid!

We finished up by driving out to the main highway (27) to Tractor Supply:

Cracker Trail Cattle Drive (on side of Tractor Supply)

Interesting fact about this mural - they were having difficulty raising all the funds needed to do it, until they decided to "sell" the cattle in the mural to ranches in the area. The purchasing ranch has their brand on the cattle that they purchased!

It was quite warm, so we only saw a few of the nearly 50 murals in town, but we enjoyed what we saw!