What I did on summer vacation 2007

If you wish to look at one of the photos in a larger size, click on the photo.

Besides all that carpeting and painting, we did manage to have some fun traveling in Nebraska during the summer. While the impression one gets when driving through this state is that of a flat and devoid of features plain, there are some interesting places to go to. Here are a few:

Even Kearney has a highlight or two. Driving along Interstate 80 near mile marker 272 (Kearney's exit) one sees a structure that spans the highway. This is the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument.

Inside this building are exhibits that celebrate this area as the main avenue of transportation from the mid-1800s when it lay along the Oregon and Mormon Trails, the short-lived Pony Express, the Union Pacific Railroad, the first transcontinental paved highway (US HWY #30), and finally to the Interstate system. When visiting, make sure to see the Archway - it is well worth the price of admission.

For the past couple of years, Kearney has hosted an old time Chautauqua. The speakers represent famous persons in American history. In 2007 we had Frederick Douglas and William Jennings Bryan actors, to name a couple.

While the land may seem dry and parched in the summer, we do have several swimming lakes nearby. This lake (pond?) is at Fort Kearney Recreation area. My brother and I enjoyed many a cool dip when he visited in July.

Nearly 12 million years ago, hundreds of rhinoceros (yes they lived in North America back then), horses, camels (yep, they were here too), elephants (here also) and other animals were buried in volcanic ash. In 1971 a farmer came upon some protruding skeletal remains of this burial and thus was discovered the "Ashfall Fossil Beds of Nebraska." This is a State historical park and is within a few hour drive of us.

The volcano spewed its ash to a depth of at least 8 feet (2.5 meters). The source? By analyzing the mineral content of the ash, experts have determined that the volcano was in SW Idaho (over 1500 miles away).





One of Elaine's many interests is clowning. She is a volunteer clown at the local hospital. We found out that there is a clown museum in the town of Plainview Nebraska. On one of our camping trips, we made a stop at the clown museum.


Nebraska was one of those places known as the Old West of cowboy fame. Spotted these survivors of the Old West on a rural road in Nebraska.



When not traveling afar, we have found many enjoyable and interesting sites nearby.

After this summer of carpeting and camping, I settled in to my last semester of teaching. Now, I am fully retired and am loving it.

New Carpeting Summer of 2007

Rather than a travel blog, I will tell you what kept us busy in our home last summer (2007).

Our home was built in 1977. The carpeting in most of the rooms had not been replaced since that time. Pathways were worn in heavy traffic areas and the padding had deteriorated in a few places. Putting it off for about 5 years, this was the year to recarpet the living room/dining room and two bedrooms. The 3 bathrooms were carpeted. Elaine & I never really liked carpeted bathrooms. As a consequence, they were to be covered in a linoleum (or whatever it is made of).

Here are a few shots of what the carpets and rooms looked like before during and after being re-floored.

Those of you who have ever done this job will fondly remember having to move every last thing in every room and closet. Then you must find a place to put all these essential possessions while the old carpet and underpadding are removed. Being the frugal people that we are, the decision was made to hire and installer, while doing all the removal work, storage and cleaning ourselves.

There was a deadline to the project, as my brother was coming to visit and it was our goal to have the task completed before his arrival.

In Kearney, there is a shortage of tradesmen of all types. Naturally, then the first task was to get a commitment from a carpet installer. that went well, as he came right over and did all the measurements, gave us an estimate and told us he could start in 10 days.

Buying the carpet and lino was easy. Agreement was reached on all the colors and styles with no problems.

Elaine suggested that we should take this opportunity to repaint all the walls and patch any imperfections. That motivated me to start moving furniture, books, clothing etc. etc. etc. from one room and its closet. It also inspired me to use this project to get rid of things that we had outgrown or had just shoved into hiding. The first room to get my attention was Anne's bedroom, which contained about 10 large boxes full of Anne's childhood clothing, books, toys, stuffed animals, etc. These items were carted downstairs into the family room for Anne to go over when she next came home. The bed, 2 dressers and 2 bookshelves were put into the guest bedroom.



After several hours, t room was bare. The carpet came up easily, but there were carpet nails all along the walls, which I had to remove one by one. This room took a day to do.

Elaine began painting this room (now known as the philatorium)* as I turned my attention to the hallway. I was really surprised about the amount of dirt that gets through carpeting and sits in lovely sifted piles in the heavy traffic areas. Next, I painted the hallway and linen closet. A decision had to be made on every item that we handled. Keep, throw, give away to charity? During this process, I filled the car to the brim with clothing, bedding and towels and donated them to local charities.




Next was the hall bathroom. A small room, but with hundreds of carpet fasteners to pull. The staples and nails would have rusted over the years and often had to be pulled by a pliers. Elaine applied her artistic skills, learning to sponge paint and select attractive paint colors and border strips.



We moved into the guest bedroom so that I could tackle the master bedroom. The padding was not nailed down, it was glued down. I pulled the carpet, but the padding stayed down. A swine of a job, as I had to scrape off this foam rubber padding. Painted this room.






After removing carpeting from our ensuite bathroom and vanity area, Elaine gave the walls her artistic attention. Don't know if you can see what is on the border - they are outhouses.




Turned my attention to the hallway stairs and counted a minimum of 35 nails to each of the 7 steps. All pulled individually.



Now the upstairs was ready. We had to climb over piles of boxes, bags, etc. to get to the bed in the guest bedroom - which was to be our bedroom until the carpeter did our bedroom.

It had been a couple weeks since we spoke with the carpeter, so I contacted him to tell him we were ready for his services. No answer, left a message. Message not returned. Called for a few days without getting a return message. This guy had disappeared. We know his parents, and they weren't saying where he was - just that he was really busy. We asked the retailer to try to track him down. they said several people were trying to find this guy, with no luck. So, here we are, the whole upstairs ready, but no one to do the job and my brother coming in less than a week. Never did find out what happened with him. Needless-to-say, we would not have a very high recommendation to give.

Fortunately, the retailer found a carpeter who could put in a day or two and another one who could also put in a few days. Which would be adequate to finish the job. The first guy never said 2 words and the second guy never stopped talking. Both did excellent work and I'd recommend them.

I began work on the living room/dining room. The flooring under the carpet was by far the dirtiest in the house. This went quickly, and the painting also only took a day.



Next I went to the downstairs bathroom, which had adhesive square foot floor coverings. My advice to anyone is if you ever put those things in a room, sell the place and move rather than try to take them up. They were stuck down tight and it took many hours and scraped knuckles to get them up.

Another problem we had to face was how to lift the toilets, as they have to be shut off, drained and removed before lino was installed. Not wishing to have to use a bed pan, my solution involved having a plumber come to lift 2 and leave one operational. Then, when those bathrooms were done, the plumber would reinstall the 2 toilets and lift the 3rd toilet. Of course, when the last bathroom was done, the plumber would have to come back to reinstall toilet #3. That's 3 service calls at $50-75 each call for 5 minutes work.

Providence smiled on us. I was talking to our insurance agent about our recarpeting one day and he asked what we were doing with the old carpet. I said we were going to haul it to the dump (p.c. landfill). He owns and manages a mobile home court and said he could use the carpet to recover floors of the mobile homes. Disposal problem solved. When he came to pick up the first batch of carpets, I was talking about the toilet issue. Kevin said, heck, I lift toilets all the time in the mobile homes. Kevin brought his wife and adult son over and they solved this problem - no charge. Guess I can't shop around for a better insurance agent.

Other than one downstairs closet and a alcove off the kitchen, all the painting, papering etc. was done. While things were still somewhat disorganized, we had our bedroom back and my brother (who retired in June) had a bed in the guest room.


Motivation was high and Elaine & I agreed to go through every thing we had in the house and pare it down. The garage also got our attention and was cleaned out.

After that we were ready for a break a room housing a collection of postage stamps.