The Green Machine Lives to Ride Again!

The Green Machine has been part of our family for so many years that it has become part of our identity. Other than the BoggsMobile, we have owned The Green Machine longer than any other vehicle.

People ask about the Green Machine almost everywhere we go. Even though we have not pulled it anywhere since December 2020, it is still missed when we pull onto the parking lot of churches.

I miss the little Green Machine too. With the mad prices of used cars, I have been tempted to sell it, but so far I have resisted the temptation. When a hog has been that good to the family, you hate to eat it all at one time.😍

The Green Machine stays in one place too much now and the battery runs down and needs to be jumped after sitting for several weeks. While jumping the battery earlier this year, something arced and blew a couple of fuses. Dad and Bro. Aster Northern found and replaced the blown fuses and got it running again.

What we did not know and could not know at that moment is that something else blew and the fuse block in the interior of the car was also dead. The wipers, power door locks, power windows, tail lights, brake lights, fan and more were all dead.

KJo checked all the fuses in that fuse block when we were home recently and they were all good. There was no power to the fuses.

The last day we were home, I had a few moments to dig into it. I first checked a large fusible link near the battery, but it was good. Then I decided to check this contraption that is attached to the battery.

There is no way to even see what it is without disconnecting and completely removing the battery. I did that, opened the red lid and this is what is underneath.

These are fusible links in a fashion that I had never seen before. If you look closely, the one in the middle is broken. It is 120 amp and controlled the entire interior fuse block.

This is a better look.

We were already late getting on the road, but I was so close to getting the Green Machine going. I ran to the nearest auto parts place, but they had none. I went to the next store and they had one package of assorted sizes. 

The one that blew was 120 amp. The assorted package had 110 amp and 150 amp among others. I put the 150 amp in temporarily, reinstalled the battery, hooked it up and turned the key. When the Green Machine fired up I checked all of the formerly nonfunctioning features and they were all working.

Time will tell IF the proper fuse will be the final fix, but for now, the Green Machine lives to ride again. That puts a big smile on my face!

Thank you for stopping by today.

Davy

Some Mixed Emotions!😁🤣🤔😢

I heard 40 years ago that mixed emotions were watching your mother in law drive off a cliff in your new Cadillac. 

Well, I really do not desire a new Cadillac and I like my mother in law. So I do not have anything going on like that, but I do have some conflicting sentiments bouncing around in my head at the moment.

It is with a good dose of mixed emotions that I announce today that we found a car to follow the Green Machine and that we left the Green Machine home three weeks ago. I can not bring myself to say that it will "replace" the Green Machine. Nothing can "replace" a member of the family, but something must follow it.

We have owned our 2006 Envy Green Scion xB since May 2012. It has been our main mode of transportation for our day to day needs for 8 years and 7 months. That qualifies the Green Machine as the longest we have ever owned any passenger car or truck by a pretty good distance.

We have driven many cars into the sunset of their lives, but none of the others have ever lasted this long. This has been a great car that suited our needs completely in so many ways.

Our plan for the moment is to store the Green Machine on the ranch and use it for an extra car when we are home. If we are going out for a few weeks with the tent trailer for tent revivals, we may pull the Green Machine into the trailer and use it during the tent revivals as well.

Here is the Green Machine as it begins road retirement with 208,024 miles at over 14 years old.

We are very thankful that we were able to use the Green Machine as our main car for so many years. When we purchased it, I wished aloud that it would last until 2020. It has done that and more.

We have been without a car payment all that time. That has enabled us to put money in many other places rather than the banker's pocket. We were able to put money into City Reach, building the house for Odie, Missions, Home Missions, church construction and other places. We are so thankful for that.

That makes me almost feel guilty and a little ashamed to finally spend money buying another car. 

However, Last year we saw the handwriting on the wall and knew we better start getting more serious about saving money for a different car. Then came the pandemic lockdown and we thought we may have to kick the car idea down the road.

Yet, here we are. Even in the pandemic, we were able to keep our Mission and Home Mission commitments, give spontaneously and put back some for a vehicle. All of this was due to the grace of God and the kindness of His people. We are praising God that we were able to travel and work as much as we were able!

Then we had some gifts that came to us personally, outside of the ministry, specifically for a car. We had also received money back for our vacation in the spring that was cut short due to COVID. That freed up cash for a car too. Recently we moved from a casual search to a serious search.

We searched and prayed, searched some more and prayed some more. We did not want to purchase the wrong car. Time will tell if we made the correct decision, but we finally settled the matter as best we could.

Some of you may remember Mr. Cheap Jeep that we pulled from 2008 to 2011. We loved that little Jeep and KJo especially has missed it since the day we retired it and sold it. 

 

Here is Mr. Cheap Jeep next to the bus during the historic Tulsa Blizzard in February 2011.

Mr. Cheap Jeep among the Redwoods in northern California in 2010.

Mr. Cheap Jeep behind the BoggsMobile at Umatilla, Oregon 2010.

Mr. Cheap Jeep was a 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 4WD that a friend sold us cheap, hence the name. I am happy to say that the next car after the Green Machine is another Jeep.

Our new Jeep is a 2017 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 4WD. We did not purchase it from a friend and it was not as cheap as the 1995 so we will have to come up with a new name.

It had 30,630 miles when we purchased it and it has the balance of the 7 year/100,000 mile powertrain warranty. It was placed in service in September 2017 so the engine and transmission should be warrantied for nearly 70,000 miles and nearly 4 years. Hopefully, we never need it.

The first time we drove it after bringing it home, we filled it with gasoline. The tank is over twice the size of the Green Machine and that is a good thing.

We drove in this for about 90 minutes the first evening.

Here it is loaded with the wheelchairs and ready to go south.

Here it is hooked to the new Blue Ox tow bar. We have already pulled it nearly 1200 miles.

I have since added an extension to the receiver on the bus. Although the new tow bar is a bit longer than the old one, the attachment points on the Jeep are much further apart and that shortens the actual distance. 

Also, the Green Machine required a drop down attachment since it was so much lower than the bus. The drop down added an additional ten inches in length.

Although we left the Green Machine at home, it is not completely out of sight. It is still on my key chain courtesy of my dear friend, Galen Cummins!😍

Most of you know that we name everything. I even give Odie a new name every day or two.🤣 We love it when names feel like they are RIGHT. Maybe that will happen in the next few weeks.

My brother Steve sent a great list of names and we have thought of many and nothing feels perfect yet. For now, we are calling it, The Jeep. Can we do better? Leave a comment with suggestions. Ultimately, we will call it whatever feels right, but we are open to ideas.

Whatever the name, not jumping in the Green Machine is going to take some getting used to, that is for sure. He sure looked lonely when we left.

Thank you for dropping in today.

Davy

Pictures From Home And The Road

Wow! We have a whole bunch of home and road pictures for you today. Looking at all of these wonderful pictures makes me realize that they are actually just a drop in the bucket of the pictures we could post from the last several wonderfully busy days.

I understand that a lot of you come here every day for the pictures. Yes, KJo, I am looking at you. But that is OK. We love giving you pictures! Get ready for picture overload today!

I will present them to you with some running commentary along the way.

First, look at these temperatures. This was Ohio on Christmas Day.

15 and feels like ZERO

Any way you slice it, that is too cold for humans to live, at least this human.😅

A beautiful sunny moment among mostly cloudy days.

The Green Machine is still beautiful in the right light and especially in darkness.😍

Dryden Rd. Pentecostal Church

It was great to see Bro. Jimmie Radcliffe recently!

Jo Jo and Charlie are in the house!

KJo and her Dad making music on guitars. This put a big smile on my face even long after the music stopped.

When KJo's Dad stood up, the zipper on his coat caught in the guitar string. They could not see how in the world it stuck or how in the world it would come off. It was so funny to watch AND take pictures.

After a few minutes, the zipper and string were loosed as quickly as they became tangled. What in the world?

Hooking up to the tent trailer in order to move it into position as we prepared to leave.

Time to go south.

Most of the day was cloudy and misty, but the sun broke through!

We have new readers joining all the time, so some of you may not be familiar with the beautiful people in the picture above and the picture below. This is Bro Herman and Sis. Margaret Woods from Kingston, Tennessee. Kelly Jo and I met them 7 days after we married in 1985.

We love them like family and they have taken us in as family for all of these years. Herman and Margaret have been an incredible influence in our lives in more ways than I can describe to you right now. They are like second parents to both of us and another set of grandparents to Odie. They are so precious to us!

Years ago, when I was a Pastor, Bro. Herman would invite us to preach revival each year. Several times during the revival week he would impress on me his opinion that God had equipped our family to be evangelists. 

He would say something like, "I am not saying you are not in the will of God as a Pastor right now, but remember, son, God is going to use you as an evangelist. Mark my word, you are not always going to be a Pastor."

Right there, in the moment, I could not see that at all. But Bro. Herman was right. He could somehow see the bigger picture that God had outlined for us. Bro. Herman did not make me an evangelist. He did not have the power or even the desire to do that. But he perceived what God was doing. Praise God for men of vision and faith.

Bro. Gary Thomas is from Colorado Springs and we see him and his family in Vonore, Tennessee! What a special treat!

That wraps up a boat load of pictures for you. We are long gone from Tennessee, but we should have you caught up to real time by Monday. Thank you for stopping by today.

Davy