A Schedule Adjustment

ATT is almost non-existant here at Forts Lake and Tuesday it was gone. I could not get pictures for Vintage View Vednesday to post last night so I wrote an update about our schedule. I tried to get it to publish for probably 30 minutes and then it went through a little after midnight, I thought. This morning I started hearing from people about "no post" and realized, it did not go up. Oops!

I repent in sackcloth and ashes. MAYBE it will go up now.

A Schedule Adjustment
Our schedule is never written in stone, more like written in jello. Although we make commitments with the full intention of following through, some things can not be helped. Thankfully this time it is minor.

Both vehicles have needed a little tweaking this week.

The Green Machine

You may remember that the Green Machine needed a starter and battery when we were near here at Tanner Williams Church with Pastor Donnie Williamson in late September last year. We took it to Pep Boys in Mobile and they replaced the starter and battery on October 1.

You may also remember that by October 20, the battery was showing signs of weakness. We have lost count of how many times it has needed to be jumped since then. We finally purchased a 12V jump box. We have used it at least six or seven times and we love the convenience of that.

Not only do I think the new battery was defective, but it was not near as many cranking amps as the previous battery. I took the car back to Pep Boys Monday to tell them about the battery and found that they do not sell a battery with more cranking amps. They said that if I could find the battery that I wanted, they would refund my money.

Done and done. I picked up the new battery Tuesday, changed it out and took the old one back to Pep Boys.

The BoggsMobile

We have been hearing very intermittent and brief sounds from the front brakes on the bus. When we had the oil changed in Pendleton, Kentucky Thursday, I asked the guy to look at the brakes as he was greasing everything. He said the rotors and brakes looked good.

Saturday morning between Richton and here we heard the sound louder and more consistently with braking and a little bit of sound after the brakes released. When we arrived here, I inspected the wheels from the outside and found lots of brake dust on the driver's side from wheel.

I was hopeful that the problem was simple and a change of brake pads would rectify it. Monday morning I went to Mike's Truck and Trailer Repair. The owner is the brother of some dear friends of ours and he has a great reputation as a mechanic. He came to the church Monday afternoon with one of his guys and removed the driver's side wheel.

It turns out the caliper has failed and the back side of the rotor was eaten away. 

He said they could change everything out if I could get the parts from Prevost. I immediately called Prevost and they found everything we need in two cities. The only hitch is that bus brake parts are heavy and overnight and 2nd-day air shipping was cost prohibitive so it will be the end of the week before the brake parts are here.

We were scheduled to be in Sterlington, Louisiana Sunday morning so I called Pastor Tracy Boyd to discuss the possibilities with him. He suggested beginning Wednesday night and running through Sunday morning. After finding out for sure that the parts will not be here until at least Friday, I called Bro. Tracy Tuesday and we made the change.

I appreciate Pastor Boyd for being so kind. He evangelized for several years so he knows that these things can not be helped. AND the truth is, they can not be helped. It has taken me many years to admit that to myself and let the things I can not control roll off my back and into the hands of God.

So, we have adjusted the schedule and we are rolling on. Meanwhile, we are still struggling with sickness, but we are having an excellent revival. Praise God for His help.

Thank you for reading today.

Davy

A Couple of Mismatched Circles

 🎵 The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. 🎵 

And so does the bus itself. It runs in big circles all over America.

I have been documenting our circles out and back home this year and we have enjoyed several of these tours across America and visiting with some of our nation's finest people.

Tour # 1
Tour # 2
Tour #3

I have our last two circles to tell you about today. One of them was very small and one of them was very large! They were completely mismatched circles.

Let us start out small. Near the end of the first week of August, we pulled out of the barn and drove to Pendleton, Kentucky on I-71 for an oil change. The next day we finished the trip to Central City, Kentucky to hold tent revival for Pastor Alan Harris and Trinity Pentecostal Church.

From there we pulled the tent trailer to Evansville, Indiana and then took the BoggsMobile back to Ohio for services on Sunday. However, before the bus rolled from Evansville, we jumped in the Green Machine and drove near Salem, Kentucky for Brentni's wedding and then back to the bus.

By late that night we were parked at Free Pentecostal Church in Springdale. We preached Homecoming for Pastor Randy Brown in Sharonville Sunday morning, back to Springdale Sunday night and in the barn before bedtime to complete the circle. The BoggsMobiled rolled 637 miles that circle.

The next circle was about 15 times bigger. The bus was only in the barn one full day after the small circle and then we rolled to Dryden Rd Fellowship Meeting in Dayton.

Google Maps now limits the map to 10 locations so I have broken the circle up into three sections.

Home to Dayton and then to Evansville, IN, Pine Prairie, LA, Richton, MS, Wilmer, AL, Cantonment, FL, Foley, AL, Richton, MS and then Wilmer, AL.

From Tanner Williams Holiness Church in Wilmer, we went to Bond, KY, London, KY, Vonore, TN, Elkton, VA, Vonore, TN, Paducah, KY, Florence, MT, Arbuckle, CA and finally to Amazing Grace Holiness Tabernacle in Atwater, CA.

During the circle above, we drove the Green Machine from London, KY to the Ranch for about 30 hours and before driving 3 hours back to London.

The final leg of the circle went from Atwater to Riverdale, CA, Hanford, CA, Riverdale, CA, San Luis Obispo, CA, Riverdale, CA, Bloomington, CA, El Mirage, AZ and then a short hop home to the Lazy OD Ranch.

Now, the list of cities does not always include all of the cities where we preached revival. These are the places where the BoggsMobile visited. There are times we park in one city and preach revival in another.

This BoggsMobile circle was 9743 miles and the western part of the circle from Virginia to California and back home was 6782 miles. It included three tent revivals at least eight church revivals, two camp meetings, two Homecomings, two stops at East Tennesse Luxury Coach, some single services, a school chapel service, a Christmas banquet, Thanksgiving and a whole lot of driving days. Yep, that was a big circle. 

We had a wonderful time all along the way, preaching revivals, making new friends, visiting with our long time friends, seeing all of the sights, eating terrific food, having a great time among the three of us and doing our best to fulfill our calling.

A new circle starts later this week by the Grace of God. As planned at the moment, the next circle will take in at least ten states and nearly six months. We have a big oversees trip scheduled in the middle of it, but unfortunately, the BoggsMobile does not fly well. Stay tuned!

Davy

The Patient Is Green, But Seems Fine

The Green Machine is a 2006 Scion xB. As of today, it has a touch over 198,000 miles. We purchased it in May 2012 with 73,000 miles.  This picture is from Monday evening before Thanksgiving. It does not look sick enough to need a transplant.

However, looks can be deceiving. A car with that many miles that has also been pulled behind a bus for way over 130,000 miles always looks better in the dark.😏

On Monday before Thanksgiving, Odie and I were in the bus and Kelly Jo was driving separately in the car because she had some stops to make in Hanford. She called me while we were still en route to Riverdale in order to let me know the car had begun to whine and then suddenly grind and stop moving. The good news was, she was OK and the engine would still run.

She was on a country road between Hanford and Riverdale and soon we figured out where. I carefully drove the bus there and KJ helped me get the big thing turned around on a small road and I backed up to the car. That was an adventure in itself, but unfortunately, we have no pictures.

After the tow bar was hooked up, we discovered the car did not want to roll freely. I had not considered that would be a problem, but tires dragging instead of rolling is definitely a problem.

Kelly Jo climbed into the driver's seat of the bus and pulled out on the road while I was fiddling with the gear shift in the car. After a few attempts, it seemed to slip into neutral. I got out of the car and had Kelly Jo pull forward a few feet as I checked to make sure all four wheels were rolling freely.

We were about ten miles from Riverdale and we made our way there slowly, checking frequently to make sure the transmission had not jumped back into gear, locking up the wheels and causing even more problems.

Once the car was unhooked and the bus was parked, we pushed the car into a parking place and about midway, it quit rolling. I could not get the car into neutral for the rest of the evening. Ugh!

Tuesday morning was spent finding the right shop. Bro. Bynum Allen from Hanford recommended Performance Automotive as capable and especially honest. I called Martin at Performance and he could look at the Green Machine that afternoon IF I could get it to him.

I have towing coverage through Good Sam, but sometimes that takes hours so I was in the car fiddling with the gear shift all morning. After many attempts, I found the secret to sliding the shifter into gear. I first got it shifting through the gears in the parking lot and then I took off for Performance Automotive 17 miles away.

Martin was able to drive it after I arrived at the shop and while driving, he delivered the sad prognosis. His educated and experienced guess was the transmission was dead.

Kelly Jo picked me up in a car borrowed from Bro. Russ and Sis. Ambria in Riverdale. Thank you, dear friends, for helping pull my fat out of the fire! We owe you big time! 

Martin put the car on the lift that evening and confirmed what he had heard while driving, with the added bonus that the driver's side axle that we replaced 15 months ago was bad too.

Martin ordered a used manual transmission and the waiting game began. It was possibly going to be delivered Wednesday before Thanksgiving, probably the Friday after Thanksgiving, but in reality, it was delivered Monday.

By Wednesday, we suspected the part might not hit the projected delivery time and that we would be stranded over Thanksgiving. Kelly Jo found a cheap rental in downtown Fresno at Budget and that is what we drove for several days.

Tuesday morning Martin called with good news! He had installed the used transmission, a new clutch, a new driver's side axle and the Green Machine was ready to pick up. He had driven it 5 miles and I added my own 5-7 miles and it seemed to be fine. 

The clutch is definitely new and probably feels closer to what it was 7.5 years ago when we bought the car. The transmission feels slightly different than the old one and I would expect that too. The transmission definitely sounds better!

Kelly and I took the rental back to Fresno, had some lunch and then drove back to Avenal for a total of 102 miles driving the Green Machine. 

The Green Machine is at home with the BoggsMobile!

We sure hope we are at the end of this adventure, but we can not help but wonder what we should do next.

This latest repair brings our Green Machine repair bill to considerably over $5000 in the last 15 months. That total does not include regular maintenance and tires. The Green Machine had 197,962 driving miles when the transmission was replaced. We have been awakened to the need to start planning, but thankfully we did not have to make a leap to a different car at this moment.

We have considered several other types of cars to pull behind us, but we have many requirements. Number one, it must be designed to be towed four wheels down. (Most cars are not)

Also Odie needs to be able to get in it, I need to be able to get in it, it needs to have room for two wheelchairs, it needs to have room for some sound equipment when the bus is parked away from the church and it needs to be able to fit into the tent trailer. 

That is a tall list with a short amount of qualified vehicles. We need some guidance from above before we leap.

Thank you for reading today.

Davy/

Another Green Machine Story Complete With A Happy Conclusion

We have been having a great week of revival with our friends at Tanner Williams. We love brother and sister Williamson and we love the church folks. But even in revival, the earth keeps spinning and life slows down for no one. In the midst of revival, the Green Machine needed a little attention.

Sunday night after church we drove to McDonald's for fellowship and drove back to the BoggsMobile with no problems at all. Monday morning Kelly Jo and Odie loaded up to go to town and the Green Machine would not start. No crank, no click, no nothing.

We pushed the car up the hill and popped the clutch on the way back down and the little thing ran like a sewing machine. The battery was four years old in May or June so I assumed it was weak. I checked the voltage and it was low.

I took some time to clean all of the connections and it still would not start with the key. By then it was afternoon so I shelved the project until Tuesday morning.

By then the battery was too low to push start and I had to put the Apostle's charger on it for a while. It still would not crank with the key, but it did push start. Now it appeared the battery might be weak, but the starter might be bad too.

On the third stop in town, I finally got some answers. The counter guys at Pep Boys were very helpful. After testing, they thought the battery was good enough, but the starter was bad. I decided to have them change both and left it with them.

Bro. and Sis. Williamson were close to town so they swung by to pick us up. When the work was finished, we took the Apostle's car to Pep Boys and picked up the Green Machine. So far, the new starter and new battery seem to have solved the problem.

Yes, our car broke down, but there is much to be thankful for.
We are thankful it would not start at the bus rather in town with KJ and Odie on their own.
We are thankful it was not a major problem.
We are thankful for friends that were in a position to help us with transportation.
We are thankful for a shop that did the work fairly and was able to get us in quickly.
We are thankful for the resources to pay the bill.

That is life with an older car with lots of miles, but it is so much better than having a much newer car and a new car payment to go with it. We have now been about 13 years without a car payment and we would like to keep it that way for a long time to come.

Did you notice the picture at the top of the post?



It is a miniature Xb for my key chain. My good friend, Bro. Galen Cummins found it somewhere and ordered it for me. Kelly Jo laid it on the hood of our full grown Xb for the picture. I love it.

Thank you for taking a moment to check on us today.

Davy

On The Road Again

We had a great revival at Anchor of Hope and I posted the Revival In Pictures yesterday. We had grand intentions of hitting it early Thursday and getting on the road by 11:00. We did hit it early, but leaving early seemed out of reach and it was. It was 2:10 PM before we rolled.

We made it away from the Ranch and we made it out of Ohio, but we did not make it much farther than that. The BoggsMobile and Tent Trailer pulled out of the drive and we hit Cincinnati traffic at a pretty good time.

We were sailing south on I-71 toward Lousiville when Kelly Jo did a random check of the traffic in Louisville. Ruh Roh Shaggy! There was a major slow down on the south side of Louisville and there was a very bad wreck on I-71 before we could even get to the bypass.

The time lost on that slowdown went from 17 minutes to over 90 minutes in a very short time according to Google Maps and Waze. It was time to get off the road. We stopped at the Love's in Sparta, Kentucky and found a place to park and thought we would wait it out.

Then we discovered that the Speedco in Pendleton, Kentucky was open again after being closed for several years. We needed an oil change so we drove a few more miles to Pendleton and exited the interstate just before the major red on the interstate.




We pulled in, dropped the trailer and they got us right into the bay. The oil change went pretty good it seems and we were out in about an hour. It is actually not quite time for our actual oil change, but we are changing it early as a follow up to the trouble we had earlier in the year. In fact, I meant to do it earlier, but I found myself up in the northeast and could not find a place that would change it.

They captured an oil sample for me and I will mail it today.

Kelly Jo had been watching Google Maps the whole time and there were several more accidents on the Lousiville bypass. Ouch!

By the time we hooked back up to the trailer and pulled out the traffic was much better, but it was after 6:00 and we were wearing out. We found a parking spot across the street at Pilot and that is where I am typing this late Thursday evening.

Our plan is to leave early this morning and go directly to Central City after a fuel stop.

Odie took some screenshots from her security camera as we prepared to leave Thursday.

The bus is out of the barn.

The bus is turned around and backing up to the trailer.



Loading the car.

The trailer is hooked up and the car is loaded.



Closing the barn door.


The truck is moved around behind, the barn doors are closed and we are ready to go.



That is all for today. Thank you for taking the time to join us.

Davy

Travel Log and Circle

After service Tuesday night in Everett, Mass, we visited while tearing down the sound equipment and loading it into the Green Machine. We left the church a few minutes after ten and arrived at the bus in Peabody about 10:30. 

In thirty minutes we had loaded Odie in the bus, loaded the sound equipment in the bay of the bus, hooked up the Green Machine for the bus and cranked up. We were pulling out of the parking lot at 11:00 PM, right on schedule.

There are three main routes between Boston and home and each of those routes has two or three variations and options. We chose to go around the west side of Boston on the I-95 loop until we hit I-90 west. We followed 90 to I-84W to I-91S and joined back up with I-95 west along the coast of Connecticut.

I knew the first travel plaza in Connecticut would have fuel cheaper than we would see it for many miles, so we stopped in for the pleasure of adding nearly 100 gallons at $3.13 a gallon, a bargain.

This stretch had whipped up on us the Thursday before with all the traffic, but it was wide open overnight. That was the whole purpose of driving at night. Soon we were bypassing entering NY, going around NYC on I-287 and crossing the Hudson on the new Tappan Zee Bridge. They were building this bridge the last time we were through.

The BoggsMobile followed 287 south into New Jersey and then turned west on I-80. With most of the potential for huge city traffic behind us, we began to look for places to stop for the night. We knew our opportunities were slim along this stretch and we were prepared to drive to a rest area in Pennsylvania near Berwick.

We cruised through a few rest areas and truck parking places along the way but they were all over full. We rolled into the rest area near Berwick about 5:40 AM and the truckers were beginning to stir and hit the road. There were two spaces empty and we only needed one. Hallelujah! Praise God for 365 trouble free miles overnight.

Odie rides in her bunk so she was already in position to sleep and had probably been sleeping for hours. Kelly Jo and I did not tarry long and we were in bed a few minutes after 6:00. I did not sleep as long as I would have liked, but I had over four hours of very deep sleep. It felt heavenly.

Kelly Jo prepared a big breakfast later in the day and we were on the road by 3:00 PM. We stopped for nothing but construction and bathroom breaks in the next 501 miles. We did have several one lane construction backups on I-80 though. One of them was especially slow. We traveled 25 miles in 51 minutes. Whew!

All the Ohio interstate traffic was wide open and that helped a lot on the final stretch home. The BoggsMobile was pulling into the drive at 11:05, 24 hours and five minutes after we left Peabody, Massachusettes.

That completed our circle of eight full days and 1790 miles in the bus. Out of the eight days, we were driving the bus five of them. We preached five services in two different churches, both of them in Massachusettes. The first church in Fall River for Pastor Isaac and the second in Everett for Pastor Plummer. It was a great tour.

This is our approximate route.

Our next revival is close to home. We begin Sunday morning and go through Wednesday night at Anchor of Hope for Pastor EJ Lamb. We will leave shortly afterward for our next tent revival in Central City, Kentucky. We are looking forward to both meetings very much.

Thank you for joining us today.

Davy

Oops, Ugh, Ouch, Whew, Yuck, Arg, Hallelujah!

We are parked at the church in Fall River, Massachusettes where we are supposed to sing and preach tonight for Pastor Isaac Enti and his congregation. We are excited to be here. I supposed I need to fill you in on our week.

Most of the day, Kelly Jo and I chased parts for a lawnmower and I spent about 90 minutes waiting in line at the bureau of motor vehicles with 50 of my new friends. Kelly Jo and Odie slid down to Hillsboro to see KJ's family for a few hours Monday evening.

Tuesday I started early up in Odie's attic working on the leak I told you about. It seems to be leaking around one of the plumbing vents when it rains. Later in the week my cousin, Delmar put a new boot on the vent and caulked it good. Hopefully, that takes care of it.

One of the jobs Tuesday was to get the grass knocked down to a reasonable level. Dad took care of the riding and I took care of the trim.

Wednesday morning we were up early and ready to hit the road by 7:00. I reached for the key to crank the bus and Kelly Jo asked me if I had filled up the freshwater tank on the bus. Oops! I had completely forgotten and it was bone dry. That delayed us by over 30 minutes, but by 7:35 the car was hooked up and we were rolling.

I had to stop for fuel in the first hour. We had filled up on our way in from Illinois, but we ran over 100 gallons through the generator during the Middletown tent revival.

Later I missed an exit that is always tricky for me up near Cleveland and that cost me 10 miles. Ugh! It was destined to be a long day, but most everything went smoothly after that.

By 4:30 PM we had driven 564 miles and we were pulling into a rest area on I-80 near Tannersville, Pennsylvania. KJ prepared a nice meal, we ate, we all cleaned up and we were in bed before dark.

Because we were early to bed, I was wide awake by 4:30. I let the girls rest as long as they could, thinking that by leaving late, I would miss the rush hour around the north side of NYC and on the I-95 corridor through Connecticut. It did not work.

Rookie Mistake

I sat down to crank the bus Thursday morning and there was no juice. What in the world? After a few moments of panicking, I realized I had left the headlights and running lights on when we stopped. We had driven through a rainy spell and turned on the lights early in the day. Since it was still daylight when we stopped for the day, I forgot. Ouch!

Have I mentioned to you that I am glad Jeff Rowe still takes my calls? I turned on the battery charger to get some juice flowing, hit the button that links the house batteries to the chassis batteries for emergency starting, turned the key and it roared to life. Whew!

That really was an indication of the whole day. Although we were able to be up to speed for the first two hours, the rest of the day more than made up for that. We traveled about 8 hours including a fuel and rest stop that was over an hour. The whole day was 285 miles for a grand total of less than 46 MPH average moving speed. Yuck!

We did see an interesting sign in western New Jersey on I-80.

The Land of Make Believe? I told Kelly Jo that I did not know we were so close to Washington D.C.😜

Lots of traffic for hours and hours and hours.

The fuel stop was only necessary because we need to run the generator most of the time this week. I wanted to arrive here with a full tank.

We finally pulled into the church, unhooked the car and parked the BoggsMobile at the back of the lot. 

Then the Green Machine would not start. Arg!

I started it Thursday morning and let it run a while in Pennsylvania. I do not know what caused the battery to run down, but I got a jump and it seems to be doing fine now.

That was enough angst for one day.

Today is bound to be better by God's grace. Hallelujah! Thank you for reading.

Davy