More Miles and Family in El Paso, Texas

We started the day chasing our shadow toward El Paso. It was an absolutely beautiful day!

The view was great all the way into El Paso. Although we have driven through El Paso many times we are always amazed at the natural beauty surrounding this city.

Do you remember that I had to replace the two batteries in the tent trailer back in August and then 20 minutes after I replaced them the bus would not start? I wrote about that toward the end of THIS POST among many other things.The start batteries were going bad but I was thinking I could nurse them along for a few months since I had 24 volt charger. The next week in London, Kentucky I discovered the 20 year old charger was bad so I replaced the four bus starting batteries while I was in tent revival in London.

Fast forward 33 days and I had to replace the Green Machine battery. Monday night it was completely dead. As soon as we arrived in El Paso I found an auto parts store and bought a replacement. I installed it in the car there in the parking lot and it started right up.

For some reason I neglected to get a picture of the new battery. In five weeks I have replaced eight batteries in three vehicles, five batteries in my tire pressure monitoring system (Thankfully those five were cheap) and my iPhone needs a battery too. What is it with batteries? The funny thing is that I have known since winter that the Green Machine battery was weak and it out lasted the rest.

After the Green Machine was ready to roll, we moved down the road and parked in a K-Mart parking lot.

We were meeting a cousin next door at Carino's for lunch. Terry Ontiveros is a first cousin on my Mother's side of the family. She is the oldest child of my Mom's sister China. She has lived away from Ohio most of her adult life and has been in El Paso for many years. It was so good to get to spend a few minutes with Terry. Thank you, Terry for carving out some time for us as we were passing through.

Then we started peddling as fast as we could toward Arizona. We were moving so fast we actually crossed New Mexico without stopping.

In a few hours we were stopping at our favorite rest area. It is on I-10 at about the 320 Mile Marker in Arizona and it is right at the beginning of Texas Canyon. The landscape changes suddenly and dramatically as you enter the area and is very beautiful. We arrived at the wrong time to take good pictures but I will post a few anyway.

We are about 140 miles short of where we wanted to spend the night but we had driven nearly 400 miles and with the battery fiasco, the long stop in El Paso and the previous two 500+ miles days we decided to quit. It was cool as soon as the sun started going down so we did not need the generator.

We are now on west coast time so even my early morning posts may go up a little later in the east. They will be stamped with eastern time so if it says 6:00 AM that means I posted it at 3:00 AM. Probably not going to happen often. "Grin"  I may post some at night if I get a chance so you early morning readers will not be disappointed. 

Thanks for reading.

Davy

A Dead Giveaway!

It is a dead giveaway that I have been on a diet for way too long. We left the south side of Dallas by mid morning Tuesday and pointed west on I-20 toward I-10 and El Paso. I followed this truck all across the southern part of Dallas and across the south side of Ft. Worth and many miles west toward Abilene. I found myself dreaming of Krispy Kreme donuts. 

What an advertisement! A rolling billboard of lip smacking, taste bud exploding goodness of grease and sugar. Stacks and stacks of huge, delicious, fresh, hot Krispy Kreme donuts kept floating through my consciousness. 

Who in the world would temp a fat guy with row upon row of heavenly donuts for mile after mile after mile? That is cruel and unusual punishment. Inhumane, barbaric, diabolical, heartless, cold-blooded, ruthless, merciless and uncompassionate!

I finally came to my senses and decided I needed to change the scenery before I fell off the wagon but good and pulled off an exit for three dozen donuts, two greasy and cheesy cheeseburgers and a large pizza. 

I mean, I have proven my resolve when it comes to denying myself the saturated fats I have come to know and love. But this was ridiculous.

So stepped on the gas, whipped out into the passing lane determined to put this temptation behind me once and for all! This temptation was going to be miles behind me and eating my diesel fumes and dust.

It was then that I saw the side of the truck...

Corn? You mean I have been salivating over rows of corn on the cob thinking they were delectable donuts calling my name? Yep, it is a dead giveaway that I have been on a diet for way, way, way too long!

Ok, I can see that is corn now!

The rest of the day was beautiful. The weather was perfect, the wind was light and the BoggsMobile was running like a scalded dog!

After a while the speed limit went to 80 and we were off to the races.

Actually I do not feel comfortable running the bus that fast even with the wide open road and the highway clear. I keep thinking of all the little men inside the engine trying to pour the buckets of diesel in fast enough and I always slow down.

We did make good time though. We were shooting for 430 miles or so and an overnight stop in Pecos, Texas. We were making good time and it was still early so we made it a 520 mile day and stopped in Van Horn, Texas.

We stopped in Van Horn for fuel again.



Then we pulled into a little RV Park two miles away. It was cool enough last night to park in a truck stop and not run the generator but we arrived here before 6:00 and it was HOT then. We would have been running two airs for several hours along with the generator for power. A cheap campground like this is less money than running the generator very long so the decision was made.

I also knew that Van Horn's finest will ticket RV's for parking any where but an RV park. What I did not know was that included truck stops. They have been known to threaten to tow RVs when the owners parked for a while at Love's or Pilot after fueling or stopped at Walmart to shop with no intention of staying all night. 

Not a very RV friendly town but this little park is fine. The owner just bought it and is trying to fix it up and attract business since it had been closed for two years. I hope he does well but most RVer's avoid towns like this because of the solid NO PARKING stance of the city. Too bad.

There is some beautiful scenery to take in here though. The mountains were gorgeous last night.

We will probably start a little late tomorrow as well. I am going to drag my feet a little so I can pass through El Paso just after lunch. We are going to try to eat with one of my first cousins if we can time it right.

Thanks for reading.

Davy

Travel Day and a Few More Tent Revival Pictures

Monday was a very good day. I wanted to drive at least 500 miles Monday but I did not want to leave real early after a hard weekend and a late night. I did not set an alarm and I woke up after about 6 hours sleep a few minutes before 7:00. I slipped outside and started getting ready to ride.

I unloaded the sound equipment from the Green Machine into the BoggsMobile and then loaded Odie's power chair into the Green Machine. I filled up the fresh water tank and then rolled up 100' of water hose. 

Then I went to work on my tire pressure monitoring system. Several of the sensors needed batteries and I needed to reprogram it for the car tires rather than the trailer tires. I planned on that taking at least an hour because the last time I did it I had lots of trouble. This time it only took about 10 minutes. Wonderful.

I did have to top off the air in a couple of car tires but it is quite a bit cooler than it was the last time I added air. It is amazing to me how much difference 30 degrees can make.

Here we are at the park just before we left.

I cranked the bus a little before 10:00 and then we pulled over to the local truck stop to fill up with diesel. Kelly Jo followed in the Green Machine and we hooked it up after pumping fuel.

On occasion I post a picture of the pump when I fill up and it usually prompts quite a reaction.

This one gets quite a reaction from me. Because this $404 tank of fuel was a gift. A kind and extremely generous gift! When I went inside the lady said "Sign right here, this one is on JW." JW is Bro. JW from First Assembly. He told me Sunday night that he and his family wanted to fill the BoggsMobile with diesel before we headed out of town. The thoughtfulness of their gift really amazes me. God bless them for being mindful of our daily burden and for helping us to carry it. Thank you, friends.

We had a really smooth day with fairly light traffic most of the way. We shot up to Jackson and then stayed on I-20 the rest of the day. We spent the night in the RV parking at the Flying J on the south side of Dallas. We will continue to drive across Texas all of today by God's grace. Thanks for praying for us.

Here are a few pictures from the final night of tent revival in Richton, Mississippi. It was a great night that capped off a tremendous week of revival.

Davy

Sound Check

Bro. Barry Gautreaux drove over from Pine Prairie, Louisiana to be in service with us. That was a treat!