Travel, A Little Trouble and The Tent

The night in the rest area was nice and cool. It was no problem sleeping without running the AC or the generator. I was really wanting to finish the drive Wednesday night but we are so glad we stopped there for the night.

The sun was shining bright as we left Thursday morning and the rocks in Texas Canyon were amazing as usual. We absolutely love this place and have for many, many years.

I first drove through there the week of Thanksgiving in 1986 in a 1986 Doeskin Tan 2-door Chevy S-10 Blazer.  Me and Bro. Jeff Hensley took a whirlwind trip to Arizona to see my brother Steve and we were on our way home via a stop in El Paso and a church service in New Mexico and Oklahoma City. We stopped along I-10 to look closer at the rock formations. I have pictures of us in storage some where.

Kelly Jo and I went back to Phoenix in 1987 but we went I-40 in and out. We were driving the Blazer that trip as well. When we left Phoenix that time we drove about 31 hours straight home. Me and Steve split the driving duties and carried the mail toward Ohio. We only stopped every 400 miles for gas and to grab a bite to eat on the run. The top speed limit then was only 55 mph the whole way, nearly 2000 miles.

I think it was fall of 1992 when I brought Kelly Jo and Odie through Texas Canyon on I-10. We were on our way from revival in Raisin City, California to our next revival in Arcadia, Florida. No, I was not very good at scheduling then either. I am pretty sure we have pictures of us on these rocks that trip some where too. We have always looked forward to coming through here since then.

The light was better for pictures as we left Thursday morning but pictures just can not do this place justice. At least iPhone pictures can not do it justice.

It is harder to stop the bus along side the Interstate so no pictures of us playing on the rocks.

We only drove 18 miles before we stopped again. I had some weird things going on with one of the gauges that monitors the air for the brakes on the BoggsMobile. By the time we found a good place to stop it was no longer doing it and I could not duplicate it. All we could do was pray and go on. It did fine the rest of the day but I will watch it closely.

I have consulted experts that I know and nobody has any answers yet.

We are now stopped at an RV Park within two hours of the church in El Mirage. All the miles the last few days, combined with 4 tent revivals in 5 weeks immediately following campmeeting at home have finally caught up with me. I feel like I have been run over by the bus. After we arrived here and got parked and checked in I crashed on the couch and slept like a log for two 45 minute stretches. I could not hardly wake up. I felt like I was crawling out of a very deep hole!

We plan to stay here tonight and Friday night (I am writing this late Thursday) and then finish the drive Saturday. Staying in one place for two nights always helps me a bunch. I should be well rested physically and emotionally by the time we see all our friends at Desert Cove. We are really looking forward to that.

I snapped this as the light was fading Thursday evening. I was busy trying to get the bugs off the BoggsMobile and road grime off the Green Machine before it got too dark and missed most of the sunset.

We have a few pictures of the tent coming down in Richton, Mississippi that have not been posted. There was a big crew from the church and it was all down and packed in the trailer in 40 minutes. That is pretty good considering all three pieces were in the air.

Thanks for reading.

Davy

Pastor Scott Morris up on top of the Blue and White Gospel Tent.

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