Friday, July 25, 2014

Travel Days and the BoggsMobile

We have had two good services of revival and we are looking forward to more revival over the weekend. I believe God is helping us. We were absolutely blown away by a visiting family last night at revival. We were as surprised as we could be when they walked in. Here is a picture of one of the children with Odie.


Do you know who it is? Leave your answer in the comments. No fair guessing if you attend their home church. I will have more pictures of them when I put up a Revival In Pictures post.

We had a nice smooth trip from Paducah to Prevost Nashville. I always dread leaving at night but I always enjoy driving at night. There is so much less traffic to contend with and the temperatures are usually cooler as well.

All was quiet when we pulled in about midnight. Prevost has a long row of metered parking spaces that people lease on a monthly or yearly basis. They park their buses there when the bus is in town and that takes care of two things at once. The have a  place to park their bus and the bus is handy for Prevost service too. Those spaces are off limits unless you lease them.

Then they have 6-8 spots with electric that are for buses coming in for service or parts. That is where we usually park. When we arrived Sunday night all of those spaces were full. That happens some times so we pulled over to the big parking lot area. There is usually plenty of room there but we have to run the generator if we need power. We have parked there plenty of times when passing through.

It was a nice cool night and I had been running the bus AC so the temperature was comfortable overnight with just fans. While parked I can run one AC for several hours without the generator but I do not sleep good when I do that. I keep getting up every hour to check on the battery voltage and that ruins my night. It is easier to run the generator and buy the diesel if it is too hot to sleep without AC. Thankfully, Sunday night the weather was nice.

We left Paducah Sunday night after church because I had made an appointment to have my wheels polished at Prevost in Nashville. Peter from Almost Chrome is a contractor that works all over the Nashville area washing, waxing and polishing buses. He is around Prevost in Nashville several times a week if not every day and he could fit me in Monday morning.

The wheels really needed some professional help. IF you remember I put new tires on the front back in April. I moved the front tires and rims to the tag axle and had the new tires mounted on the tag rims and moved to the front. 

The wheel covers on the tag wheels and the front wheels were different. I had two options. I could spend SEVERAL hundred dollars per wheel and buy a set of the original covers OR I could spend $100 and buy a set that matched the ones I had already replaced. Then I could sell the originals for a profit or gift them to somebody that needs them.

No brainer at all. The original covers had been on the tag wheels for nearly 20 years and when I took them off and put the new ones on you could see all the gunk the old covers had been covering. Plus the covers themselves had marked the wheels and those marks were not covered by the new covers. Thus the need for polishing.

Peter was running behind so I pulled into the washer by where he does the polishing about 90 minutes late. It only took him about 45 minutes once he got started and they look great. The time was not really a factor because we were not doing anything besides waiting for Bro. Scott, Sis. Kim and Sis. Regan to arrive Monday evening.







Once the wheels were finished almost all of the parking spots with electric were available. A few of those buses were in the building for work and would be needing their spot for Monday night so I was careful to pull in to a space where I had seen folks hooking up and pulling out for good. 

I spent the afternoon studying and resting and the girls were engaged in a little retail therapy.

Here's my little girl in front of the bus waiting on her ride from Mississippi.


Wednesday morning I cranked the bus early in hopes of avoiding some of the morning traffic going around Nashville. We did not leave right then because it sounded like somebody was under the bus by the passenger side tag tire hitting something with a hammer.

It sounded like the hammering was coming from the air chamber I had replaced back in June.



When the bus aired up and I could put my hand on it, I could feel the little man inside hitting it with the hammer and he was hitting it hard. I could not figure out how an air chamber could make that sound. As it turns out, it can't. I pulled up close to the building and went inside to ask about getting somebody to look at it. They were just starting the day shift so it took a while for somebody to shake free but when he did he knew exactly what the problem was.


Look at the picture above. At the bottom of the picture you can see a shaft with a pin through the end of it. That is a pivot point and it has an oft neglected grease fitting on it. You might see it better in the pictures below.




Because that grease fitting is often neglected the bushing messes up after many years and starts making a terrible noise. That knock was transferring up the shaft to the air chamber. Once it is messed up it is too late for grease and the only remedy is replacement. Mike from Prevost soaked it in high powered penetrating oil and that "knocked" the knock considerably. I soaked it with PB Blaster when I arrived here Wednesday and will do it again before I leave.

When I changed the chamber in June I noticed that fitting was being missed by the folks that change the oil and purposed to remind them my next oil change but it is too late for that fitting.


That's just one more episode in "When the Bus Turns."


When we finally left we had missed rush hour in Nashville and we had a nice smooth run to Caney Creek RV Park near Harriman, Tennessee. There is quite a bit of climbing going across I-40 and the BoggsMobile was ready to run. Some days it is like that. It eats up hills like they are nothing.


Have a great day.

Davy


Thursday, July 24, 2014

Nashville, Tennessee With the Morris Family

We started revival last night at Beechfork Holiness Church. It is great to be with our Tennessee friends again. I will have pictures later in the week.

I promised a full report from our time in Nashville. I do not have all the pictures pulled together but these pictures will cover the most important stuff for sure!

Here's Odie playing the guitar and singing at the Ryman Auditorium Tuesday. She was awesome, of course!



But before I get into all of that I will tell you about Monday evening. Pastor Scott Morris, Sis. Kim and Sis. Regan drove up from Mississippi to spend a little time with us. They drove all the way from Mississippi! Wow! What amazing friends. We had a wonderful time visiting, eating and spending time with them. These are super great folks. 

Thank you Scott, Kim and Regan for making our week! We owe you big time.

Monday evening we walked around Opry Mills Mall and ate a super meal at Cock of the Walk.





We even took a little rockin' chair time.







Watch your speed!


Tuesday we toured the old Ryman Auditorium. I love this old place. I have read about everything I can about this old church and I am convinced I need to preach revival in the Ryman. I have been convinced of it for years.

















Then we slipped over the hill and had a great meal at Jack's BBQ. We have eaten at Jack's on Trinity Lane several times but this was our first time eating at the one downtown.





Back to Odie singing at the Ryman. When she was on the stage you could here a pin drop. It was if there was nobody at all in the whole building besides us and Odie. I was so proud of her!


Thanks for reading.

Davy

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Ouch! That Had To Hurt!

I saw this a few weeks ago and forgot to post it. If I remember correctly this was the result of a recent storm in Michigan. Ouch!



I know this ruined somebody's day and probably their whole vacation but thankfully nobody was hurt. After I found out the people were not injured I did notice that at least his tires are protected from ultraviolet sun rays with his nice white covers. The tire covers are doing their job and looks like he had two air conditioners so maybe he should have parked in the sun. That spot had a little too much shade!

We pulled into Prevost in Nashville Sunday night and parked next to this bus.





It was late when we pulled in but I could see in the dark that it was not going to be pretty. When the sun came up Monday morning I went out to take a look and it was worse in the light. Ouch again!

It looks like something hit him from behind and hard. The steal bumper has a whole pierced right through it. That is unbelievable. The bumper was nearly pulled off the bus when they separated the two vehicles.

You can not see it in the pictures but several things were broke in the engine compartment. The fan motor for the radiator is mounted on a solid base and it was all destroyed. I think the engine might have been knocked loose too. The fiberglass cap on the back of the bus was busted pretty good as well. This bus is an XL so it is at least 13 years old. It may be totaled.

I hate to see stuff like this especially when I know it could happen so quickly. We are very, very careful on the road and we know the Lord helps us in answer to your prayers but they call them accidents for a reason. Thank God for every mile we drive without incident and every storm that passes without blowing a tree down on us. Things could be so different in less time that it takes to snap your fingers.

We are still in Nashville and planning to leave this morning. We are scheduled to start revival for Pastor Herman Woods at Beechfork Holiness Church near Wartburg and we are excited to be there. You may recall that Bro. Woods had a fall and then a stroke a few months ago and we cancelled Homecoming revival there in June. God has helped him so much since then and we are thrill to get to see him, Sis. Margaret and the church.

We plan to stay at an RV Park in Harriman, Tennessee as usual when we are there and we have reservations starting today. It is only about 160 miles from here so hopefully we will be settled in early. I will try to put up a post tomorrow to cover our days in Nashville.

Thanks for reading.

Davy