Travel Day With A Couple of Baby Heart Attacks

We had a good night at the Flying J in Tucumcari and we were chasing our shadow across I-40 a few minutes before 8:00 AM.

I took this pictures through the windshield about 50 minutes after we started. The clouds and sky were beautiful!

We love driving into the west and we can never decide which route we love the best. We love the scenery on I-10, I-40, I-70, I-80 AND I-90. It is all beautiful but I think we love I-40 best this week!

Soon the fun and games were over and it was time to pay the price for all of this beautifulness.

We drove all but 80 miles of this fuel all day Monday and Tuesday morning. You might say it is a pretty steep toll but it is still less than half of what we paid for several years!

We stopped for fuel at Pilot near Jamestown, New Mexico and about 30 miles later is when the fun and frolic came to a sudden stop! A pick up truck moved over in front of us and then slammed on his brakes.

These pictures are screen grabs from my dash cam so they are even worse than normal. You can see we are coming up on a semi in the right lane and a pick up truck in the left lane.

By the time I am up on the semi truck to pass it, the pick up had pulled into the right lane and is now moving back into the left lane. So far so good.

He is driving slower than me when he moves into the left lane and you can see his exhaust in the picture below as he puts his foot in the throttle when he sees me in the mirror. You can also see the policeman on the shoulder in front of him with a truck pulled over.

Not much time has elapsed between the picture above when his foot is on the accelerator and the picture below when he puts on his brakes hard!

I put my foot on the brake hard and my hand on the horn hard. You can not see in the dash came but the semi truck that I was passing was directly next to me in the right lane and there was no place for me to go.

As you can see I was moving to the shoulder although it was very rough and it dropped off several inches a few feet into it. The picture below is just after he let off his brake. He did not speed up or get in the right lane until after he had passed the policeman.

I was probably two feet from eating his bumper and that caused my first baby heart attack. The dash cam GPS said I dropped 23 MPH from the picture where he hit the gas and the picture above. That is pretty good for nearly 50,000 pounds!

Less than six minutes later I was going into my next baby heart attack. I will spare you all of the details and the graphic pictures but a dog was preparing to walk into a semi truck to my left and I was moving into the right lane to give him plenty of room do it. He changed his mind at the last moment and it was the worst decision in his life.

It was a bad decision to cross the road but it was and very bad decision to go back. By the time he made that decision he was nearly on the line about three feet in front where he is in the picture above and I was almost entirely in the right lane. Unfortunately he was a very fast runner but not quite fast enough.

I pulled over immediately and checked the bus and car for damage and gave my heart a chance to catch up. Whew! 

He was not doing so good and it broke my heart.

After 541 miles I was done and we stopped at a rest area on I-17 a few miles south of Flagstaff. We have about 102 miles to go to El Mirage but I could not make it without some rest. It was a great place to spend the night.

Today we finish the drive to El Mirage and Desert Cove Assembly. We are looking forward to service tonight.

Thanks for reading.

Davy

Travel Day - Gainesville to Tucumcari

Mostly a travel log today because I need to crank up and get some more miles behind us.

We traveled about 425 miles Monday from Gainesville, Texas up to Amarillo and then over I-40 to the Flying J in Tucumcari, New Mexico. The road from Gainesville to Amarillo is good road but it is not interstate so we were only on the interstate about 120 miles. That makes the miles a little tougher on me but we made it fine.

We were hooked up and ready to leave the House of Prayer about 9:00.

I was a few hundred miles over my oil change interval so all day I was pointed toward the Speedco in Amarillo. This is a large Speedco with four lanes AND there was only one truck there when we pulled in our bay.

They did get slammed with trucks after we got there and the oil change on mine took a while but we got it completed. The old oil looked good in the analysis and the computer said I would have been good to go a few more miles before changing. That is good to know. I would probably never go more miles but I always breathe a little easier with a good report.

After parting with a few hundred dollars for that chore we went down the road a mile or two and stopped at The Big Texan. We love this place!

Odie's steak

Kelly Jo's steak

Davy's steak

It was still daylight when we finished at The Big Texan and we wanted to drive a few more miles. We were rewarded with a terrific sunset. The pictures can not do the beautiful display real justice especially with all the bug guts on the windshield but we had to try.

A few minutes after sunset we briefly crossed paths with our niece Deidre. She was riding on the OBI bus bound for Neosho and we met them at about Mile Marker 3 just before we crossed into New Mexico. We were beeping and flashing lights like crazy as we zoomed by. Hi! Deidre!

This is a pictures she took. I guess that is our headlights. I think you may be able to see Odie grinning in the front seat!

That was our travel day. More of the same today, by God's grace.

Thanks for reading.

Davy

#9 Weekend Woundup and Weview

Today is LEAP DAY! I want to say Happy Birthday to two friends. Bro. Bruce Mayhan has grandchildren but is having his 13th birthday. Bailey Boggs is nearly a full grown man and is having his 4th birthday today! Happy Birthday, friends!

Thursday, Friday and Saturday we spent working on the new PA equipment for City Reach and trying to get everything arranged and ready to ride. Kelly Jo has been working like a mule and I have been trying to keep up. I am putting together a post about the new equipment and all that goes with it. I hope to have the post ready later this week.

Friday afternoon Kelly Jo and I make a quip trip in the rental truck to Wynnewood, Oklahoma to put a bunch of stuff in the tent trailer that is stored there. We came back to Gainesville and picked up the Green Machine and then drove on down to Denton, Texas to return the truck. We arrived about 5 minutes before 6:00 PM. Just in time.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend including an ever important Taco Truck!

Sunday morning we drove the Green Machine to Plano, Texas to sing and preach for Bro. Tom Goodwin and the fine folks from First Assembly. I would have taken the bus down Saturday night but I was not sure I could get it in. It turns out that there is one drive I could get in so I will mark that in my mind for next time.

We had a wonderful service Sunday morning and great visit with Bro. and Sis. Goodwin and some of their family. They have a beautiful facility and their folks were very kind to us.

Pastor Tom and Sis. Jeanna Goodwin

By the time we were finished eating I was not feeling very well. I have been running from some chest congestion for a few days and it seems to have caught me Sunday morning. We made it back to Gainesville by 4:00 and I rested until church time. I was hoping that Pastor Dennis King would let me rest Sunday night and listen to him preach, but no such luck.

He insisted that I preach and about half way through the preaching, I was glad he did. I really felt heaven come down. God moved in a wonderful way during the altar service and I am so thankful. The folks at Gainesville are like family to us and we hate to see them in the rear view mirror but that time has come.

We plan to leave this morning for Arizona and eventually California. There is only about 60 mile difference between going I-40 or going I-10. We actually prefer the southern I-10 route even though it is a little longer. However we need an oil change in the BoggsMobile and I can get that done in Amarillo, Texas on I-40. 

If the weather was "iffy" on that route I would go southern but it looks good all week. So as soon as I have the tires checked, the bus cranked, the car hooked up and the holding tanks emptied we will hit the road.

Thanks for reading. I hope you all had a great weekend.

Davy

View Out The Front Window February 28, 2016

Check out our posts from the last week at the links below.

Odie's Saturday Post

Pictures of This Week's Travel

Back In The BoggsMobile

Contempt From The Sophisticated World

Weekend Woundup and Weview

Monday night we stayed in a motel near the airport in Nashville and I forgot to take a picture out the window. However, we stayed at this same motel once before and I have a picture from that visit. We were on the other side of the motel so I guess this is our view out the back window. 

Here is a picture out the window of our hotel near Little Rock Tuesday night. You also get a glimpse of the Budget truck we drove from Nashville to Gainesville, Texas.

Here is our view out the door at Gainesville.

And here is our view out the front window.

Odie took a picture of the bus Saturday for good measure.

We are singing and preaching in Plano, Texas this morning and we are looking forward to it. I hope you have a great Sunday.

Davy

Unexpected Encouragement

Hi friends, we have reached the final Saturday of February 2016. This is Odie coming to you from Texas. We are looking forward to being in Plano, Texas for morning service tomorrow. This will be our first visit to First Assembly. Pastor Tommy Goodwin invited us and we are thrilled we could be in service with them.

The plan for next week is for the BoggsMobile to head farther west. We are excited to be going westward. Who knows what adventures we will find along the way.

Since I wrote last week we had exciting things happen. We had fantastic time in New York last weekend. If you missed Dad's Weekend Woundup and Weview last Monday please read it. God allowed us to meet so many great people and he gave us favor by touching people in the services. I am thankful for the friendships that were started from our quick trip. I am looking forward to a return trip to New York.

Then we enjoyed a quick stop over in Nashville, Tennessee. There is definitely more to come about our time in Nashville. The equipment that was donated to us for City Reach is amazing! We drove a Budget rental truck from Nashville to Texas. It is a good thing that we are a close family. We had 700 plus miles of close family time in the cab of that truck. We had a great time making memories.

I love getting notes from my young friends. Sometimes I get them before or after church. A lot the times their notes reflect their childlike faith. I want to keep the faith of of a child.

Thursday we received our mail from home. I received the sweetest note from Calley Taylor of Laurel, Mississippi. It made my day! She drew a picture of me and the caption read, "You are gitting Hilled!"

Click on the picture below to make it bigger for better viewing.

Calley, I treasure your faith and encouragement! Thank you for sharing your masterpiece with me. I believed I will be healed. And God used you to encourage me. 

I want to encourage everyone reading to keep believing God. Our God turns impossibilities into possible realities, in His time. Also take a little time to be an encourager. A card, call, text, a kind word or deed can brighten someone's day unexpectedly. It feels good to help somebody see a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. 

Have a God Blesses Weekend. I pray you find extra unexpected encouragement today. Thank you for reading!

Odie