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Bring Back the Joy --- B B t J . O r g
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DEPARTURE FOR HOMINY 9/15 - 9/23/04
9/15/04 10:15 pm Just a quick note to start this trip diary. We're excited about leaving for Hominy tomorrow. Of course, we have several stops before we get there. We hope we won't have to be up too late. We're tired. We've had a number of positive things in the way of send-offs. Anchie Fisco expressed prayers and blessings for our future during the "office party" yesterday. During our shift this evening, Donna and Larry Hodge came over to pray and prophesy over us. They indicated that although our path may not always be smooth, we shall receive blessings because we are following the call of God on our lives. Praise God! 8/16/05 6:45 am Thanks to our neighbors who graciously said we could start our motor at 6 am. That made it a lot easier not to have to shut down yesterday afternoon. We pulled out for Denver a little later than hoped. We didn't notice the air leveling system switch was in the wrong position. It was on manual instead of Hwy (which means the internal system moves the air around for leveling rather than one manually pushing or pulling the controls). So that took extra time after we realized why the bus wasn't rising. We'd tried to prepare for leaving as much as we could yesterday. 8/16/04 7:00 pm The trip to Denver went fairly easily except for the traffic jam at the I25/I225 intersection which is being worked on. The traffic there was bumper to bumper. We got to Grace Coach about 8:30, only 30 minutes late. They were real nice about it. We spent the day with the bus pulled inside at Grace Coach. Mark spent most of his time watching what the mechanics were doing. I did various odds and ends, enjoying some time to myself. After lunch, we went to Offen Petroleum to buy fluids we need to this trip. As the night had been way too short (only 4 1/2 hrs of sleep), I decided to take a nap for a few minutes and didn't wake up until 5:45. I obviously needed the sleep for me to be "out" for approx. 4 hours. The good news is that we got new shock absorbers so the bus shouldn't sway so much as it "speeds" down the road. The bad news is that The Differential, also called the Pumpkin assembly on these buses, looks bad. There were critical pieces of material that came out when the oil was changed. Mark is going to look for one that will work in our particular bus; in the meantime, we'll pray that it continues working for awhile. He did put some Alumaseal in it and we'll see if that helps at all. The mechanic didn't think it would help but he also didn't think it would hurt. We had a couple of events just as we were leaving. Joe asked if he could pray for us. That was a pleasant surprise to be sent on our way with a prayer. A few moments later, we were sure we had needed it. As we turned onto the highway, the Tracker (on the tow bar) started shimmying. Mark stopped the bus and checked--but everything seemed okay. On resuming the journey, it was fine until we got to Colorado Springs. It did its jerk thing again as we turned into Walmart but stopped as soon as Mark hit the brakes. Mark thinks it had something to do with the weight we had in the back; we had several heavy cases of fluids to go into the bus. Those were moved elsewhere and we haven't had any problem since. 9/17/04 3:00 pm We spent last night in the Walmart parking lot on North Academy in Colorado Springs. I awoke early and went out to jog around the parking lot and do other exercises. Then Mark treated me to breakfast at Cracker Barrel. After picking up our truck at Hellem's garage, we drove south to Midway, Exit 119 where our friends Sarah and Gregg Grobe live. Mark experimented with towing our Chevy truck. On hills, we could drive separate vehicles. We wanted to see if it works before we invest in making the truck towable. Our plan is that we can tow the truck (currently used as a storage unit) with the Tracker inside. We parked Bussie beside Gregg's shop with Truckster next to it. We'll leave it here and pick it up when we're back for the Ministers' Conference in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, we'll stay in the Grobe's yard for a couple of days until time to pull out. 9/18/04 6:00 pm Was able to go back into Colorado Springs for the CBC Women's Ministry Tea this afternoon. Sarah decided to go so I was able to ride with her. It was nice to visit with a number of my friends from school plus other assorted people who attended the meeting. Barbara Perdue, wife of Lawson Perdue of Charis Christina Center, was the guest speaker. She spoke on Raising our Children with a Sense of Destiny. We've enjoyed being out at the Grobe's house. Yesterday evening we had a mini-Bible Study at their house. They normally have a study on Friday night; however, everyone had conflicts and couldn't come this week. So we two couples could talk about subjects we've been studying. Aldo Ramos who used to work with us came down to spend tonight with us. He and Mark are exchanging ideas for Penguin Power. Inventory from our former business is still being sold. We're wanting to generate continued interest in the Linux Penguin mascot. 9/19/04 4:59 pm Ready to pull out. We went to church at Charis Christian Center today to say good-bye to our friends there. Afterward, we along with Aldo, went with Joan and Gary Bellrichard to the Western Sizzlin for lunch. That was nice to have more time with them. 9/19/04 10:30 pm (bedtime) This has sure been an eventful trip. When we drove drove down to Midway to stay with Gregg and Sarah on Friday, we noticed that there was some fluid dibbled on the bumper; but got busy with other things and forgot about it. When we left this afternoon, Mark wanted to go south on I25 so we could see Jim Dawson in Raton. There are a number of small hills between Pueblo and Raton. Outside of Walsenburg, we started blowing out engine coolant aka radiator fluid. This was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We put in the entire 7 1/2 gallons of coolant that we had on the bus. Praise God that what we had was the exact amount we needed to fill it! We realized that a seal on filler spout of the reservoir tank wasn't in place like it should have been. Mark used his McGyver skills to cut a patch off a pair of yellow Latex gloves (which I located for him) to use as a seal. We knew there was a Walmart in Trinadad so carefully moved on to there. There we bought a tire repair patch set to use as a seal. We've bought distilled water; the fluid we need for the radiator isn't something most shops carry. Guess we'll see what happens tomorrow. 9/20/04 5:30 pm This morning we decided the seal isn't the only problem our aged radiator has. There was an obvious crack around the top part where the filler reservoir connects with the radiator. Mark put in some Alumaseal which helped for a while. We added water to the reservoir and headed down the road. We did get hot on Raton Pass but didn't break down. Both the seal and Alumaseal seem to be holding. We stopped at the weigh station to cool off and then went into town to see if we could find our friend, Jim, who used to be one of our LinuxMall customers. While looking for his apartment number, we met a woman who told us that Jim moved away a couple of months ago and the only person who might have known where he'd gone had also moved away last week. In July we had almost stopped to see Jim but had continued on our trip because time was short. Now we wonder if Mark's urging to see him in July was a divine appointment that we missed. And we wonder if there was something more we were supposed to do today. The grand-daughter of the woman we met in Raton piped up "Do you know what my dog's name is?" Mark says he had the thought to say "I used to have a dog named Frisky" but instead said "I don't know." The girl said "Her name is Frisky." We made a few more comments and left. But we wonder if God intended something more significant in this meeting. If so, guess all we can do is tell Him we're sorry we missed it and will try to listen and respond better next time. Praise God he never condemns us and just looks primarily at our hearts. In Des Moines about 9:00 am, we stopped to see if we could visit with Dave and Marj Brill who owned Dave's Cabinet & Sharpening Shop there. We met them years ago but have been out of touch for a while. The shop is still there with a For Sale sign but there was no answer when when rang the doorbells for both their home and shop. We stopped in at the Post office and were that they moved to Maxwell, NM about two weeks ago. Guess I'll have to write a letter. While in Des Moines, we realized a bolt had fallen out of the door handle mechanism. Mark went to get something out of one of his drawers where he keeps tools. The lock wouldn't open. After about 20 minutes of work, he did get it open. He ended up taking the lock out so we can get it worked on. Fortunately, the drawer has two locks so it isn't a big emergency. He did get our door fixed; fortunately we had one screw that was a match for the threads and length to the hole it needed to go into. We made it to Dalhart about lunchtime and were able to get the Texas required inspection done on the Bus. We went on to the Dumas Department of Public Safety (DPS) where Mark was able to take the written test; he needs a Non-Commercial Class A License to replace the regular Class C license he got in July since we didn't have the RV with us. Unfortunately, Dumas didn't have any openings in the driving testing schedule this afternoon. The options were to go back to Dalhart tomorrow (with no guarantee that they would have openings--the DPS in these smaller towns only operate one day a week) or to go on to Amarillo. We decided Amarillo is the better option and...we get to visit my sister. We checked in at the DPS just before closing to ask where we need to go tomorrow. They were very nice. So now we are at Julia's house for the evening. 9/21/04 3:27 pm Yesterday evening we parked the bus in front of my sister's house (the house next door is empty so we could spill over). We went to bed about midnight and got up at 6:30 am. Snore. We'd planned to be at the DPS by 8:00 am. Mark went outside to check on the radiator leak and discovered the lens cover of one of our tail lights was totally gone. We can't figure out if it was just vandals or someone stole it. However two of our other covers had new cracks. So we had to make a trip to the store to get plastic to fashion a cover. We made it to the testing center at 8:30. The tester person didn't complain about our makeshift lens cover but said the brake lights were too dim, get it fixed and come back. So we went to an auto parts store we'd seen near Walmart and got new bulbs which did seem to be brighter. In changing the bulb, the cracked lens cover on the other tail light fell apart. Another trip to Walmart; fortunately we are already "there." We made a second cover and then charged back to the DPS. While Mark was taking the test, my father arrived from Lubbock. He and Julia came over to the DPS which turned out to be next to the Randall County Veterans Park, home of the Texas Panhandle War Memorial. It was a neat exhibit. Names of the soldiers from the Texas Panhandle who died in action are inscribed on marble. Information on every war from the Spanish American War to the present is given. The center of this memorial was filled with flowers and plants, cared for by the Potter-Randall Master Gardeners. The flowers are basically red, white and blue. There were a few yellow ones as yellow seems to be a patriotic color these days. It was a beautiful display. I recognized cannas and daisies. Mark didn't pass the drivers' test because he scrubbed a tire. The tester also said he didn't blink when he parallel parked and didn't usually turn on the turn signal soon enough. So we have to go back in the morning. The radiator is leaking again; all our driving around must have reopened the crack. We've called the only radiator repair shop in town that can handle a rig our size. Hopefully they can get us in tomorrow after we finish at the DPS. The good news is that we did find a Shell Petroleum distributor where we could by another case of the engine coolant. We're back at my sister's house. I'm hoping that we'll be able to start the generator later and post this to the web site. 9/22/04 11:35 am Yippee! Mark has passed the drivers test. The tester did a thorough inspection of our bus today but evidently couldn't find anything to complain about. She asked if he had any questions before they left on their drive. Mark said he carefully and non-threateningly asked several questions that showed he'd been thinking about what she had told him the day before. Anyway, the bottom line is that he passed. The new license will arrive in about 4 weeks. From there we have gone to Miller Radiator where we now are. Although their garage is build to take big vehicles, they aren't geared to house ones 40 feet in length. We were directed to park in their almost empty back parking lot. They took the radiator out of the bus so they could work on it in the garage. I spied A & D Bookstore and headed over there. It turned out to be a Christian bookstore and educational materials. My sister says it's the best kept secret in Amarillo. It's a wonderful store with a good variety of Christian materials plus secular educational needs. I had intended to take a walk but it began raining. 9/22/04 10:00 pm It rained off and on the entire day. I did get out for a walk just before lunchtime. Julia came to pick me up about 1:00. We did a couple of errands and then went to her house. She dropped me off at her daughter Christy's office on the way back. From there is was only a few blocks to the radiator shop. Which would have been great if the weather had been clear. Just as I got ready to leave, it started pouring. Fortunately, Christy's cell phone rang. It was the electrician who was going to put in an outlet for her stove. So she dropped me down at the end of the alley near where we were parked. They finished about 7:00 pm. So 9 hours and almost $900 later, we resumed our journey. We went back to the Flying J (I40, exit 76) where we'd decided to spend last night. (We needed to empty our tanks and after whatever happened to our tail lights, we decided not to risk another night in the neighborhood.) So we refueled and headed out. Mark said the gauges stayed fairly steady. It rained heavily for a while but we outran the storm. We decided to stop at the Flying J on the west side of Sayre, OK. God was with us once again. This exit wasn't clearly marked and the off ramp was narrow. Mark didn't realize that the cross street onto which we were turning was a divided highway. A truck was turning and he was thinking he was turning behind it. The truck slowed down so Mark couldn't go and another truck came bearing down on us. Mark was able to make a quick turn and the second truck zoomed by within inches of the Tracker. Of course, we were now in the oncoming traffic lanes; fortunately, there was only that one truck. We were able to go across the grass in the median to get into our proper lanes. Needless to say, we were grateful to God that we were still in one piece. The Flying J has a separate area for RVs; we are settled for the night. 9/23/04 10:00 am The storm caught up with us again during the night. But other than that, it was a fairly peaceful night. We've been driving for a while and stopped to have a late breakfast and to let the storm get ahead of us. They say it's reached Oklahoma City. 9/23/04 5:34 pm I need to stop and get ready for the evening. We reached Hominy about 2:15 pm. Cindy Hinton had lunch keeping warm in the oven. After eating, Mark and Dave talked while Rachel and I took the dog, Dakota, for a walk. The City has put in some RV electrical and water hookups at Hominy Lake. So we're staying there for a couple of nights while the guys figure out where's the best place to put us for the long term. We have a beautiful view of the lake. The Gather Place which is Dave's local church has a worship service/prayer time on Thursday evenings. We will go to that after we clean up. We haven't showered for a couple of days since we didn't have hot water on the bus--I did my hair in the sink yesterday. Overall, I'd say that we were looked after by God on the trip. There were good things and bad things that happened. But we're alike and had some positive encounters. So I'm grateful! to be continued....by my Journal ! |
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