Saturday, July 2 - Getting Re-acquainted

 It was DARK when we arrived at Tom & Mary Lou’s last night. When we turned off onto Allen Burgess Road, a single lane, dead end, road that leads to their property, the first thing we noticed was branches hanging brushing the top of the coach, also the road sure seemed narrower than it did the last time we were here. Their driveway is a couple of miles down this road.

The photos below were taken through the Flex windshield as we returned to the campground today.

When we turned onto their driveway it was narrower and there were more trees. 

Parked at the campground. Tom had everything mowed nicely.

This morning we went to their home, about a quarter mile on beyond the campground, had coffee an visited. Then it was off to Crossville for a little grocery shopping.  While in town we had a late breakfast, or early lunch. There are three restaurants in town that I like to eat at. The first two were closed and Kali's Kitchen was BUSY. It isn't very big and we were the 4th party in line to get a table. When the couple in front of us were told that their table was ready the lady asked if we wanted to sit with them. We did and had a very enjoyable visit. They were newlyweds on their delayed honeymoon. She was in her 40's and he was in his 50's. They had both previously been married for over 20 years. Both of their spouses died of cancer, within 4 days of one another. They live near Bowling Green, KY. They  have a "ranch" and raise horses. One particularly nice thing was that as the food arrived the lady asked if we minded if they said grace. I told her no, that I had been about to ask her the same thing. She then asked me to say grace, which I gratefully did. God is good!

When we arrived back at the coach I wrote a long overdue letter to one of my  cousins with whom I regularly correspond and Kathy and I both took much needed naps.

In the afternoon we went back down to T&ML’s and visited with other family  members who had arrived in the early afternoon. Dean, our nephew, had made brisket for the main course. It was excellent, as was all the food. After more visiting it was back to the coach for a reasonably early bedtime tonight.

Tomorrow’s itinerary includes attending the 9:30 service at Cumberland Fellowship.. We have attended there when in Crossville over the past 20 years. From everything we have seen it is an awesome church.

Today's high was 84. It was a little sticky because of high humidity, but not bad.

God is good. I  pray that He blesses you and yours.

Friday, July 1 - Finally Made it on the Road

 We finally made our way out of Missouri today. We left home around 7:30AM and arrived at Kathy’s brothers place in Tennessee around 9:00PM. We drove 590 miles. Kathy did the first around 200 miles, then I drove around 180 miles and she finished the rest.

Below is a photo of us hooked up and ready to leave this morning. Our 2008 Tiffin Allegro Bus and our 2018 Ford Flex toad.

 

Traffic was light until we hit the Tennessee line, then it was fairly heavy until we were on the east side of Nashville.

Today’s excitement was having the check engine light come on about 90 miles from home. All gages looked OK but we pulled off at the next exit and stopped in a parking lot. I did some online searching and found a Cummins Service Center in St. Louis. I called them and they said they would read the “codes” is we came by, but they couldn’t do any repair work for over a week. When Kathy started the coach to leave the parking lot the light stayed off.

When we got to the place a young lady came out from behind a desk, walked out to the coach with me, dropped down on the floor and wriggled under the dash in front of the drivers seat. She plugged in some type of reader to get the codes. The code said that the crankcase filter needed to be replaced. She told us that we should get it replaced as soon as it was convenient, but that it was not a critical item. No charge. I'm embarrassed to say I didn’t even think about giving her a big tip until we were miles down the road.

The most expensive fuel we saw was $6.10/gal at one of the big name chain truck stops (Loves?). We filled up in Crossville with the least expensive we saw, $5.15/gal. I’m to tired to figure the gas mileage tonight. If I figure out the cost of fuel per mile it might keep me awake. 😀

Time for bed.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

The Dirschells are Still in Missouri

 Today was the big day to leave for Tennessee, didn't happen.

We got the Flex back at 5 PM yesterday, with its base plate and wiring modifications done. NOT! Hopefully the base plate is OK but the wiring was not. When we got it home I plugged it into the coach and while the turn signals and brake lights functioned properly we had no tail lights on the Flex. We decided that we would pack up the coach and drive both vehicles to 4 Wheel Parts Plus, the installer, have the wiring problem corrected and head to TN from there. We planned on being at their shop shortly after they opened at 8 AM. It seemed a decent plan.

While packing up the coach I picked up our portable water softener, about 40#, to store it in one of the basement bays. The bay was under one of the slides so I was hunched down, facing away from the coach when I picked the softener up. I took a step backward and was turning to put the softener in the bay, and banged my head on the corner of the raised bay door. Blood flowed. I had knocked off the transmitter that clips to my bone anchored hearing aid (BAHA). The transmitter clips to a abutment that is embedded in my skull. As I was blotting the blood I realized I could wiggle the abutment. The bleeding soon stopped so that wasn't a problem. I called the office of the ENT Dr. who installed the device and they said they would have the Dr call me back when he arrived. About an hour later they called and told me to come up and have it checked. They are in Columbia, MO about 45 miles from us. The abutment is a two piece unit. One piece was screwed into a hole they drilled into my skull. The top of that piece is actually below the surface of my skin. The exposed part screws to the embedded part. Fortunately the problem turned out to be that I had a loose screw in my  head. The impact had slightly loosened the screw that holds the pieces together. The pieced embedded in my skull was still tight. It took awhile for him to find a sterilized screw driver but after a little tightening I was on my way home.

4 Wheel Parts Plus was on our way home so we stopped. The guy assured me that they had checked the taillights and that they worked. He said there must be something wrong with the 7 pin plug on the coach. I told him that I was pretty sure that I got a 12v reading on the correct pin when I checked the coach 7 pin with a multimeter. He said we needed to bring both the coach and Flex in to have it checked. We went home packed the coach and drove both it and the Flex back to town. It was around 1:30 PM. I was still hoping to get left today.

After some diagnosis the problem was not the coach 7 pin, it was a bad connector in one of the Flex taillights. I don't know if it was a new connector they installed or perhaps their moving wires around caused one of the factory connectors to fail. The guy replaced the connector, we had taillights and around 2:30 PM we left to drive over to the mall, hook up the Flex and head south (4 Wheels parking lot is small and they have a lot of vehicles on it. We didn't think we could get back out of the lot towing the Flex.)

At the mall I hooked up the tow bar, the safety chains the electrical umbilical, the breakaway cable and was ready to install the braking system in the Flex. Towed vehicles are supposed to have brakes, similar to a towed trailer. The unit I  bought for the Flex, from 4 Wheel, sits on the floor where the drivers feet would normally be. A clamp connects to the brake pedal and the other side is braced by the seat. Sounds simple enough. After fighting with a "ridge" in the Flex floor plan I finally gave up trying to get it to work correctly. The "ridge" kept the unit to close to the pedal, it wouldn't function correctly. Kathy headed back home with the coach and I headed back to 4 Wheels. The guy from 4 Wheels told me that it was okay if the unit sets at a hokey angle, with the back up on the ridge and the front down lower. He said it will still work OK. 

Back home at Kelsey and Andy's I hooked the utilities back up to the coach, we got the AC running and just sat for awhile getting cooled down, today's high was 94.

I feel like maybe I'm a slow learner. For some reason it appears that the Lord did not want us heading out today. First the taillights, then me banging my head and then the problems with the brake unit. A fast learner might have seen the light earlier and decided to wait for another day to leave. 😀

Tomorrow we will learn what God has in store for us then.

Thanks to those who have been praying for us. Nothing that happened to us today was all that serious. All issues were solved. So far I haven't even had a headache, or any  pain (after the first few minutes) from banging my head.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Luke 5:17

 ¹⁷ One day while Jesus was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law were sitting nearby. (It seemed that these men showed up from every village in all Galilee and Judea, as well as from Jerusalem.) And the Lord's healing power was strongly with Jesus. 

This implies that "the healing power" was not always with Jesus. The Son of God was omnipotent but He gave up a level of access to that power when he was born and also became the Son of Man. 

The previous verse is ¹⁶ But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer. Other verses also tell of Jesus withdrawing to pray. I think He needed these times of communion wth the Father and the Holy Spirit to recharge His batteries. We are told that Jesus could feel power leaving His body, Luke 8:43-48.

I realize that my level of righteousness wil never be remotely close to Jesus', but i wonder what God might do through me if i spent more time in prayer and serious study of Scripture.

What opportunities to witness might become visible, along with the boldness to take advantage of those opportunities.

Leaving Day Approaches

 Some Saturday's I take one of our great-grandkids for breakfast. I had asked Lydia to go last Saturday but she decided she would prefer to have breakfast in the coach. Gram made us waffles and Smokey Links.

Spent a lot of time working on campground reservations this morning and then took yet another load of "trash" to the dumpster today.

Other than a campground for an overnight stay on our way  to TN Thursday night I  have booked places to stay through August 5th. There was definitely signs of the Lord's hand at work during the making reservation process.

I had piled up a huge pile of brush from the two trees we had cut down. I started burning it about 3 PM and by 6 PM it was finally burned down enough to have roast hot dogs. (Lydia was staying at a friends.)

Andy is keeping the fire going. The house in the photo is the neighbors, across the street. Kelsey and Andy's house is about 100' from the coach, off to the left.

Kathy, Kelsey and Nolan.

Today was another nice day. Not truly campfire weather but it was nice sitting outside, far away from the fire.

The plan is still to leave for TN Thursday AM, this assumes the Ford Flex base plate installation goes well on Wednesday.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Sunday

 Heard a good message during this mornings service. I'm looking forward to our travels but will miss seeing friends on Sunday morning, at Tuesday night Life Groups and Thursday morning men's Bible study.

In the afternoon I washed the roof of the coach. It needed a good scrubbing. While in TN I may get up on it again with a smaller brush so that I can do a better job around the AC units, vents, etc.

Weather was beautiful today. We had a nice overnight shower and today's high barely crept into the 80's.

God is good. I pray that He blessed you and yours.

Our New Adventures Begin - Almost

This morning I made our first campground reservations for our summertime travels. Lord willing we will check in at the Soo Locks Campground (Sault Ste. Marie, MI) July 15th and check out July 22nd. I was surprised that we could get a full week on a river front site. The lady told me that they had just had a cancellation, PTL.

I also checked the city campground in Munising, MI. The soonest they had a check in on Sunday, out on Fri site available was late August.

I did manage to get us some nights at Marquette, check in on the 25th and out on the 28th. I'm still working on finding a place for the 23rd & 24th. So far every  place I've checked has been full.

If the base plate/wiring installation on our car goes as planned on Wed we will head to TN on Thur, then on to Indy on July 5th and on to my Mom's in Coldwater, MI on July 8th.

God is good. I pray His blessings on you and yours.