Getting The Job Done

I was telling some church folks last night about the GPS trying hard to turn the BoggsMobile into a Convertible on the way in Monday night/Tuesday morning. Pastor Philip told me he saw a truck torn apart yesterday morning on the parkway. It had hit a low bridge on the parkway where it did not belong. OUCH!

I am more glad every moment we did not get on the parkway even under heavy pressure to do so! KJ took this picture yesterday.

Yikes! The edge of the right lane is 6' 6"! Duck!



Getting The Job Done

There are times when you just have to do whatever it takes to get the job done!

If my job was easy then plenty of folks would be doing it and doing it better than I do and I would be looking for something else to do. A little grit and determination will often take you farther than talent, smarts and connections. 

Personal Note: Thanks, Dad, for not allowing me to quit when I wanted to a few hundred times when I was a kid. 

That quality is probably more important than most skills I have acquired. Grit, perseverance, and tenacity are huge parts of the "spiritual" side of our lives and ministry. God points, God speaks and we as humans make up our minds to believe and follow no matter what. Through opposition and in spite of difficulties you over come adversity to complete God's plan. You do God's will and watch God finish the work.

This principle applies to the spiritual and it applies to the everyday mundane natural things in life. It can be as simple as trying to turn the bolt again, reaching up one more time, getting down on the ground and getting dirty or picking up your end of the load. You must push, pull,  poke, prod, shoot, shove, strain, move, march dive, dig, drive and then do it again.

Life pushes you and you push back. It is hardly ever easy. Success is seldom found on the path of least resistance. The fruitful road is usually as hard as it looked like it was going to be and sometimes harder. But pressing through is always worth it.

The example for today is definitely not spiritual.

I mentioned in an earlier post that there is a deficiency of RV Parks big enough for the BoggsMobile up here. Another thing missing in the north east is big truck stops. We knew that coming in so we have been planning our fuel stops carefully. It helps that we can go 1000 miles pretty easily between fueling. We have been running the generator a lot on this trip so we do have to consider that too.

However, we rely on truck stops for more than diesel and a place to sleep at night when traveling. We rely on Flying J truck stops to empty our holding tanks. Some states have dump stations in rest areas but those are getting few and far between. Many churches give us access to a sewer connection but I can not often maneuver the bus in a position close enough to take advantage of their offer.

It is easier to pull into Flying J, pay the $5 ($10 without their discount card), get the job done and be on our way. I would say we empty our tanks at Flying J 25-30 or more times each year and we have for nearly 14 years.

We emptied the holding tanks at Flying J north of home the morning we left and a week later we knew we needed to do it again before we pulled into Lowell and parked next to the tent for a few days.

Kelly located a small campground right on our route a few miles before Lowell. It may have lots of camping sites but I say small in the sense of low trees, tight turns and narrow spaces. She called ahead to check on permission, price and most importantly access.

We knew the entrance to the park was good from Google maps and that the dump station was close to the entrance. That is all good news but that is where the good news ends. I topped the hill of the gravel road and I knew this was not going to be easy.

IF I had any other options I would not have pulled down to this station at all. I would have ran and not walked to the bus and drove out of that campground as fast as I could. But I had no other options and the job had to be done. 

The station is on this hill. It is steeper than the picture can show.

And what goes down must go up it seems. This is the road out.



It is narrow enough but it is made even narrower by the trees on both sides, the electric pole straight ahead, the sharp curve just out of site, the steep uphill climb smack dab in the middle of the sharp curve, the sandy area on the hill and the steep drop at the top of the hill on the opposite side of the road while still in the curve.

I walked it all before hand and decided I could do it. I am no daredevil and I err on the side of caution when it comes to the bus. I do not like to take chances.

I did miss a key detail, though. 

I did not realize that the back of the bus would still be in the curve trying to avoid the trees at the same time as I was trying to keep my left front wheel from going off the edge and rolling the BoggsMobile full of diesel fuel end over end down the hillside.

No pictures of all that because we were all too busy praying and driving.

Never, Never, Never again! But there are times when you just have to do whatever it takes to get the job done!

Thanks for reading.

Davy