Thursday Travel

My mind was awake and "driving" a few minutes after 4:00 Thursday morning but it took a few hours for reality to catch up. I opened the barn doors and started preparing at first light.

There is a certain routine that I follow when I hook up and make ready to leave but there are a few extra steps when we are pulling the tent trailer.

I am very, very thankful for the tent trailer. It has been a tremendous blessing since Bro. Jimmy Millikin prayed it down on us and we could not have carried all of the things necessary for tent revival the last 5 1/2 years without it. The trailer is well suited for our needs.

I am absolutely overwhelmed with gratitude for the tent trailer, but I genuinely dread pulling it. I have pulled it thousands and thousands of miles but I never look forward to the experience. I do get comfortable with it after a few hours, I did Thursday, but I never anticipate pulling the tent trailer with joy in mind. 

Nearly every week I can not wait to climb in the bus and roll some miles. I love it. The bus is a joy to drive. The trailer changes all of that.

That is another big reason that I am so thankful for Bro. Jimmie Radcliffe and all of the weight of responsibility he carried last year during City Reach. Not the least of those responsibilities was dragging his trailer across the country with the tent, chairs, tools and on and on and on. Bro. Jimmie already knows this, but he was drastically underpaid last year!

I cranked the BoggsMobile about 7:25 and had the trailer hooked up and we rolled at 8:25. Before we rolled though, we had hugs all around and prayer with my parents.

May God bless them for all they do. We love you Dad and Mom!

I was planning to stop a few miles down the road and check all of the trailer tires and wheels. It had been a while since it had rolled so I wanted to be cautious. Plus I wanted to take my time getting to Cincinnati to give it a chance for the traffic to clear.

Well, who needs Cincinnati for slow traffic? We were down to one lane and creeping along about 6 miles from home!

The slow traffic and the stop I mentioned above should have made Cincinnati a breeze. By the time we were approaching the bypass it was at least 9:15. Google Maps said I-71 was about 20 minutes slow and I-75 was 48 minutes slower than that. No thank you.

I-275 around Cincinnati is a long bypass either way but the east side is considerably shorter. It was showing green all the way around.

Hey, Davy, how is all that glorious traffic green on Google Map working out for you?

Well, at the one hour mark, we had driven 34.7 miles.

It was slow going with traffic, construction, accidents and rain most of the way to Louisville. We can be in Elizabethtown, Kentucky in 2 1/2 hours in the car. We were a few minutes shy of 4 hours yesterday in the bus.

We like the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday's in Elizabethtown and we had dear friends close by in Hodgenville. That is all I needed for an excuse to stop, especially since the traffic had fried my nerves.

We wiggled into a dead end road, jumped in the car and met Bro. and Sis. Webb for a relaxing visit with a good salad thrown in with it. I am not much for stopping when we are traveling but that was a good stop.

The drive on down to Prevost Nashville was smooth and uneventful, just like we like it. We quickly ran out of the rain and ran out of the cooler temperatures too. It was about 85 when we arrived but had cooled off by the time I took these pictures.

I have never seen it so crowded here. There are buses every where. I parked along the edge rather than in a spot because there was no parking spot to be had that I could fit into.

I had to buy a few things for the BoggsMobile and I made it before the parts counter closed. Then we relaxed for the evening with a nap thrown in for good measure.

We had planned to drive through Nashville last night after the traffic cleared and probably should have. We decided to stay in place and thread our way through later this morning. I will let you know how it goes.

Thank you for dropping in today.

Davy