Happy Birthday, Mile Markers!

Happy Birthday, Mile Markers!


(Bro. Doug Stevens created and sent this to us)

Mile Markers began as an infrequent update on our original website. Odie or I would write up the happenings over a few week period and add them to the website when we could. Those began in the mid 2000s and I was able to preserve the Mile Markers that were written between 2007-2009. They can be found HERE.

Ten years ago I built this site and on November 7, 2009, we posted our first Mile Marker. It is a momentous occasion. 

What was the first post about? 

What do you think? The first Mile Marker was titled, "A Tasty Test"! Here it is and I will have more to say below.

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Trying this out for the first time. I could not think of a better way to get started than to post a picture of a GREAT hamburger. You will find this at a regional chain in the Tulsa, OK area called Ron's. They have great food and I am a complete fan. I have tried several items but my favorite is the Double Big Daddy! It has Two 1/2 pound patties, three Pieces of cheese, Onions, Grilled Onions, Lettuce and Mustard. It is Awesome! 

The patties on this monster are thin like "Steak and Shake" but Ron's leaves the grease in and you can not make it too greasy for me. That is my Motto: Greasy and Cheesy! 

I hope you enjoy the Picture! I sure enjoyed eating The Double Big Daddy!

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Yep, that was the beginning. No better way to begin a legacy than with a Double Big Daddy! 

I hastily threw this site together, learned how to post to it and made those first few posts, only days before we were leaving for our second trip to Nigeria. Our goal was to find a way to better communicate with our friends and family back home while in Africa.

A few years before, Bro. David Johnston had set up a website for us. I could update that, but it was not easy overseas. I had to be on a computer with the proper program, all my website loaded into the program and the internet service had to be pretty good. 

All that I had in Nigeria during our first visit in 2007 was a small internet cafe with very limited time and data restraints. I emailed Bro. Johnston a few times and he updated the website, but I knew there had to be a better way.

Mile Markers through this Blogger site proved to be the better way I was looking for. We updated everyone well over 100 times during that trip, mostly emailing pictures one at a time. Here is a random picture that we posted during that visit.



I asked for feedback from those that were reading once we arrived home and Mile Markers here on Blogger proved to be the overwhelming favorite way for us to keep everyone informed. Soon we were posting here several times a week and by 2012, we were doing well over 300 posts each year.

Our original website at davykellyandodie.com became a static information page and eventually, we closed that site and that address now points here as well.

In ten years we have posted from nearly every state and a dozen countries. We have written about almost everything under the sun, at least the things that are important and relevant to us under the sun. 😀

In the beginning, we proposed to write about 
"...the grace of God, great churches, Pastors, people, revivals, music, family, food, fellowship, fun, our travels and who knows what else." 

I think we have pretty much lived up to that. There are literally thousands of pictures and paragraphs about Pastors, people, revivals, music, family, food, fellowship, fun, our travels and all the other things we come across.

There are 3434 posts published for you to read from the last ten years. Some of them are funny, some are informational, some of them are thought provoking. There are posts with content that is now dated, because the world has moved on. There are posts that are years old and they are fresher than they have ever been.

I have no idea how many thousands and thousands of pictures can be found here. The number is probably 1000 if you only count pictures of Double Big Daddy's, Mexican food the Green Machine and the Blue and White Gospel Tent.😊

According to the stats that are provided for us, we have regular readers in every state and in at least a dozen countries. We have multiple individual page views from at least 9-12 countries each week and four page views from Austria today.

I suspect that some of these are bots, spam/scam artists and such, but we have done everything possible to thwart hackers and encourage them to spend their time doing something else. We have nothing here for them.

We have people that read Mile Markers because they follow RVers, others follow Bus people, others follow singers, follow preachers, follow evangelists, follow tent revivals, love Mexican food or greasy cheeseburgers and who knows what else. I probably get more feedback on food pictures than anything else.

The way people view Mile Markers has changed since 2009, reflecting the massive technology shift in ten years. In 2009, the vast majority of views came from a desktop or laptop using Internet Explorer. Today 2-3% view Mile Makers on Internet Explorer and 42-46% view it on Safari, probably some type of mobile device.

We have readers that have traveled with us since the beginning and others that pop in now and then to catch up. Some of you have only discovered Mile Markers recently and you may wonder, what in the world you are doing here. That is OK. You are all welcome. Thank you for reading as much or as little as you do. We love having you along for a bit of the ride.

If you like something you see. If you like seeing the pictures or reading along, tell someone else or forward a link. We always appreciate that much. On the top of the right column in the desktop view, you can sign up to "Follow by Email". We really appreciate that too. If you leave a comment, we might jump over the moon!

We are happy to have been writing here almost daily for Ten Years! There are thousands of blogs with a handful of posts that have been abandoned for years. We are very happy to still be here plunking along. Happy 10th Birthday, Mile Markers! May we share many more years together.

Thank you for stopping in today.

Davy