Some Mixed Emotions!😁🤣🤔😢

I heard 40 years ago that mixed emotions were watching your mother in law drive off a cliff in your new Cadillac. 

Well, I really do not desire a new Cadillac and I like my mother in law. So I do not have anything going on like that, but I do have some conflicting sentiments bouncing around in my head at the moment.

It is with a good dose of mixed emotions that I announce today that we found a car to follow the Green Machine and that we left the Green Machine home three weeks ago. I can not bring myself to say that it will "replace" the Green Machine. Nothing can "replace" a member of the family, but something must follow it.

We have owned our 2006 Envy Green Scion xB since May 2012. It has been our main mode of transportation for our day to day needs for 8 years and 7 months. That qualifies the Green Machine as the longest we have ever owned any passenger car or truck by a pretty good distance.

We have driven many cars into the sunset of their lives, but none of the others have ever lasted this long. This has been a great car that suited our needs completely in so many ways.

Our plan for the moment is to store the Green Machine on the ranch and use it for an extra car when we are home. If we are going out for a few weeks with the tent trailer for tent revivals, we may pull the Green Machine into the trailer and use it during the tent revivals as well.

Here is the Green Machine as it begins road retirement with 208,024 miles at over 14 years old.

We are very thankful that we were able to use the Green Machine as our main car for so many years. When we purchased it, I wished aloud that it would last until 2020. It has done that and more.

We have been without a car payment all that time. That has enabled us to put money in many other places rather than the banker's pocket. We were able to put money into City Reach, building the house for Odie, Missions, Home Missions, church construction and other places. We are so thankful for that.

That makes me almost feel guilty and a little ashamed to finally spend money buying another car. 

However, Last year we saw the handwriting on the wall and knew we better start getting more serious about saving money for a different car. Then came the pandemic lockdown and we thought we may have to kick the car idea down the road.

Yet, here we are. Even in the pandemic, we were able to keep our Mission and Home Mission commitments, give spontaneously and put back some for a vehicle. All of this was due to the grace of God and the kindness of His people. We are praising God that we were able to travel and work as much as we were able!

Then we had some gifts that came to us personally, outside of the ministry, specifically for a car. We had also received money back for our vacation in the spring that was cut short due to COVID. That freed up cash for a car too. Recently we moved from a casual search to a serious search.

We searched and prayed, searched some more and prayed some more. We did not want to purchase the wrong car. Time will tell if we made the correct decision, but we finally settled the matter as best we could.

Some of you may remember Mr. Cheap Jeep that we pulled from 2008 to 2011. We loved that little Jeep and KJo especially has missed it since the day we retired it and sold it. 

 

Here is Mr. Cheap Jeep next to the bus during the historic Tulsa Blizzard in February 2011.

Mr. Cheap Jeep among the Redwoods in northern California in 2010.

Mr. Cheap Jeep behind the BoggsMobile at Umatilla, Oregon 2010.

Mr. Cheap Jeep was a 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 4WD that a friend sold us cheap, hence the name. I am happy to say that the next car after the Green Machine is another Jeep.

Our new Jeep is a 2017 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 4WD. We did not purchase it from a friend and it was not as cheap as the 1995 so we will have to come up with a new name.

It had 30,630 miles when we purchased it and it has the balance of the 7 year/100,000 mile powertrain warranty. It was placed in service in September 2017 so the engine and transmission should be warrantied for nearly 70,000 miles and nearly 4 years. Hopefully, we never need it.

The first time we drove it after bringing it home, we filled it with gasoline. The tank is over twice the size of the Green Machine and that is a good thing.

We drove in this for about 90 minutes the first evening.

Here it is loaded with the wheelchairs and ready to go south.

Here it is hooked to the new Blue Ox tow bar. We have already pulled it nearly 1200 miles.

I have since added an extension to the receiver on the bus. Although the new tow bar is a bit longer than the old one, the attachment points on the Jeep are much further apart and that shortens the actual distance. 

Also, the Green Machine required a drop down attachment since it was so much lower than the bus. The drop down added an additional ten inches in length.

Although we left the Green Machine at home, it is not completely out of sight. It is still on my key chain courtesy of my dear friend, Galen Cummins!😍

Most of you know that we name everything. I even give Odie a new name every day or two.🤣 We love it when names feel like they are RIGHT. Maybe that will happen in the next few weeks.

My brother Steve sent a great list of names and we have thought of many and nothing feels perfect yet. For now, we are calling it, The Jeep. Can we do better? Leave a comment with suggestions. Ultimately, we will call it whatever feels right, but we are open to ideas.

Whatever the name, not jumping in the Green Machine is going to take some getting used to, that is for sure. He sure looked lonely when we left.

Thank you for dropping in today.

Davy