Therapist, Fruit And The Green Machine

Thank you for the super great response on our Comprehensive Update Mile Marker Tuesday. We received so many kind comments, texts and emails. We appreciate your kindness, concerns, well wishes and prayers. 

Many of you asked me to keep you updated on our September/October experiment and I will try to do that. 

We are regularly asked if we still have the Green Machine and the answer is, Yes. We purchased this 2006 Scion Xb in May 2012 and it has served us faithfully. I snapped a picture of it this week parked near the tent trailer. I should probably sell both of them. 

It is nice to have the BoggsMobile back in its place. KJo has been working hard to get it packed and loaded for the road. It is coming together. 

I mentioned our wonderful therapists in Tuesday’s Mile Marker and how precious they are to us. We visited the Therapy floor on Tuesday morning with a fruit tray. We have taken pizza a couple times and donuts a few times so we tried a healthier option. 

We were able to visit with a few of them but we only took one picture.🫣 This is KJo with Tracy a Speech Therapist. 

Tracy has been so encouraging and she was at it again on Tuesday. I think she and the other therapists are nearly as excited as we are for us to go out and preach a few weeks of revivals. 

We are determined to attempt this test and it is very helpful for them be so encouraging. May God bless them for their optimism and positivity. It is comforting to us. 

We saw our Neurologist last week and we mentioned our plans to her as well. She was hopeful and reassuring too. 👍🏽

Thank you for dropping in today. 

Davy

A Few Pictures of A Busy Week

We have a very few pictures from this week. It was a busy week but I reckon we are out of the habit of taking pictures.

Odie went to eat with Lisa, Kelly worked on cleaning and organizing the inside of the bus, we both did some things in the barn and to the tent trailer and we worked on the Green Machine for the better part of two days.

Here are all the pictures we have from the week.

Therapy was productive on Monday. We will return to Therapy this morning.

We changed the door lock actuator in the driver's door and then the door would not open. It was not locked but the latch would not release. We both tried our hand at it and then Dad came and worked on it too. My cousin tried it and then we walked away from it.  Dad went back to it later and got it open.

In the process of all that, we also changed the battery in the Green Machine. The old one was about 50 months old at that is pretty good for the little green car. We had to go to three stores to find the right battery, but we got it.

That wraps up our week. Thank you for stopping by.

Davy

The Weekend Dispatch 3/11/24

I hope you had a super great weekend. We had a good weekend and Odie snapped a few pictures to make it real.

One day, I am not sure when, Kelly Jo and I worked on the door locks of the Green Machine. 

The day KJo picked me up from the hospital in January, the driver's door lock stuck in a locked position. We finally unlocked it and removed the door panel. We ordered and received the part we think is bad. I will bring you up-to-date when we are finished.

On Thursday, Kelly’s parents came to visit for a few hours. It is always great to see them and we enjoyed visiting with them very much.

We try to talk Kelly’s Dad into playing the guitar a little and we do not have to twist his arm too much. We enjoyed some music and some singing.

Friday morning we have therapy from nine until noon. One hour of physical therapy, one hour of occupational therapy and one hour of speech therapy.

We have some great therapists and they are helping me. Sometimes they work me hard and I am really sore the next day or maybe the next two days, but I appreciate what they are doing for me.

We have no idea how much longer therapy will last, so I am trying to soak it all up as best I can.

Friday evening my brother Steve and sister Karen brought JoJo by to visit with us for a little while. We really enjoyed seeing them and spending time with Jo. 

Sunday we went to church at Dryden Rd. enjoyed being with our church family. Brother Bennie taught Sunday School and preached and we loved it.

Please remember that A Word For Wednesday has returned. There will be a new episode on Wednesday.

That wraps up our weekend. Thank you for joining us today.

Davy

The Green Machine Lives to Ride Again!

The Green Machine has been part of our family for so many years that it has become part of our identity. Other than the BoggsMobile, we have owned The Green Machine longer than any other vehicle.

People ask about the Green Machine almost everywhere we go. Even though we have not pulled it anywhere since December 2020, it is still missed when we pull onto the parking lot of churches.

I miss the little Green Machine too. With the mad prices of used cars, I have been tempted to sell it, but so far I have resisted the temptation. When a hog has been that good to the family, you hate to eat it all at one time.😍

The Green Machine stays in one place too much now and the battery runs down and needs to be jumped after sitting for several weeks. While jumping the battery earlier this year, something arced and blew a couple of fuses. Dad and Bro. Aster Northern found and replaced the blown fuses and got it running again.

What we did not know and could not know at that moment is that something else blew and the fuse block in the interior of the car was also dead. The wipers, power door locks, power windows, tail lights, brake lights, fan and more were all dead.

KJo checked all the fuses in that fuse block when we were home recently and they were all good. There was no power to the fuses.

The last day we were home, I had a few moments to dig into it. I first checked a large fusible link near the battery, but it was good. Then I decided to check this contraption that is attached to the battery.

There is no way to even see what it is without disconnecting and completely removing the battery. I did that, opened the red lid and this is what is underneath.

These are fusible links in a fashion that I had never seen before. If you look closely, the one in the middle is broken. It is 120 amp and controlled the entire interior fuse block.

This is a better look.

We were already late getting on the road, but I was so close to getting the Green Machine going. I ran to the nearest auto parts place, but they had none. I went to the next store and they had one package of assorted sizes. 

The one that blew was 120 amp. The assorted package had 110 amp and 150 amp among others. I put the 150 amp in temporarily, reinstalled the battery, hooked it up and turned the key. When the Green Machine fired up I checked all of the formerly nonfunctioning features and they were all working.

Time will tell IF the proper fuse will be the final fix, but for now, the Green Machine lives to ride again. That puts a big smile on my face!

Thank you for stopping by today.

Davy

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