View Out The Front Window June 28, 2015

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Wednesday 

Thursday 
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Saturday 

Hey Friends, it is Odie writing to you on this Sunday. My Dad normally does a View Out The Front Window Post for most Sundays. When I thought over my options for this post I kept thinking of the windows we all carry with us everywhere.  The eye is an impressive window!  It is the window to our heart and soul.

 Here is a song that has been on endless loop in my brain the last few days.  It is an older Martins song titled Windows. This song is from an early 2000's release by the Matins also titled Windows. actually the whole project is probably my favorite CD recorded by the Martins. I want God's love and His Light to shine in and thru my windows.

The eye is something you can easily take for granted. It is easy to think clear vision will always be there. I know first hand our vision can leave quickly. You will sorely miss your sight when you are used to it being there.You can feel helpless in the blink of an eye.

Spiritually the eye is important too! What we choose to view can harm our souls.The Lord has been working on me personally in this area. I have a renewed desire and determination to keep pure vision.  Keeping my vision clean and pure helps me to stay focused in other areas. I get distracted easily and lose my focus.

I have been reminded this week God restored my vision miraculously.  I do NOT want to be ungrateful by using my vision for the wrong things.  My sight is now 20/25 in my eye that was blind for 9 days, and I do not want to face blindness again!

Dear Lord,
Thank for giving me today.  Thank you for being my Savior, Healer, Friend and so much more.  I Thank you for my vision. I am deeply sorry for the times I have let my focus wonder from you! I am grateful for your new mercy daily, and I do not want to waste your mercy and grace in my life. Thanks for having patience with me as I get back on track. I love and worship you with all my heart.  And I want to serve you from this day forward with a pure heart always.
Amen

Odie

Washboard Too Laundry Wichita, Kansas

Hey! 

Happy Saturday friends,

I hope you have had a wonderful week. Our week was rushed at times but turned out smoothly. We split ways as a family Wednesday afternoon. My parents trip got off to a good start. I am enjoying a quiet break from the road. 

Part of our road life is finding a laundromat every week. We jokingly say we know our towns by the good and bad laundromats. There are some places we make laundry last two weeks, because there are not any good laundry facilities in the area. There are even a few places we look forward to laundry day.

One of our favorites is in Wichita, Kansas. We have been visiting here on our yearly trips for over 10 years. It is a nice clean place to do our laundry. The owners are super nice! We feel like we are seeing our long-lost friend every time we visit their place of business. 

The owners are now ready to slow down a little bit. The place is for sale. I understand they need to get a way from the workload. It does make me sad to think we might have been seeing our friend for the final time last week. 

Our world is filled with great people. Who put bright spots in our day.  We have been blessed to meet so many of these kind people along the way! Have a great weekend.  

Odie 

A Few Travel Day Pictures

Let The Fun Begin

Well, the long anticipated trip is finally beginning. We are off and running and glad to be on the go. We have traveling adventure partners for this one so you will see some characters you do not normally see in our traveling pictures. It has already been tremendously fun and we have only just begun.

I will try to post some pictures Friday morning of Thursday's travel. After that we may be out of touch for a few days so I will leave you in the hands of Odie. Take it away, Odie!

Audios Muchachos!

Davy

Thankful For Things I Did Not Know I Needed

Even though I try to live with my eyes open and my heart heavenward I often miss God's near silent working in various situations of life.Thankfully He keeps working faithfully even when I am oblivious. I am very grateful that He does.

God's Help

I knew God helped me with a task I was working on a few weeks ago but I did not realize how important AND timely that task was. God knew.

I quickly realized I was in over my head on my generator project a few weeks ago. The belt, hoses and coolant really needed to be replaced. As I mentioned the hoses turned into an ordeal and I was racing against time to get it completed before pulling out for Oklahoma and Kansas.

There are months that I use the generator very, very little. If I close revival on Friday and drive 2-3 hours  or even 8-10 hours and set up at another church on Saturday there is no need for the generator. We have air conditioning and heat powered by the engine when we are going down the road. Also the inverters provide for our electrical needs from the house batteries while moving.

Since there are times that we have no need for it at all, I end up running the generator once a month for 3 hours going down the road or while stopped to eat in order to keep it exercised, not because we need it. Most experts recommend doing that to keep it in good shape.

What I Did Not Know

Because of that I almost stopped mid project a few weeks ago and just let it go for the moment. I was having such a hard time finding the correct hoses and I figured I would not need the generator on the next trip so I could finish the hoses and coolant later. Sometimes when I am banging my head against the wall the best thing to do is stop. Banging my head against the wall hurts me!

I am so glad I did not stop mid stream. Because of the problem I described in yesterday's post and in the original post I needed the generator on that trip very badly. If the generator had not been available it is very possible that I would have needed to find an RV park nearby and waited for parts to arrive and go through all the diagnostics there instead of Wichita.

That would have been difficult on a time sensitive schedule. I might have been able to limp 275 miles back home but that would have been bad for several reasons. 

1. We would have driven nearly 600 miles and 10-12 hours for nothing. 

2. We would have had to take the car to Oklahoma and Wichita and stay in motels or cancel the revival. This means hardship for Odie, not taking our sound system and not sleeping in my own bed at night.

3. I would not have been able to pick up the new tent section in Miami, Oklahoma. The center pole will not go in the Green Machine even if the tent pieces would. Lol

4. I would not have been able to place the tent trailer in the right position to pick it up when it is time. I would have had to pull the tent trailer later in the summer from here an extra 1000+ miles plus the 600 wasted miles. Not Good.

God Knew

Because the Lord helped me to pull all the generator stuff back together and get it going I was able to run the generator over 30 hours on that trip. That is way more than usual and about 30 hours more than I had any idea I would need. Also, because it had a new belt, new hoses and fresh coolant I was very confident that it was up to the task.

Praise God for helping me more than I knew I needed. When I take the time to look around I see plenty of opportunity to praise God for situations just like that. I am thankful He knows more than I do.

Look for something to be thankful for today. I think you will find it. Thanks for reading.

Davy

The BoggsMobile Adventure Continues

This is a continuation of the BoggsMobile's electrical problems that I documented in this post nearly two weeks ago. My house batteries were receiving too much voltage when a warning light came on a few miles west of Effingham, Illinois.

Jeff Rowe from East Tennessee Luxury Coach told me what to do to be able to finish the trip and we drove 680 miles the next three days with no charge from the alternator. With out his help I probably would have been dead in the water until the situation was fixed.

Jeff concluded from the information I gave him that the external voltage regulator was bad. I mentioned I could not purchase one locally so I ordered one from Prevost and it was waiting on me when I arrived in Wichita. I put it on the next day.

Just for information and my future reference the Prevost part number for my voltage regulator is 563439 and the Delco or Detroit number is 10503805​.

It looks quite a bit different from the 20 year old one. I am told the new one is several generations improved and is a much better regulator. We will see if it lasts 20 years+.

I installed it and it did not solve the problem. That was not Jeff's fault because he did not know a crucial piece of information and I did not know it was important. On my conversion the alternator does not connect directly to the batteries. There is a multi-battery isolator installed between the alternat​or and the batteries with another lead going from the isolator to the house batteries.

Confused? Good.​

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When I mentioned that to Jeff he knew exactly what the problem was. It had to be the multi-battery isolator.

When I checked the voltage I had 37 volts coming from the alternator, 37 volts going to the house batteries but only 24 volts going to the chassis batteries. Since 24 is not enough the voltage regulator was doing its job and telling the alternator that more power was needed. The alternator was cranking out more power but that power was not getting through the isolator so the house batteries were getting too much and the chassis batteries too little.​

That was on a Monday I did not have to roll till Saturday. Jeff got an isolator to me and it was a simple install Friday morning. I do have a "24 Volt Emergency Alternator D​isconnect" that cuts the connection between the isolator and the house batteries so with it off and the chassis batteries off the isolator has no voltage. 

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The change out was easy. I labeled the leads, took pictures, removed the leads, taped the ends and tied them up out of the way.​ The isolator was fastened to the floor with two bolts with nuts underneath. Both bolts broke on the first turn which I half way expected. (I feel like I am going to break after not moving for 20 minutes and these bolts had not moved in 20 years.) I sent Kelly Jo to the lumberyard for bolts while I finished.

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After the new one was bolted in I cleaned the leads and hooked it all back up.​

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It was 30 minutes start to finish including Kelly Jo's trip to the lumberyard. It took longer to get my tools out and put them back than to do the job.

The really good news is that it worked. My friend in Tennessee, Jeff Rowe at East Tennesse Luxury Coach pulled my fat out of the fire again! Thanks much, friend.

Thank the Lord for surrounding me with good people that have the knowledge and skills I need to survive my Bus Induced Psychosis.

Davy​