September 9
For some strange reason it feels like we’ve been on the road for a month and it’s barely been a week! Today our day consisted of lots of travel time, Flying Js, rest areas, Wal-Marts and divine appointments.
We visited the Flying J in the city of the great massacre in Iowa. Case in fact, 15 MCI 9 busses were delivered to Davenport, IA, from Hollandale MN, and CRUSHED! *sob* *sniff* We did not witness the atrocity but we know it’s true. *sigh*
While we were at yet another Flying J in Iowa and waiting for people to take showers parked next to the curb we saw a vanity plate on a truck that said ’evangelist’ (or something to that effect) getting fuel behind us. The conversation in the bus quickly turned to “Does he know about Ray Comfort?”. Peter got out and gave him a CD. He talked to him for a little while and Peter came back to the bus. A little while later he came over to the bus and told us the CD was a God sent. He had a rough morning, including being over charged $400 for a repair on the truck. He said he was a preacher and the scripture we had on the front was one of his favorite scriptures. We were so glad the Lord led us to right place at the right time to encourage him! When he was leaving the lot we found out he was from Connecticut and he knew where Orange was. J
When we visited Wal-Mart this afternoon and Bonnie and I looked at the fabrics. OHHH. I want to quilt so bad! They had some very nice looking oriental fabrics on clearance, BUT, I restrained myself, or should I say my funds restrained me. ;-) It’s a good thing I don’t bring in too much money inside the store at a time….lol.
We stopped at a rest area in Minnesota and we were all able to stretch our legs a bit. Now, back in New York there was a convict on the loose, “Buckie Phillips”, with a $250,000 reward. This Buckie guy shot two police officers, one of which died the morning we were there. Ok, that’s the background to this story. So, Vincent started a conversation with a man at the rest area and was witnessing to him. The man, ‘Shawn’ turns out to be Jehovah Witness. Vincent returned to the bus and mom and dad started talking to the guy, and now he said his name was “Rob”. Hmmmm…Peter confirmed that he told them ’Shawn’ and mom was sure she heard ‘Rob’. Our curiosity was peeked and we were getting suspicious! Two names? A young child with him that he ‘claimed’ was his adopted daughter? Three different license plates? It made for interesting conversation but of course we knew it couldn’t be Buckie! Right!? Right. Lol I know it’s crazy, but we thought it was funny…..
September 10
We got to arrived at our ‘gypsy’ camp in Hollandale, MN Saturday. Remember, we were there this summer? We got the axle and several hubs loaded on the trailer. It was cloudy and cool. Thankfully, it didn’t rain!
We arrived at the church in Albert Lea at 7:00pm. This is our third visit to this church. We called them back in 2004 on our first fall trip. J They have a wonderful acoustics in the sanctuary. Bonnie, mom and I played and practiced until 9 pm.
The concert this morning went great. They had a lot of visitors and a dinner afterward. It was nice to see familiar faces!
We’re on the way to Mason City, IA tonight and then up and on to Fargo, ND by tomorrow night. Please keep the bus in your prayers and we have a whole 4 weeks blank on the calendar. Do you know anyone in OK or TX?? Let us know…
September 07, 2006
I'm going to try to reply to the comments on the last post. We'll see what happens! WiFi is fickle!
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September 6
As we went by Lake Erie this big mural caught my eye.
We crossed the Michigan border the afternoon of the 5th. Our first time in Michigan, ever! When we arrived in Westland, MI our first stop was Westland Music. It turns out they didn’t have anything we originally set out for, but, we did end up buying a violin. :-) It needs some decent strings and then we'll be able to evaluate if this one will replace the one I’m using now. It’s much, much louder with $3 strings than mine is already...
We met Kendra in person! Yay! (For some strange reason you're not in my links section, how did that happen??!)
This was our debut concert in Michigan….
She has all the pictures of the concert (any good ones??), but here are the pictures of afterward….
Paster Roberts and wife, Kendra and Scott, and us.
Bonnie, Kendra, and me.
Nathan was snapping and Kendra is telling him to stop here.
We've been stopping at Flying J's all day. It's scary, I'm starting to recognize them....it's getting like 'Oh, we were just here!'
Not much is happening except traveling, eating, etc., etc. The bus is having more and more black smoke. Hmmm. Turbo dying??? We'll see.
Thank you for all your prayers!!
~Onward to Minnesota~
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September 6
As we went by Lake Erie this big mural caught my eye.
We crossed the Michigan border the afternoon of the 5th. Our first time in Michigan, ever! When we arrived in Westland, MI our first stop was Westland Music. It turns out they didn’t have anything we originally set out for, but, we did end up buying a violin. :-) It needs some decent strings and then we'll be able to evaluate if this one will replace the one I’m using now. It’s much, much louder with $3 strings than mine is already...
We met Kendra in person! Yay! (For some strange reason you're not in my links section, how did that happen??!)
This was our debut concert in Michigan….
She has all the pictures of the concert (any good ones??), but here are the pictures of afterward….
Paster Roberts and wife, Kendra and Scott, and us.
Bonnie, Kendra, and me.
Nathan was snapping and Kendra is telling him to stop here.
We've been stopping at Flying J's all day. It's scary, I'm starting to recognize them....it's getting like 'Oh, we were just here!'
Not much is happening except traveling, eating, etc., etc. The bus is having more and more black smoke. Hmmm. Turbo dying??? We'll see.
Thank you for all your prayers!!
~Onward to Minnesota~
September 06, 2006
The reason I haven't been updating is because we haven't had any WiFi until today!!! We've been out in the woods of NY and we're finally back to some city in Ohio. Well, we're at the Flying J and that's close enough to a city sometimes. :)
I started writing on Saturday....
Oh and since I won't have time to reply individually - thanks for all the nice comments on my last post. :)
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September 2
So far we’ve had quite the day! Since we were planning to leave Friday night we felt a bit more relax knowing we didn’t have to leave until Saturday (today). The concert in Rushford was canceled because of the rain.
Vincent worked on partially enclosing the trailer Friday night and the police showed up! Someone apparently thought he was making too much noise past 9:00pm. They were locking and cleaning up when he showed up so it wasn’t a big deal.
Mom got up early Saturday and cooked a big breakfast for all of us. Thanks Mom! That was delicious. After some misplaced trailer chains were replaced we (Vincent) blew the pipes out in the house. It’s amazing all the air and power behind that boy. LOL! Actually, the air compressor blew them out. : P We got our security system (siren) set up and tested. Vincent forgot it was on and nearly jumped out of his skin when he tripped it. Around 1:30pm dad said we could not leave until we found the trailer receipt that was on the bus dash. Well, being the non-clutter (yeeeah right) person I am I had cleaned that whole dash off about a week and a half ago. I had put all the receipts in a pile to be filed and all the ’junk’ paper in a pile. All of a sudden I had no idea where that pile of receipts went!! Noooo! I found the ’junk’ pile in the house and I checked all the normal places in the bus where we would store paper work. Nothing. Mom, Bonnie and I started looking in the unobvious places next. I was wondering if perhaps they got misplaced into the recycle paper box, which, of course had just been brought to the dump and emptied. By this time I was in tears. I had just canceled the trip after all this. (I don’t know we would have had to cancel the trip, but we wouldn’t have been able to bring the trailer, pick up the bus rear-ends in Minnesota, or bring the unicycles. That’s close enough to canceling in the frame of mind dad was in.) The verse I kept hearing was “If you falter in times of trouble how small is your strength” but, also “He has done great and marvelous things!” The Lord knew the predicament we were in and the end result and He would accomplish His will despite my failings! Mom found them tucked in the bus manual about 30 minutes later. Thank you LORD! Dad went to get weighed (we’re 39,000 lb,), we said goodbye to our neighbor, and we started off on a new adventure!
Teach me your way O LORD
That I may walk in your truth.
Give me an undivided heart
That I may fear your name.
Will praise you O LORD my God
With all my heart I will glorify your name forever.
Psalm 87:11-12
We stopped off at a Wally World in New York after 4 hours driving. A couple pulled into the parking lot and saw Vincent doing something to the trailer. They stopped, asked if we needed any help, and started a conversation. We gave them a cd and right before they left they said they were Christians and the Lord told them to go to the Wal-Mart parking lot. Isn’t that amazing that God had put people in our path to help us?! After all the struggle to get off this was a great encouragement even if we weren‘t broken down at the time!! If we’re suppose to be on this trip the Lord will supply all we need.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. upstate New York is so beautiful. If you only know the NYC side of the state and you’re not impressed you need to see the rural part. Green hills and rolling landscapes….ahhh. It’s funny to think that the big dirty city is in the same state!
Our first concert is tomorrow morning. I hope we get some good sleep tonight. Then maybe we won’t be yawning while we’re singing. : P
Oh, and I think this is a highway first worth mentioning, we actually PASSED someone today going up a hill! The poor van looked really tired! : P
Till next time…
September 3
Dad added a gallon of oil Saturday night. He was concerned that perhaps the fuel was leaking into the crank case. The oil gauge seems to be stable right now (Monday). The headlights stopped working Saturday night. We still had the brights so that helped. We still haven’t gotten them fixed. Part stores are not open today because it’s Labor Day.
The concert on Sunday morning went fine. However, we had our share of missing words and cues that morning due to not singing together for 2 weeks. :( The pastor had been trying to call us Saturday night but the cell phone wouldn’t work. He thought we were suppose to be there Saturday night so he was a little concerned. We hadn’t told him about our bus/engine troubles. He probably would have been really wondering if he knew!!
Little Valley is a special place for us. Our first Mid-west trip was started there September 2004. :) They’ve seen us grow for three years now. They are curious how we will grow and change in the next few years….the Lord only knows. We had a nice time talking with all our friends afterward over lunch. That lasagna was delicious!
Sunday night we were in Olean. The girls had a nice time chatting with Sarah and Rachel F. :)
We’re staying in the driveway of Mr. C. today. So far we’ve been relaxing. Well, most of us. Bonnie ran around the pond and yard and the boys have been chasing geese and ducks. Carol has been taking pictures and writing updates for the blog. (Can you guess?!) Dad’s taking a nap. He’s so tried.
Those poor little duckies! They were very anti-social creatures from the start so I shouldn’t feel too bad for them, BUT the boys spent a good portion of the day chasing them. : p The sweet little duckies would swim and swim, trying desperately to evade the mob of three paddle boats filled with yelling children.
The kids would have them surrounded and the baby duck would swim under them and the other ones would shoot out around the boats.
This duck didn’t move fast enough.
: D When we were done petting and taking pictures we let him go. He was quacking all the way back to the pond. I think he was happy to be free again…..
We met Mr. C’s family on Monday night. They fed us and we talked and fed the geese together. The geese are quite stubborn and would not come close to the food until we were in bed.
September 4
We got to meet the Doerful family this afternoon thanks to Mr. C.! They have a traveling family bluegrass band. Wow. They are really, really good. They just got a RV/bus. They had a regular RV before but they’d still like to get a ‘real’ bus. Speaking of buses.…
…..the headlights are still out on ours. The brights are still all we have. The Doerfuls said they used to have a lot of trouble with their headlights and they would shine flashlights out the windshield. Lol.
We’re 2 hours behind schedule to Detroit at the moment. We had such a good time pickin’ with the Doerfuls we were late starting out. They play a lot of bluegrass standards and wonderfully at that! When they come to Boston they said they’d come see us!! Hooray!
The people we could round up for a picture in front of our bus.
Detroit here weee coooooome!
I started writing on Saturday....
Oh and since I won't have time to reply individually - thanks for all the nice comments on my last post. :)
-----------------------------------------------------
September 2
So far we’ve had quite the day! Since we were planning to leave Friday night we felt a bit more relax knowing we didn’t have to leave until Saturday (today). The concert in Rushford was canceled because of the rain.
Vincent worked on partially enclosing the trailer Friday night and the police showed up! Someone apparently thought he was making too much noise past 9:00pm. They were locking and cleaning up when he showed up so it wasn’t a big deal.
Mom got up early Saturday and cooked a big breakfast for all of us. Thanks Mom! That was delicious. After some misplaced trailer chains were replaced we (Vincent) blew the pipes out in the house. It’s amazing all the air and power behind that boy. LOL! Actually, the air compressor blew them out. : P We got our security system (siren) set up and tested. Vincent forgot it was on and nearly jumped out of his skin when he tripped it. Around 1:30pm dad said we could not leave until we found the trailer receipt that was on the bus dash. Well, being the non-clutter (yeeeah right) person I am I had cleaned that whole dash off about a week and a half ago. I had put all the receipts in a pile to be filed and all the ’junk’ paper in a pile. All of a sudden I had no idea where that pile of receipts went!! Noooo! I found the ’junk’ pile in the house and I checked all the normal places in the bus where we would store paper work. Nothing. Mom, Bonnie and I started looking in the unobvious places next. I was wondering if perhaps they got misplaced into the recycle paper box, which, of course had just been brought to the dump and emptied. By this time I was in tears. I had just canceled the trip after all this. (I don’t know we would have had to cancel the trip, but we wouldn’t have been able to bring the trailer, pick up the bus rear-ends in Minnesota, or bring the unicycles. That’s close enough to canceling in the frame of mind dad was in.) The verse I kept hearing was “If you falter in times of trouble how small is your strength” but, also “He has done great and marvelous things!” The Lord knew the predicament we were in and the end result and He would accomplish His will despite my failings! Mom found them tucked in the bus manual about 30 minutes later. Thank you LORD! Dad went to get weighed (we’re 39,000 lb,), we said goodbye to our neighbor, and we started off on a new adventure!
Teach me your way O LORD
That I may walk in your truth.
Give me an undivided heart
That I may fear your name.
Will praise you O LORD my God
With all my heart I will glorify your name forever.
Psalm 87:11-12
We stopped off at a Wally World in New York after 4 hours driving. A couple pulled into the parking lot and saw Vincent doing something to the trailer. They stopped, asked if we needed any help, and started a conversation. We gave them a cd and right before they left they said they were Christians and the Lord told them to go to the Wal-Mart parking lot. Isn’t that amazing that God had put people in our path to help us?! After all the struggle to get off this was a great encouragement even if we weren‘t broken down at the time!! If we’re suppose to be on this trip the Lord will supply all we need.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. upstate New York is so beautiful. If you only know the NYC side of the state and you’re not impressed you need to see the rural part. Green hills and rolling landscapes….ahhh. It’s funny to think that the big dirty city is in the same state!
Our first concert is tomorrow morning. I hope we get some good sleep tonight. Then maybe we won’t be yawning while we’re singing. : P
Oh, and I think this is a highway first worth mentioning, we actually PASSED someone today going up a hill! The poor van looked really tired! : P
Till next time…
September 3
Dad added a gallon of oil Saturday night. He was concerned that perhaps the fuel was leaking into the crank case. The oil gauge seems to be stable right now (Monday). The headlights stopped working Saturday night. We still had the brights so that helped. We still haven’t gotten them fixed. Part stores are not open today because it’s Labor Day.
The concert on Sunday morning went fine. However, we had our share of missing words and cues that morning due to not singing together for 2 weeks. :( The pastor had been trying to call us Saturday night but the cell phone wouldn’t work. He thought we were suppose to be there Saturday night so he was a little concerned. We hadn’t told him about our bus/engine troubles. He probably would have been really wondering if he knew!!
Little Valley is a special place for us. Our first Mid-west trip was started there September 2004. :) They’ve seen us grow for three years now. They are curious how we will grow and change in the next few years….the Lord only knows. We had a nice time talking with all our friends afterward over lunch. That lasagna was delicious!
Sunday night we were in Olean. The girls had a nice time chatting with Sarah and Rachel F. :)
We’re staying in the driveway of Mr. C. today. So far we’ve been relaxing. Well, most of us. Bonnie ran around the pond and yard and the boys have been chasing geese and ducks. Carol has been taking pictures and writing updates for the blog. (Can you guess?!) Dad’s taking a nap. He’s so tried.
Those poor little duckies! They were very anti-social creatures from the start so I shouldn’t feel too bad for them, BUT the boys spent a good portion of the day chasing them. : p The sweet little duckies would swim and swim, trying desperately to evade the mob of three paddle boats filled with yelling children.
The kids would have them surrounded and the baby duck would swim under them and the other ones would shoot out around the boats.
This duck didn’t move fast enough.
: D When we were done petting and taking pictures we let him go. He was quacking all the way back to the pond. I think he was happy to be free again…..
We met Mr. C’s family on Monday night. They fed us and we talked and fed the geese together. The geese are quite stubborn and would not come close to the food until we were in bed.
September 4
We got to meet the Doerful family this afternoon thanks to Mr. C.! They have a traveling family bluegrass band. Wow. They are really, really good. They just got a RV/bus. They had a regular RV before but they’d still like to get a ‘real’ bus. Speaking of buses.…
…..the headlights are still out on ours. The brights are still all we have. The Doerfuls said they used to have a lot of trouble with their headlights and they would shine flashlights out the windshield. Lol.
We’re 2 hours behind schedule to Detroit at the moment. We had such a good time pickin’ with the Doerfuls we were late starting out. They play a lot of bluegrass standards and wonderfully at that! When they come to Boston they said they’d come see us!! Hooray!
The people we could round up for a picture in front of our bus.
Detroit here weee coooooome!
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