As Jim Smith commented on my wall yesterday "It's a good thing we don't believe in luck" Which is absolutely true. Corrie and I believe that it takes a lot of faith to pack up all of our stuff and move across country, and we've committed to trusting God in every aspect of our lives, especially when things do not go as planned.
Yesterday, started off okay. We had just gotten our blown out tire fixed in Cheyenne, and thought we might be able to get into Winnemucca sometime late at night. about 20 miles into the trip as Corrie was driving, the transmission on the truck started slipping pretty badly, we stopped in Buford Wyoming, which is just a rest stop with a population of 2, to check the transmission fluid. I'm thankful that my first car, a $100 1987 Mazda 626, had transmission problems, because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even have thought to check the ATF. So I checked the truck and it was bone dry, and I said to myself. "Oh that's the fix to the problem, we'll be fine now". So I put the ATF fluid in and we started on our way again. The truck was driving perfectly for about 10 miles, and then it started again... Great. We wanted to make it to Laramie, so that there was actual civilizatoin which would allow for our problem to be fixed more quickly.
We called Penske when we stopped in Laramie, and they sent out a service guy who was really nice. This was a blessing, cause I can imagine them sending a guy who cussed up a storm and just didn't want to help (like the guy who fixed the tire in Cheyenne). So anyway, he checked the transmission fluid and it was bone dry again. Apparently there was a huge leak, and the truck would have to be replaced. Talk about trusting God, All of our stuff was in the truck that could no longer be driven...
They found us a new truck in Fort Collins CO, which was about 75 miles South of Laramie. So they sent a couple of guys down there to get a new truck, and we had to just wait until it got back. We took our car off the trailer, left Hugo with the nice people in the auto shot and set off to explore Laramie. I was excited because there was a Sonic that we got to eat lunch at, Corrie liked it too. But by the time we finished lunch it had only been 35 minutes, and it was going to take at least another hour and half until the truck was back. So after making a Wal-Mart run, we stopped at the Laramie visitor center to see what there was to do. (Corrie was embarrassed to go in). I found that there was a mansion in town that was a musuem, so we checked it out. We ended up taking a guided tour through the Ivinson mansion. Which was interesting... It at least took up the time that was needed.. If we didn't take a guided tour we would have been in there for 20 minutes, and would have had to find something else to do.
After our tour we headed back to the auto repair shop where they were getting ready to do the offload. I really can't tell you how nice these guys were, and how willing they were to do this work. the off load took about a hour and half, and they even helped me hook the car back up on the trailer, which can be annoying. So after 5 hours or so of being stuck in Laramie, we were on our way, with a new truck.
We wanted to make it to the Utah border by the end of the night, which was quite possible, but by 9:30 pm exhaustion had set in, and I had to start talking jibberish to keep myself and corrie awake, you can see some of that jibberish in the video update that is on facebook right now. We ended up making it to Evanston Wyoming, which is about 3 miles from the Utah border. We have about 6 1/2 hours left of driving until we get to Winnemucca, so hopefully we'll make it by dinner time.
Well that's it for the update today, thanks for your prayers. We'll send another one from Winnemucca... yes!
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ok bye
Josh and Corrie
Thursday, March 12, 2009
email group; Flat Nebraska, Bald Eagles, and an unexpected pit stop in Cheyenne Wyoming 3.10.09
Yesterday was a short day of travel. We left Grand Island Nebraska and drove to Ogallala Nebraska... We were really just planning on getting some food and leaving but and adventure was to come. We stopped at the Front Street Cafe, which depicted an "old west" cow town feeling. We had some good food and decided to check out the musuem that was connected to the cafe... It was pretty cool to see all the old cowboy stuff, like old barbed wire, spurs, and even chaps...
When we had enough of the musuem we decided to try our luck at seeing some bald eagles. The menu from the restaurant where we ate said that Lake Ogallala was a great place to see Bald Eagles in the winter. It even said that on one day in February 1994 there was 368 eagles spotted, or 368 eagle spottings (the latter is probably true). So we got directions and drove to the lake. I wasn't too sure we were going to see any eagles just because it would be our luck to not see any. But lo and behold, within seconds of entering the lakes dirt access road, we saw a huge male bald eagle sitting in a tree... It was amazing. We ended up parking and getting out to get a closer look, and ended up seeing 5 or 6 more eagles. Hugo was able to get out and run around, and he a had a great time. The whole experience reminds me of my favorite verse of the Bible
Romand 1:20; For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
I jokingly said to myself as we left Lake Ogallala that "it must be easier to believe in God if you live out here". But the reality of the fact is that there's no way we can deny the existence of God when we see the beautiful creation that he has given us. This creation can be seen everywhere however. Birds fly everywhere, trees grow, rivers flow, babies are born. God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature, can not be denied when we see the creation that he has given us. Awesome stuff.
After Ogallala we entered into a more rolling area of Nebraka, which was a good change of pace. we entered into Wyoming and epected to make it pretty close to the Utah border by the time we were done driving for the night. But as we entered into Cheyenne WY a truck driver told us to pull over, and notified us that the rear driver side inside tire had blown out. We don't know how long it had been like that, because it's not easily seen. We called Penske and ended up bringing the truck to a service station and had to wait 5 hours until it got fixed. So instead of continuing so late at night we stayed at the Days Inn..
We're getting ready to leave now(9:30am MDT). and could possible make it to Winnemucca late tonight, but we're not going to rush it. We'll be driving through some pretty mountainous areas, so that will probably slow us down. So we might get there tonight, but won't be upset if we don't make it untilearly tomorrow morning.
That's about it. We'll update you when we stop next.
--
ok bye
Josh and Corrie
When we had enough of the musuem we decided to try our luck at seeing some bald eagles. The menu from the restaurant where we ate said that Lake Ogallala was a great place to see Bald Eagles in the winter. It even said that on one day in February 1994 there was 368 eagles spotted, or 368 eagle spottings (the latter is probably true). So we got directions and drove to the lake. I wasn't too sure we were going to see any eagles just because it would be our luck to not see any. But lo and behold, within seconds of entering the lakes dirt access road, we saw a huge male bald eagle sitting in a tree... It was amazing. We ended up parking and getting out to get a closer look, and ended up seeing 5 or 6 more eagles. Hugo was able to get out and run around, and he a had a great time. The whole experience reminds me of my favorite verse of the Bible
Romand 1:20; For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
I jokingly said to myself as we left Lake Ogallala that "it must be easier to believe in God if you live out here". But the reality of the fact is that there's no way we can deny the existence of God when we see the beautiful creation that he has given us. This creation can be seen everywhere however. Birds fly everywhere, trees grow, rivers flow, babies are born. God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature, can not be denied when we see the creation that he has given us. Awesome stuff.
After Ogallala we entered into a more rolling area of Nebraka, which was a good change of pace. we entered into Wyoming and epected to make it pretty close to the Utah border by the time we were done driving for the night. But as we entered into Cheyenne WY a truck driver told us to pull over, and notified us that the rear driver side inside tire had blown out. We don't know how long it had been like that, because it's not easily seen. We called Penske and ended up bringing the truck to a service station and had to wait 5 hours until it got fixed. So instead of continuing so late at night we stayed at the Days Inn..
We're getting ready to leave now(9:30am MDT). and could possible make it to Winnemucca late tonight, but we're not going to rush it. We'll be driving through some pretty mountainous areas, so that will probably slow us down. So we might get there tonight, but won't be upset if we don't make it untilearly tomorrow morning.
That's about it. We'll update you when we stop next.
--
ok bye
Josh and Corrie
email group, we're in chicago 3.9.09
Hello All,
Yesterday we left NJ at 5:00am which was really 4:00am because of the Daylights savings switch. We made some pretty good time. Hugo slept the whole way which was a definite blessing. We're so glad that we decided to leave on a Sunday because when we hit Chicago traffic was a mess. I don't think I can imagine what it would be like any other day of the week.
We're staying with our friends Dave and Susan, and it's been real nice catching up with them.
Now that we've made it out here, we have no real time crunch to get to Winnemucca. We're going to take it easy driving out there... Maybe 8-10hrs.. and get there when we get there. Thank you for all of your prayers. I've been updating facebook with status updates and pictures of the drive, and I'm attempting to upload videos of the trip there now.
We'll send another update at our next stop later tonight.
--
ok bye
Josh and Corrie
Yesterday we left NJ at 5:00am which was really 4:00am because of the Daylights savings switch. We made some pretty good time. Hugo slept the whole way which was a definite blessing. We're so glad that we decided to leave on a Sunday because when we hit Chicago traffic was a mess. I don't think I can imagine what it would be like any other day of the week.
We're staying with our friends Dave and Susan, and it's been real nice catching up with them.
Now that we've made it out here, we have no real time crunch to get to Winnemucca. We're going to take it easy driving out there... Maybe 8-10hrs.. and get there when we get there. Thank you for all of your prayers. I've been updating facebook with status updates and pictures of the drive, and I'm attempting to upload videos of the trip there now.
We'll send another update at our next stop later tonight.
--
ok bye
Josh and Corrie
email group Update 1 3.8.09
Hello all,
I wanted to set up an e-mail group so I can update you on our trip as we travel this week. I will be updating my facebook regularly with pictures and videos of our trip, so you can check that out if you want. If you can think of anyone that's not on this list that you think might want to be let me know. Also if you don't want to recieve these updates then let me know as well.
We'll be leaving NJ at 5:00am which is really 4:00am because of Daylight Savings, and will be traveling to Chicago where we'll stay with friends Sunday night. this is the longest leg of the trip that we will do in one shot, so pray that we'll be able to do it safely.
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ok bye
Josh and Corrie.
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