The BBB is ready to launch (at last)

Well another 2 weeks have flown by. Thanks to Dee, Neva, Lisa and Bobby for coming by and commenting on my last post. Lisa -- we don't have Better Business Bureau soI hadn't thought how BBB could be confused with that. -- we have Chamber of Commerce CofC which could be equally confusing as an abbreviation for someofus with a restorationmovementbackground.

We just got our “BBB” out of the garage late this afternoon (Friday). and it is already partially packed thanks to Linda’s preparations (she had stuff piled all over the dining roomand bedroom). We expect to finish most of it tomorrow. We had hoped to be leaving for our trip on Sunday but that is no longer feasible. We have to go to Christie campers Monday morning to finish the “dinghy” hookup but, if we are all packed, we may leave directly from there.- we’ll see what God has in mind.

We have had winter again for the past week – snow and freezing temperatures and it appears another storm is coming in sothat could affect our travel as well. Good thing the people who are ”housesitting” for us are flexible in their plans.

This post is (more or less) an update on the things I mentioned in my last post.

Prayer requests –Erin Hallam remains in hospital and her status fluctuates from day-to-day.
Also Barb Hotchkiss –who had surgery in February - is still struggling with getting the incision healed up— today she called Linda and said that it has gotten worse again and they may have to completely re-open the incision. Finally please pray for our safety in traveling (and that the “beast” runs smoothly with no problems)

I continue to be tied up with my projects and haven’t had time to take any “virtual” trips. I hope that once we are on the road I will get a chance to catch up on what’s going on in “blogland”.

Update on the projects:
Job #1: My teaching: I gave the final exam yesterday. I have an assignment, a seminar and the final to grade and then I will have that wrapped up. Hopefully by next weekend. Top priority once we are on the road. I hope I can squeeze this in while we are at Chris’. The course development effort has been more or less on hold although I did have a meeting with the other instructor today. We have until the end of May to finalize the proposal so that shouldn’t be a problem – the wonders of email will allow me to participate while traveling. .

Job #2: The “dinghy” set-up: Getting our new HHR rigged for towing hasbeen delayed because we needed the both the "BBB" - the tow-er and the HHR (the tow- ee ) inorder to do that (no nickname for HHR yet – at least to match the HHR label – Linda has taken to calling it the “little beastie” so that may stick). As I mentioned – we have to take it and the BBB to Christie’s Monday to hook it up (and get trained on how to do it). I also have to set up the Brake Buddy. Maybe I’ll try that tomorrow.

Job #3; Preacher Evaluation: We completed our evaluation and finalized an offer to the Hillier’s – and they have accepted – starting July 1 – so this job is DONE!!! (of course when he gets here there will be lots of work to get things organized but that’s after our ”cruise”. Linda and I were pleasantly surprised and very honored last Sunday when the congregation presented us with an eagle “statuette” with the words “they shall mount up as wings of eagles” (Isaiah 40:31) written on it. This was in recognition for the work we had done in supporting the search committee.

Job #4 Preparing to launch the “BBB”. The repairs turned out to take way longer (and cost alotmore!!) than I had thought. They just finished the exhaust manifolds yesterday. In the meantime, the mechanic discovered that the lower ball joints were not the right ones and they had to be replaced. Now anyone who has followed our adventures for a while may remember the incident with the broken ball joint in San Antonio last spring (Click HERE). I now suspect that was the result of having the wrong part installed because I know that the people who replaced it in San Antonio just looked at it and replaced it with the same one that they removed. The mechanic at the garage here noticed there was play in the wheels and,upon checking he found out that the “bolt” part of the joint was too small. It took they a while to track down the correct part so that was the last thing that got done today. I don’t know if the wrong ones came from the factory or whether the previous owners had them replaced and someone put in the wrong parts – but I will be having a conversation with the dealer who sold me the vehicle. At least it is running quietly and smoothly now.

So I’m pretty well through the crunch of the last 6 weeks and hope to be back doing some “virtual” tours while we are on our “land cruise” over the next 2 months.

GodBless
Charlie