24 Hours

God directs our steps. Last Thursday we picked up a stack of 3 flatbeds at Fontaine Trailer Factory near Boar Tush, AL (yes, Boar Tush!) and we knew the next 2 load assignments. With some phoning we learned we could not pick up the next load till Monday after 4:00 a.m., so it was no use busting our tush to deliver the stack on Fri. So we took it home. This delay slowed us down and allowed us to spend Saturday night and all day Sunday with friends in Carlinville, IL - Gary & LeAnne Glabe. We had to return their big red pickup truck anyway, so we drove that and the semi up to Carlinville and stayed almost 24 hours. We left after the season premier of “24 Hours.” Peggy has business with the Glabes - buying & selling antiques, so we loaded antiques into another pickup truck, which we are buying from them, and parked it in their garage until we can get back up there for it. Our ’89 S-10 has been parked at the Glabes’ for a month since it broke down up there, which is why we had their big nice diesel p-u truck. So they are going to sell our S-10 at auction, and we are paying the difference for their ‘92 V-8 Sierra. We did all our transactions and then visited into the night and all day Sunday. We went to their church Sunday. The Glabes live at Lake Williamson Christian Center. Their house is right on the lake; we ate at the LWCC cafeteria - good food! Gary taught us Sudoku - he and son John are brilliant at it. We now want to work on those game skills. We stayed much longer than we had planned and enjoyed every minute. The Glabes are gearing up for a MAPS trip (Mobilization And Placement Services) to Texas for a couple months. They are leaving in a couple weeks with their big red diesel p-u truck, pulling an RV. Then to Miami for more volunteer work and then to Haiti for a month of more - all building projects. They return home in April. If we had been able to do the trucking schedule we wanted - to keep moving through the weekend, we would’ve missed this special time with the Glabes. We left about 10:00 p.m. Sunday, knowing we could not deliver till Mon. morning north of Valparaiso, IN, which we did at 6:30 a.m. and were packed up and rolling by 7:15. Then we picked up a trailer in Elkhart, IN for Louisville. That should’ve worked to deliver by 5:00 p.m., even though we lost an hour to EST. But we didn’t make it in time so had to wait overnight. But here is where God showed his better schedule than what we had in mind. At 4:00 p.m. Mon., we were still 90 miles north of Louisville. We hung at the Flying-J for awhile and then decided to call Christian trucker friends whom we only meet sporadically - it’s been a little over a hear since last time. We called Joan, she invited us to the house (as hoped,) and we enjoyed a very nice visit. We watched the next 2 hours of “24 Hours,” arriving just after it had begun. We had met Joan & Gary (he’s out on the road now) at the USXpress terminal in OK City about 3 years ago. She heard me fiddling early in the morning and has become my most supportive fan - maybe my only fan come to think of it… She has quit driving semi and stays home. We met Gary’s son Rodney and his fiancee Sara. Joan is a very sensitive spirit, studies the Bible a lot, is very thin, smokes a lot, and is very interesting to visit with - smart lady. She wants us to read “Ragamuffin Gospel,” an important book to her, so I will. From the time we had first met them, she has spoken to us about a Chinese couple they know, who are Christians, frequent travelers to China for missions, husband is an accomplished pianist, and Joan wants us to meet them. Son Rodney took us back to our truck at 5:00 a.m. Under similar circumstances, last week we had delivered in Cleveland, TX about 5:00 p.m. on Tues and did not have the next load lined up. So we had to wait till next morning to get assigned. We thought of David & Shawna Horne, whom we’d met about 3 years ago at the Fr8liner dealership where David works. He is also a professional violinist, but works as a computer geek for Houston Fr8liner. We had not spoken with them for nearly 2 years, but with our new company, RexDon, we now get through Houston again. So we called David. He invited us to the house. They had just moved into a brand new house one week prior to our visit. It’s twice as big as the rental house from the last time we had seen them. We enjoyed 12 year old son Kyle and the cat B.B. (Big Black.) That was the night that David & Shawna, who have a huge T.V. and are NetFlix subscribers, introduced us to “24 Hours,“ which we had barely heard of, being so out of touch with T.V. on the road. David fell asleep in the recliner, and Peggy on a couch; Shawna and I watched the first 4 episodes of “24 Hrs” from last season, till 4:30 a.m.! That was after watching “Cars” (my first time.) Actually, I’m glad not to be tempted by T.V. in our current situation. At home we have no cable, just regular channels, and no time for it anyway, so we can’t get hooked on “24 Hrs” or any other show. Nice to drop in on the rest of western civilization once in awhile though. So it seems that when we mess up our schedule or when it is just impossible to make it work efficiently, God gives us divine appointments. It was great to renew relationships in Carlinville, IL; Louisville, KY and Houston, TX. At the moment we are picking up trailers in Boar Tush again and will haul these to Ft. Myers, FL. Let’s see, who do we know down there?