A Fun Time Was Had by All :)

 

On Tuesday of last week, I was informed of work that needed to be done on some equipment our company had sold to a customer in Talladega, Georgia.
Some mechanical parts were to be replaced and some upgrades to the PLC programming would have to be made to accommodate the mechanical changes and some other separate issues the customer was having.

I was supposed to meet a service tech from our company down there over the weekend.
I assumed he was flying. Of course, I was wrong.

I was told I could drive or fly, my choice. Scherie and I talked about her driving with me so that she could drive a couple hours more south to visit our niece and her husband.
We determined that it would be too much of a strain on Scherie, due to the neuropathy she is suffering from having had shingles over a year ago..
So I booked a flight into Atlanta to rent a car and drive to Talladega.

I talked to my niece, and we discussed my driving down to their house Friday night after I arrived.
When I got to Talladega (actually my room was in Pell City, Alabama), it was 6pm. I had forgotten about the time zone change.
I called and told them I couldn’t make the drive.

I went to work the next day, Saturday, and we discovered that Fedex had lost the parts and would not have them to us in time to install. That left just the programming and wiring on my part.

We only had access to one of the two presses we were to work on, and the other would be available on Sunday. We got done early on Saturday and I started to drive back to the hotel to set up for my broadcast at 2pm. Rick Deitering had told me that he had lost power and was going to do a “best of” rebroadcast of an earlier show. So I was not needed at 1pm on his show. Excellent!

As I was driving to the hotel, I called Scherie, and she said she was listening to me on the radio on Rick's show. I told her that was not possible :)
That’s when I remembered the time zone difference and that I would only have minutes instead of an hour to prepare for my show when I got back to the hotel.

I made it, and was all set up, but discovered that my guest was not available due to the snow storm in Michigan, so I did a repeat of last weeks show.

My niece then texted that they had business with her husband’s family in Pell City that very day and were in town! So, we made dinner plans, and I met them at the Cracker Barrel in town. Wonderful!
They told me about the wonderful things Jesus was doing in their lives and the church they attended and the changes they were seeing in their lives, personally and career-wise.

The next day, we got the programming/wiring work done about 1pm, and the service tech announced that he was going to be driving his company truck back to Michigan. I volunteered to ride with him and help with the driving. I followed him to Birmingham Airport where I turned in my rental.

We drove overnight and when we hit Tennessee, we ran smack into a blizzard with temperatures in the 10’s and crosswinds. As we were driving, a pickup just in front of us decided to drive sideways.
Then he entered the center lane (we were in the left). Unfortunately, the car to the right of us plowed into him. I watched it all as we drove by. It caused a jam behind us, but we kept going.

In Ohio, it all cleared up. The service tech and I had talked all night as he drove. He's led an interesting life. I made a new friend.

I was delivered to my house at 5am Monday, I woke Scherie up, both of us slept until noon and then we went to breakfast.

 God is good.