Good Bye Texas

10:00pm Thursday night - I got to bed.  I knew that I needed to get up around 3:00am and leave at 4:00am the next morning and then drive a few hours.   So I asked God for a favor, I said, "God, if it's your will, will you give me double sleep tonight? If it's your will, will you allow me to be awake for driving tomorrow?"  I knew that I would only get about 4.5 hours of sleep, and I always try to get 7-8 hours.   Praise God, He said "yes".   Rested assured, (no pun intended) I drifted off to sleep.

3:00am Friday - For the first time in a long time, I woke up & got up on the first alarm to go off.   Praise God I felt rested and to the point that I felt like I got 9 hours of sleep (double sleep)!   I finished loading the van and got ready to leave.

4:05am Friday - I drove the van out of the driveway (with my dad in the passenger's seat).   We drove to the nearest gas station and toped off our tank (which was almost empty).

4:15am Friday - We left the town of West, Texas headed for Illinois.  We had a ton of fun driving, every two or three hours we switched drivers, and had some good conversations and got to listen a lot more to the audio book we started on our way down to Texas.  The books is one by Ted Dekker called Blessed Child.    We still have a few hours left in it.  

11:45am Friday - We stopped in Springfield, MO.    If you remember, on our way down to Texas we had lots of trouble and spent a few nights in MO, one of them in Springfield.   While were in Springfield, I had posted my China Set on their local Craigslist.  Thursday night (the night prior to leaving Texas), a lady emailed me asking me if I was still in town and If I would sell her just 3 of the 55 pieces from the set - she was in Springfield MO.  I told her that I'm in Texas, but would be driving through Springfield on my way back to Illinois, and I could meet her then.  She agreed and we set up a place and time (the time actually turned out to be a few hours earlier, since we made better time than I had expected).  Praise God!!!   But not only that, she offered (and paid) more for the 3 pieces than I paid for the whole 55-piece Set!!!!!

After we left Springfield, we found out that the Sclipf's (cousins) were on their way home from vacation in MO, and were just an hour ahead of us on the road.

5:30pm Friday - We arrived in Tremont and met David and Jonathan in Morton for dinner.   Then we headed off to Princeville to stay at grandma's.

9:30ish pm Friday - We arrived at Grandma's house.  For those who don't know, Princeville is only about 40-50 minutes away from Morton, where we ate.  So we had a stop on the way home, I will explain that in a future post.  Either way, We made it all in one piece and quickly.  It was only about a 13.5 hour drive!!!! Normally it takes a lot longer than that - God has His hand on us!! Praise God!