The best laid plans of mice and men…
Yesterday Mark had a couple appointments in Muskogee, and then we had to do some shopping while we were in the “big city”. We got pheromone collars for our cats to try to help with their travel anxiety, and we bought a bunch of healthy snacks for the trip. We tend to snack all day rather than stopping for lunch.
Last night we had a wonderful farewell dinner with Mark’s cousin, Frances, and her husband, Joe. They picked us up at the ward house and took us to a little catfish restaurant in Porum, which is south of Gore, a place we’d never been before. We visited for quite some time and then they took us back to our car and gave us hugs. We took one last picture of them and all promised to keep in touch. I had no idea it would be so soon…
This morning we got up early intending to hit the road early, but it was not to be. It took longer than anticipated to get the rest of our stuff in place and hook the trailer up to the RV. Actually, it was when Mark asked me to move the car so he could pull forward a little to hitch the trailer that I realized I couldn’t find my purse. We looked in the RV and the car, but it was nowhere to be found. Of course I couldn’t call out from down at our site, so I waited to panic. In the meantime we had a last goodbye with Jared, one of our favorite fellow Workampers. He’s single and he travels with his cat. He’s a good worker and a nice person. We exchanged contact info with him.
When we got up to the office to turn in our keys and gate access remote, and check for our last mail, I called Frances. I asked her if she could check her truck to see if I’d left my purse there, and she did, but it wasn’t there. I asked her if she could call the restaurant where we’d been the night before and she said it would be closed but she had a cousin in Porum who might know how to contact the owner. She called me back a few minutes later and told me they had my purse and they would leave the front door open. They were cooking in the back. I thanked her profusely and she said she loved us and would be praying for us. She’s good folk!
Mark took the RV and trailer and went to the truck stop near the highway to top off the gas and fill up our main propane tank. I had the cats in the car and I drove back to Porum and found the catfish restaurant. The door was indeed open, so I walked in and called to the back. The woman who had waited on us last night came out and gave me my purse. She said they hadn’t even gone through it to look at my ID. Had Frances not called, I might have lost my purse in Oklahoma! Even though they were closed, I asked the woman if I could buy a couple soft drinks to go, thinking to give her a little money for her good care of my purse. When she brought the drinks out and I offered her money, she said the drinks were on the house. I was touched!
I got back to Webber’s Falls, which is where the truck stop is and put the cats inside the RV. They were happy to be out of their carriers. While Mark was loading my car onto the trailer, I cleaned out our garbage and put it in the dumpster there. Then we finally hit the road sometime after noon. So much for leaving early!
Our trip was relatively uneventful. We went from Gore to Oklahoma City, then turned north. We hit a stretch of highway that was a toll road so we stopped for that, and we stopped once at a rest stop and once at a gas station to refill our tank. We drove through Wichita, but all I saw were a bunch of huge silos, and I do mean a bunch! They must have a lot of grain to store. We had a few sprinkles after the sun set, but otherwise the day was fairly clear. I started reading a mystery to Mark called “Dead Canaries Don’t Sing” by Cynthia Baxter.
It wasn’t until we found our KOA in Salina (pronounced Sal-eye-nah) and parked for the night that we realized our trip hadn’t been as uneventful as we thought. Mark had had our main propane tank filled in Webber’s Falls before we left. I guess the guy that filled it didn’t get it closed tightly enough because now we’re down to a quarter of a tank. Mark says we’re lucky we didn’t blow up!
So praise God for helping me find my purse, for protecting us from the leaky propane tank, and for keeping our tires intact. God is watching out for us and protecting us in miraculous ways!
So glad to hear about God’s protection over you Denise. We continue to pray for safe, happy travels from Portland. May you have a Gospel conversation tomorrow. Much love. Adam