It's Saturday morning and we are sitting at Lisa and Gary's business. Gary is behind on getting some of the vehicles out that he has promised for today so I reckon it is going to be a full day of under the hood for him. We are really pleased at the size of his shop and how much business he is bringing in. He even has other garages bringing him work which is really good.

We made it through all of the rain etc to get down here. Yesterday we drove from Asheville, NC to Goldsboro and made it in five hours which really surprised me. We were really blessed with the travel weather yesterday. NC was alleged to expect torrential rain, flash floods, and even "deadly rain." But we probably only had any bad rain for less than an hour. However, the really part was the overspray from the tractor-trailers. But, we just kept on driving and got here eventually without incident and safely. Yea --- for safely.

I don't know what is going to tbe on the agenda for today. Probably will end up over at the outlets and Ms. Kate, Lisa, and Amanda walking around through the Coach outlet store. That won't be cheap. But --- the really good news is that Coach is next door to Bose!! We all have our vices. Right now we are kind of sitting around waiting for Amanda to get here. Last evening we went to her place of work --- Cold Stone Creamery. It is easy to see why her boss likes her so much. She is a customer service professional.

It was nice to be on an Air Force base again. We are staying in the DV quarters at Seymour Johnson Air Force base. It is one of the few "perks" I take advantage of being a retired Air Force Colonel. It isn't free but it is really nice. We could stay at Lisa's house but with their hours of coming and going, this was so much easier, and it is not far from their house. And again, it was nice to be treated to a taste of  Air Force courtesy again.

My prayers today go out to those people who have been caught up in the hurricane and the accompanying rains and storms. A lot of people have had to evacuate their homes. I also still lift up prayers for the 1600 plus folks in California who lost their homes to the wildfires. People tend to forget that while the rest of us move on the next story, those folks are still suffering the loss of their homes and eeverything they own. One of the missions that our denomination, the United Church of Christ does is at Back Bay in Biloxi MS. They are still rebuilding and helping the residents of that area rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, and that has been ten years.

So, as I close and have my prayers, I'll also lift up any of you reading this, and pray your day will be filled with blessings. Shalom.