I could write another whole book on our driving experiences, there were so many good stories, but I only want to stick to the ones where God was really showing his work in our lives. He was always there, but only a few times was it in your face evident.

We had been driving our dedicated California run for a while. I was asleep in the bunk, and Chris stopped at a truck stop in Santa Rosa, New Mexico to use the restroom. I woke up, we were sitting on the fuel island. I knew this was not a regular fuel stop. I grabbed my cigerette case, and figured I would pass him on the way out of the fuel desk area.

I went into the restroom, and when I came out the truck was gone. I thought maybe he decided to park and we could get a bite to eat. He didn't come in. I went out to look and he wasn't there. I realized I had been left. I was sure he would have checked to see that I was not in the bunk.

I had my cigerette case, which meant I had my comp card. I withdrew my advance for the day. I went into the restaurant , where they had phones at the table. I called the dispatcher and asked if she could tell me where our truck was. She asked where I was, and I told her. She said she would love to tell me where the truck was, but the communications to the satellite went down at 3am until 5am for a daily reset. She promised me as son as they came back up she would send a message.

I ordered coffee, and told the waitress I was going to be there for a while. I told her what happened, and she was fine with me sitting there. During the next 3 1/2 hours I went through all the stages of grief.

When I figured it was close to time for him to show up, I told the waitress to hold my table, I was going outside. He was pulling in and I was laughing as I walked up to the truck. He thought I was gonna be totally steaming when he came in and was supprised I was laughing.

Over breakfast he told me he really thought I was in the bunk, he checked and he thought he saw me there. He was just about to cross the state line just after 5am when the qualcom started beeping. He could not figure what they wanted at 5am, so he pulled off the road, looked at the qualcom and it said "Chris. Check the bunk. If Sue is not in it, go back to the TA in Santa Rosa and pick her up!" He jumped up, checked and beat himself up on the hours drive back to Santa Rosa.

That is a story worth telling. By the time he got back I had released all my doubts and fears and was willing to laugh about it. I know it strengthened us both. It was not done on purpose, and it gave a us a great story to tell.

I will say this, the right person was always driving at a critical time, even if it broke with our normal routine. Every time we would switch places on a route, there was a reason for it, and not all of them bad. There was the first Ice incident, when I would have normally been driving, but Chris had the wheel. I want to say it was because I told him I didn't want to drive in the snow, but by now I know God told me I didn't want to drive in the snow.

We were in Texas, the highway patrol had been all over the radio telling drivers, if at all possible, PARK IT. The roads were icy and there had already been several incidents. We saw the sign for a truck stop, and decided that was the best thing to do. We came to a down grade and Chris started to slow down. We could see an accident in the road ahead, and as we were slowing down Chris said he could feel the trailer get really light. He looked in the side mirror and realized the trailer was coming around pretty fast, so he listened to the voice in his head (one of our driving instructors) saying, "steer straight and feather the throttle." He kept hearing that in his head over and over, and when we got stopped he was shaking, and couldn't believe it worked.

Then there was the accident in Jackson Mississippi. I would normally have been driving at this time, but since I had started out from the terminal, when we stopped for our routine Fresh Fried Chicken from a little truck stop, Chris took the wheel.

It was only about half a mile up the road where three major roads merge into one interstate. It was right around Noon and Church had just let out. The traffic was crazy at the merge. Chris had seen one car weaving in and out of traffic and seemed really in a hurry, but he didn't react to it. We were on the fully merged road and coming up on an exit. A car came speeding up the exit lane, and I barely caught it out of the mirror on my side when I felt a hard bump. Next thing I know Chris hits the brakes hard, there is a car turned sideways in front of us, and just before we hit the car the driver gunned his engine and we caught the back panel of the passenger side of the car. It spun around and nosed into the drive tires of the truck which threw it off into the run off grass. It was a lower level open area beside the road. It Chris pulled off on the shoulder about 100 feet past the exit and headed to the car full of teenagers. We had a cell phone by then, so I dialed 911 told them what happened and she asked if there were any injuries. I told her I didn't know, I had not gotten to the car yet, but I did not see how there could not be, this was a car that tangled with a big truck 3 times.

I reached the car and 4 young men were getting out of the car. The rear passenger door wash crushed, the front tires were laying flat on their sides, the car had a visual bend in the center, and it was a horrifying site, but all the kids got out, and there was no blood.

Chris said he walked up to the car, shaking from head to toe and when the boys all got out and when asked if they were okay they all said yes, being the person he is, he said "Can't get a ride like that at Disney HeH?" It worked, everyone laughed and when the officer arrived he called off the ambulance.

The reason this story is spiritually based is simply because, those boys were going to make the choice to go racing that day no matter who was driving. God Always Knows! HAD I been driving there would have been a huge pile up of cars and trucks, because traffic was bumper to bumper and I would have swerved to miss them and crashed into the truck next to me. Chris was calm, did what he had to do to safely get the truck stopped, and we were the only two vehicles involved. God is So Good.

The last incident was toward the end of our driving career We were driving for a fly by night kind of company, that didn't know they were supposed to service their trucks, or just didn't care. We were in Kansas City, Mo and Chris was Driving. We were on an interstate and there was construction with only one lane open. We were not even going 35mph when the truck in front of us (A Kenny Burnstein Car Hauler) hit his breaks. Chris never followed close so when he hit his brakes and nothing happened, he had time to react and went to the right into the construction lane. He stood on the brakes until the truck finally came to a stop, and he heard on the radio something like 'What the hell' He answered back and said 'At least I didn't hit him.' and laughed. He never even hit one of the Orange construction cones dividing the lanes.

We managed with the trolley brakes and going really slow to get to a truck repair just up the road and called the company. They did not want to hear that the brakes had over cammed and were frozen. They didn't want to hear the price tag attached to the repair. And they wanted us to bring the truck someplace they wanted it. I was not going to try to drive the truck the way it was, and the mechanic told me, don't worry you won't. He told the company that there was no way he could release an unsafe truck out onto the road. It was against the law for him to do so. In the end we ended up unloading the truck, renting a car and going home. Again, Kenny Burnstein probably doesn't even realize that God had worked for him that day too. If I had been driving, that truck would have been destroyed.

As for me, God was always in the drivers seat, I was just the co-pilot. Sometimes he had a sense of humor. I would need to stop (usually to pee) and he would not always tell me NOT to take a road, I always thought he was giggling after I got into a pickle. I usually learned something from it, but I think he was just playing with me. What ever the situation, Chris always had to wake up and fix it.

I had to learn things like, there are no left hand turns of any major road in New Jersey. AND you better know if your big truck is going to make it down the side road you are trying to loop on.

I also learned that in Texas just because there is an exit off an interstate, does not mean there is and entrance back on.

And I learned that it is very hard to make a wide u-turn on a hill.

Even though you know that tankers deliver fuel to a gas station, doesn't mean that you can turn around in one even when there is nothing else there.

Yes I do believe Our Holy Father has a sense of humor. It took Chris to teach me to see it.

A couple short stories that I can not leave out when 'invisible people' talked to me/us.

We had some time on a run and we were going pretty close to where Vicki lived in Texas. I gave her a call and asked if she would mind some company, she was really excited and told us how to get to her house. We couldn't stay long, but it was nice to visit with her and meet her new family. She had a nice home way off the beaten path, in what I grew up calling the boondocks.

Vicki had told us an easier way to go to get back to highway, and there was a truck stop there. We had relaxed and were not in a hurry so we stayed until way after dark. I was tired so I hit the bunk and Chris took the wheel. It was raining really hard, he could barely see the little two lane road he was on. Chris doesn't get lost, but he was sure out of sorts with where he was that night. He could see the 'big' road, but could not find a way to get up to it, he had not seen a car in a very long time, and the CB had been totally quiet all night, to the point he forgot that it was even on.

He really wasn't sure where he was at when all of a sudden he heard a voice clear as day coming out of the CB and the voice said 'Hey Coggins'. The name on the side of the truck was LCT and very few people new that stood for Lester Coggins Trucking. This voice knew that we all used to be called Coggins. Chris looked around, there was not another truck in site, there was no traffic at all.

The voice said 'The road you are looking for is about 2 and half miles up the road, make a right, and the truck stop is about a mile down the road.' Chris picked up the mic and said thank you, but the radio had gone silent again. He was not sure what had just happened, and he didn't know if he should tell me about it or not. He didn't want to sound crazy. When he did tell me I just said Thank you Father, in my head and went on.

There was a time when the directions that the company had sent us to make a delivery was so far off, I don't know how anyone ever found it. We made a wrong turn onto a road, trying to follow their directions, and the road was a very narrow dirt road, with no where to turn around. We had gone about a quarter mile and was really getting worried when around the curve was a great big dump truck lot. We got turned around and back on the road.

Dannielle had gotten to know Frank's family, his sister, Mother, etc. She had become pretty good friends with her grandmother and she visited with her often. I was coming up on Phoenix Arizona about 3 am when out of nowhere I had the strongest feeling, and actually said out loud that Dannielle had to go see her Grandmother, she is going to die. I finished driving then turned the wheel over to Chris and went to bed. I did not give it a second thought.

When I woke up that afternoon, Chris said, 'Oh Dannielle call, Loraine died' I was dumbstruck. I think I said something like Oh my God, when. They found her around 4 am that morning, apparently she fell and hit her head. I don't know why that came to me, but since then, if I get a feeling, I act on it, I don't wait. If I had called Dannielle at 3 am and told her to go to Loraine right now, she would have thought I was nuts. Could she have found her sooner? Could she have helped? I always wondered if It would have made a difference.

And to end the Chapter I will talk about the thing that eventually led us away from truck driving. We were in a brand new auto shift freight liner It only had 45,000 miles on it and was do for it's first service. We had a dedicated run from Miami, Fl to Carlsbad, Ca then up to LA and back to Tampa. We left on Saturday and got back home on Thursday. It was coming up on Mothers Day, a busy time in the flower business. We made our regular run and were headed back to the terminal to have the truck serviced.

There was an issue with the brakes, they didn't feel right, and the abs light kept coming on and going off. We let the company know to set us up for shop time, and they sent us back that they needed us to re-power a load back out to Carlsbad from Mobile, Al. We argued with them all day about it, but they said there was no one else to do it, and the CEO was telling us to take it.

We picked up the load and Chris started driving and went from Mobile to Jackson Ms. I started driving in Jackson. It was raining and the roads were really wet, so I wasn't getting in any hurry. I had stopped to get a cup of really good community coffee, a place I often stopped at when I was driving in this spot. I was coming close to Shreveport, La at around 7:30 in the morning. Traffic was low, and again, I was in no hurry.

I see the exit sign for Exit 7 to Shreveport and it said 7 miles. I don't ever remember having seen that sign before. I had the thought that I should stop at that truck stop and go to the bathroom. 'No No, I can wait until we get into Texas where we always fuel.' 'NO you really really need to stop at the truck stop.' For 7 miles I argued WITH MYSELF about stopping at that truck stop. Finally I felt a very real slap on the back of my head the loud voice saying 'STOP AT THIS EXIT!' 'Okay okay already. I'll stop.'

So if you are familiar with I 20 exit 7 into Shreveport is one of the longest exit lanes I have ever been on. Again, I was in no hurry , it had been raining so I wasn't even driving the speed limit. I got onto the exit, and it took me a few seconds to realize that I wasn't slowing down. I put more pressure on the peddle, but nothing was happening. I was coming up fast on a 15 mph curve doing 45 miles an hour. I had a choice, make a slight left where I might not stop and go flying into a low lot where there was an RV sales lot, or make the hard right 15mph curve and risk rolling the trailer.. 'God Please don't let me roll the trailer', 'God, I don't know what to do.' The wheel whipped out of my hands turning to the right and the next thing I know I am nose in the ditch, dead still.

I had screamed at Chris that I could not stop the truck. He was sound asleep in the bunk. He had not really heard what I had said but woke up nearly upside down in the bunk with stuff falling off the shelves on top of him. I tried to open the drivers door and realized it was stuck on the fuel tank. That wasn't good. I called 911 and made sure they new I was the only vehicle involved and there were no injuries. I got out of the truck to assess the damage, and the first thing I saw, the trailer was perfectly straight on the road. The truck was destroyed, but the trailer, and the load was fine.

The first thing out of the mouth of the company was, "How's the Load?" Chris said "The load is fine. So are we, thanks for asking". The company we were supposed to deliver too, said they didn't care so much about the load, as long as WE WERE OKAY. How sad is that. The customer was more concerned about us than our Company.

I will leave it by saying that we left that company because of the way we were treated. We moved around to a few different jobs with lots more stories, but I am to just say after leaving truck driving we had to face Life after Wealth!