We be back in the west, where Hellman’s mayo is Best Food’s and people
say what they mean. The elevation went up with the cost of getting from
central Florida to northern New Mexico: 4,000 feet and $600 in fuel.
The next time we do that we will have a $2,000 park in the middle!

Some of our cross country observations: Following the path (albeit
reversed) of the march from Selma to Montgomery was strangely moving;
the overnight spots are marked very simply. The countryside around
Selma looks like between Salem and Portland.

Krispy Kremes are highly overrated. There is a Eutaw, Alabama. The road
(I-40) that goes through Jackson, Mississippi is the worst we’ve
experienced. Broken up, concrete, just awful. Our TV satellite hasn’t
worked correctly since. Louisiana is heart breakingly poor. We went
through towns where it was hard to look at people as we drove past with
all our obvious wealth. Public housing is usually red brick, very
evident. Government housing for poor blacks is the same as it is for
poor Indians. Lots of cotton fields in Louisiana. They still call them
plantations.

Corps of Engineer Parks are prevalent in Arkansas. We stayed at Toad
Suck Ferry. Not exactly on the main road, but there aren’t a lot of
commercial parks. In Arkansas fast food places charge a 12% tax to “eat
in.” Buck Fikes is running for sheriff in Grady, Arkansas. I just know
he’s related to Butt-cut Cates. Arkansas’ freeway is lined with pines
and maybe some fir, mixed with the bright greens of oak and maple; vast
fields of cotton, soy bean and corn.

We went through one of the infamous midwest thunderstorms in Little
Rock. Our storm warning radio works well. We found out later that the
laundry rooms are often built of brick to serve as a shelter. The storm
was epic, sheet lightening and constant, really loud thunder.
Fortunately, the hail storm missed us. Little Rock is a beautiful city;
we’d like to go back and take the Pig-Trail Scenic By-Way into the
Ozarks.

By the time we got to Oklahoma the needle trees disappeared. The
fields along I-40 were full of blooming wildflowers. Lots of wide open
rolling green spaces in Oklahoma, compared to the tree-tunnel freeways
of the southern states. Sign on the freeway: “Oklahoma wine: Just like
California only not as fruity.” No oil wells, but beautiful country.

The trip across Texas was short because we just crossed the panhandle.
No oil wells there either. We stayed in Amarillo one night, then drove
the 100 miles west to our job at Ute Lake State Park, near Logan, New
Mexico (pop 870). The park is very important, economically, to the town
so we did very well, and finished in just a week.

Now we’re in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, 100 miles farther west, on
Historic Route 66 120 miles east of Albuquerque. We worked the one
commercial park here in December and are now doing Santa Rosa Lake
State Park. Hopefully we can do this one quickly also, as these parks
need their maps; tourist season has already started. The temperature
has been between 95 and 100 and the wind blows pretty much all of the
time. It got so hot one day at Ute Lake that the park breakers blew,
from all the RVs using A/C. The wind can wake us up at night, rocking
the bus. We’ve pretty much decided that humidity and heat are
preferable to wind and heat. As a matter of fact, we remember Florida
with a great warm, green, buggy, gentle fondness right now. I’m back
in my crappy, sturdy loafers.

Every day is good. We are so very aware of our friends Donna, Nancy and
Steve, dealing with cancer and spinal cord injury right now. We know
how the road can take a sudden detour and we count our blessings. Our
friends, all of you, are tucked firmly into our hearts and we feel
connected through these occasional letters. We love it when you
respond, although we don’t feel neglected if you don’t. The connection
is complete just knowing you’re there. (Although, if you move to
Uganda, you need to write a note, so we can up the amps on the
connection!)

Love to all,

Sam

Musings by Dave:

• When I was a kid the truckers were called “knights of the road.” Too
many of them now to be part of such a fraternity. It is almost
impossible to realize just how many trucks there are in this country.
It is beyond counting.

• Concrete is NOT a good material for highways. It needs to be taken
out of the mix, so to speak. Is good when it’s new, does not last,
cannot be patched properly.

• Small towns can be nice, but frustrating when a sem-specialized part
is needed.

• There are many more “bike-able” roads in the the east than in the
west. An area like Bend is special because of all the paved secondary
roads that actually go somewhere that you might want to visit.

Dear friends,

We’re on the road out of Florida today, along with at least 88 trucks
per square mile. I-75 is 3-lane, good road, 70 mph speed limit but hard
driving with so many trucks that change lanes like sports cars.

We had planned on going to Savannah, but have decided we like Florida
so much, we’ll be back. We’ll catch Savannah on the flip side.

In the “real-life-on-the-road” saga, we were following the golf cart,
leading us to our space at the Breezy Oaks RV Park we just mapped, when
a guy in a new Cruiser backed into our bus. Hit us hard, in the bumper
€“ damn! The guy was going way too fast, didn’t look, etc. It was a
kid; Dad said “I let him drive because I’ve had a beer.” Fortunately,
it didn’t damage our radiator and when a new “tin” car meets and old
steel bus bumper, bus bumper bends a little and tin car bends a whole
bunch. The Cruiser got pretty crunched, not to mention the bikes that
were on his back. Dave got the grille straightened out where the bikes
on the car bent it up a little. This was the day after we nearly drove
over the disabled guy who was also nearly hooked in our grille, so we
were a little shook up.

We finished the Breezy Oaks job earlier than usual (11 days). We’re
getting more organized. It was an okay job although we felt like the
park managers were our biggest obstacle. Good folks at heart but at
odds with the absentee owner and unwilling to take much responsibility.
We had a lot of potential advertisers tell us they didn’t need to buy
an ad because the managers displayed their brochures and referred to
them for free. When we tried to explain to the managers that their maps
are provided at no charge because the advertisers pay for the printing
and after that we hoped to earn a reasonable commission for our work
… the response was “uh-huh.”

One thing we do miss in our travels is the occasional stimulating
conversation with folks of above average intelligence.

We have been in Bushnell, Florida, in the heart of orange grove
country. The oranges grow well along the slightly elevated central
ridge of Florida. Many groves were moved south, or started over, after
the freeze of 1987. Orange trees require a lot of water (soaker hoses)
and rapid drainage; Florida soil looks like the limestone ocean
sediment it once was. Fresh orange juice is right up there with true
love and homegrown tomatoes. We are so happy to be able to buy fresh
produce at roadside stands (finally). The hybrid candy corn, melons,
squash and citrus products are excellent and cheap (finally).

The old gray hair of kudzu has come alive and fills the spaces between
the trees along the road. It’s a vine that looks great along a fence
but knows no bounds. Like the Melaleuca tree, which was imported from
Australia at the turn of the century to drain the Everglades (it sucks
up enormous amounts of water), Florida spends a lot of money to get
rid of both of them. Stephen Foster and the Suwannee River theme parks
are big here and in north Florida, even though Stephen Foster didn’t
live here, and maybe didn’t even visit. Apparently, the “Old Folks at
Home” evoked memories of a gentler time and didn’t need Stephen to
achieve immortality.

Central Florida is thoroughbred country and aside from the pockets of
golf-cart communities, it remains a beautiful, green, rolling farmland
area. The towns are old, but still have a hardware store and a library,
and people generally seem content. Little towns around the many lakes
remind us of Newport and Depoe Bay in the 60s. Every little town has
its ball-on-a-stick water tower; you got to make your own gravity here!

We’re headed north then west to do two state parks in northern New
Mexico. It’s very hot in most of Florida now, so cooler nights will be
welcome. Dave has chigger bites on his feet. I’m starting to be glad
about the Florida things I wanted to buy but didn’t (cute little
strappy shoes, foxy beach cover-ups, short dresses). New Mexico is hard
on shoes. sigh. Diesel fuel was $2.91 a gallon in Florida; it is
dropping as we head west. We don’t run the A/C on the road but use it
when we’re hooked up. Some parks charge extra for A/C.

By the end of the day we’re back in Georgia with roadside signs
demanding to know where I’m going to spend eternity and offering more
evidence of mom ‘n pop diversity: “Country Deli – Guns and Knives.”

Love to all.

Sam

Little things of which Dave has taken note:

• Big chrome wheels and rubber band tires are the rage on lots of rigs,
pickups included. One model has a separate center wheel that rotates in
the opposite direction when the vehicle stops.

• All the school buses have a white strobe light on the roof, quite a
site around the schools when they gather. Could put a certain
personality into a trance. Wonder when they will hit the northwest.

D.

How We Be

We be hot. Picture Dave and Sam McGee, smiling in their crematorium, rolling down the road. We complained so long about the cold, that we don’t want to complain about the heat, BUT …. It’s April 21, or close to it, and we have moved north of Fort Lauderdale, kissed our beach vacation days goodbye and are headed for our next job in Bushnell, Florida. We are in a little town called Frostproof, in the heart of Orange Grove country, in a nice, shady and green park with about 600 and some RV sites. Dave took a ride around on his bike and got in five miles without seeing all of it. Many, many sites that we would call permanent. Twenty-two bucks. A real deal.

We went all the way down the Gulf of Mexico, to the area at the end, called “land of ten thousand lakes, bordering the Everglades. It was almost the highlight of our year, for me, and I almost missed it. I wanted so badly to see the area that Peter Matthiesen drew on when he wrote the Mr. Watson trilogy. We actually found it, at the end of the island of Chokoloskee, and there was a building there designated as Ted Smallwood’s store and museum, but it was closed. Isolated, and trashy, from neglect and hurricanes, I figured well, this is is, what did I expect. In such a tourist area, we have paid and paid and paid to see “museums” of dubious quality. So when we came back the next morning and were greeted with the sign quoting $3 each, I was ready to bail. Davey saved me, once again, from myself. The store wasn’t really a store by today’s standards, it was Ted Smallwood’s store, just as it was in 1910 when Mr. Watson was killed right down at the water in front of the store. Killing Mr. Watson was a community project with everyone participating except the Smallwoods (and Mrs.. Watson) It was such a hard existence and the people lived in fear of Mr. Watson, who was reputed to have killed others … a story told many times, many versions.

Anyway, I just loved it. And the Smallwoods are still running it. The fourth generation is blonde and wears cutoffs and has her baby bumping around in a baby scooter. The store used to have the post office, too, but they gave it up.

We crossed Florida on Alligator Alley, through the Everglades. The highway is fenced most of the way, to keep the gators out, no doubt. The Everglades are not the tangle of vines and orchids I imagined, but rather miles of sawgrass, gently moving in a sheet of water about 12 inches deep. The water comes from Lake Okeechobee, in central Florida, and moves about 100 feet a day. The water has always come from Lake Okeechobee, but it isn’t natural anymore. After a flood in the 30s, a huge dike was built around the lake and 1400 miles of dikes and canals were built to feed the Everglades. After it became clear that fertilizers from the sugar cane fields near the lake were contaminating the Glades, and other balances disturbed, the federal government actually sued the State of Florida because they were letting the Everglades be destroyed. The State passed an act to clean it up, but apparently it was too little, too late because in 2000 Congress passed the comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan which will cost 8 billion and take 30 years to complete.

Fort Lauderdale was great, mainly because we got to go to the Southeast Publications office and meet the people we talk to all the time, and see the plant. Dave got to spend time with the artists and see how they do everything on computers. We were treated really well and it cemented our feelings of being on the SEP team.

Hurricane damage is evident everywhere. Some folks pick up their debris better than others. I’ve never seen so many $100,000 cars, but for a change, there are a lot of clunkers, too. Like maybe they came from Cuba. The birds sing at night, here. And there are many, many french Canadians. They are easy to spot because they smoke, have deep tans and wear black socks with shorts. Sometimes white knee-highs. They are apparently quite aloof, although when you can’t speak English, of course you don’t start a lot of conversations. One couple we met was still riled that Pres. Bush introduced a bill that limited Canadians to a 30-day stay in the U.S. What was he thinking!?! Obviously Jeb talked to him, because there are towns in Florida that would really suffer economically if the Canadians quit coming.

We drove down to Miami yesterday. Whew! It is so under construction, or reconstruction, it is very hard to get around in. There are no RV parks down there. Where property values are high, many little parks are selling out. We saw Miami Beach and loved the colors, the art deco motifs. We had a delightful lunch in Hollywood Florida at Giorgio’s Bistro. We sat outside and scored the boats that came by, everything from rafts with a motor to powerful Cigarette boats and a few REALLY big yachts. We were served by Roberto, a beautiful Latin boy I intend to work into my fantasies as soon as I can, and congratulated ourselves for once again trying local fare (it doesn’t always work out).

Occasionally I read a How We Be letter and realize that I rarely tell you all about the hard parts of this lifestyle. Nothing is really hard, but some parts can be tiring or maybe a little scary. Today, for example. We stopped for lunch in a town that had a large parking lot (K-Mart closed or something) where we could swing in and have room to get back out on the highway easily. When we got back in the Bird, buckled up, in gear and ready to go, suddenly we realized there was a man in a wheelchair/scooter, directly in front of us. Not only in front of us, actually touching the grille of the bus!! He apparently came up close to the bus, along the driver’s side, and rolled around the front. If he had not had a huge umbrella attached to his chair, we would never have seen him and would have just run over him. Arghhhh!

Traffic wasn’t too bad on the highway coming up the center of the state, but it was hot and as usual, it isn’t always easy to find a place to stay. We use a directory of RV parks (Woodall’s) and a Passport America directory, and we call ahead if we can. Sometimes it’s hard to know how far we can expect to get in a day, not knowing the road and conditions. Today, I found a place that wasn’t too far off the road, and was a good price and maybe had a pull through so we don’t have to unhook. But when I called them, I couldn’t get anyone. Got a message that I couldn’t understand, couldn’t hear. But we went there anyway, hoping the gate wasn’t locked (like the last place where our reservation was taken at RV Central and they didn’t give us the gate code. It’s hard to back out with the car hooked up.) As it turned out, no one was at the first RV park . When we settled into this second place in Frostproof, a good ole boy next door told Dave the guy down the road was shutting ‘er up because he couldn’t stand the french Canadians – says they are too much trouble. I wonder if that was his message. Life is definitely better when we don’t have to go too far, too fast, so these little irritations don’t amount to much. The bumps are bigger when you’re tired.

Love to all,

Sam

Dear Friends,

It is April 3rd and we are happy to be on the road again, after two and
a half months in Georgia. Leaving the state we drove through mile after
mile of yellow pine forests, at all stages of growth. It’s a 20-year
product. They plant them in rows, close together, and cut them when the
tree is about 20” in diameter. A straight tree goes to boards and a
crooked one to chips for paper or particleboard. It looks like a lot of
folks plant a couple of acres of pine trees these days, instead of
cotton. It is low maintenance and the way they talk, it will put a kid
through college.

Some final Georgia observations:

Posts and poles are big here. They call them pillars, but we know what
they are. They say the purple martins are coming. We see many 12-gourd
structures, all painted white. The shrimp is wonderful, fresh, white
shrimp from the Atlantic. Also have to say, these folks can really cook
chicken. Dipped in buttermilk and breaded with lots of paprika and
pepper. Broasted, we think. Not greasy.

Some of the stuff we see in the meat case at the market are truly
frightening. Stuff like, chicken feet, yellow skin and nails, arghhh!
And virtually every part of a pig. Liver pudding is a nasty gray roll
of something. Even some of the locals didn’t know what dressed croaker
was – some kind of fish. And, of course, catfish everywhere.

There are no bums in these small Georgia towns. No book stores, either.
One hundred churches in Douglas, pop 10,000, most of them Baptist. The
two Mormon missionaries might just as well be in China. The little town
of Lax boasts the Lax Holiness Baptist Church.

We’re working on a Georgia vocabulary, like “jevver” (jevver see such a
thang?) and “own” (git own if yer fixin t’ rad.).

We are a little sorry to leave Georgia before Easter. We’ll miss the
live crucifixion scene in Homersville. Today we spotted two churches,
right next to each other. Turned out the one with the bigger reader
board was a truck sales lot (JESUS IS LORDÂ No down, Easy terms). We
had no idea what the term Bible Belt really meant. The reference to
religion permeates everything. Many businesses have open bibles on the
counter (right next to the parts catalogue at Carquest). I was blown
off most often with “Have a blessed day!” The local radio station
reported the sheriff’s indictment for malfeasance in between about 14
revival dates and times and the parent-teacher conference schedule.
Yet, no one asked me if I have been saved. I can’t really chalk that up
to tolerance though, because I’m pretty sure they just don’t care if
yankees are saved or not. Even when we tell people where we’re from,
most of them don’t get it. They just bless us real good and go on with
their fairly certain lives.

We’re in Tallahassee, ready to take a few weeks off. It’s in the
mid-eighties, down to 60 at night. In the space of four hours we have
moved from bib overalls and baseball caps to half-glasses and gold
chains.

(Before I forget, if anyone is interested in peanuts and/or cotton, let
us know. We did finally learn about these crops, even though it’s the
wrong season to see them. It’s an interesting history.)

We plan to wander down this gulf coast of Florida and stay in Sarasota
for a week. This country holds a fascination for me since I read Peter
Mathiesen’s “Killing Mr. Watson” books.

Love to all. We wish you warm.

Sam

We be discovering southern Georgia, and loving the balmy, warm weather.
We’re back in a small town (Douglas, GA is 10,000), set up in General
Coffee State Park, a longleaf pine flatwoods, full of blooming dogwood
and azaleas. The oak and sweet gum trees are not quite green yet, so
they look somewhat ghostly, decked out in drippy, gray moss. The forest
floor is scattered with lime green saw palmetto. It’s a sandy floor,
for the most part, home to the gopher tortoise and a lot of snakes,
mainly the eastern diamondback rattler. The park hosts one of the
world’s largest magnolia trees, but I haven’t found it yet.

We see a lot of swamps along the roads, and they say the gators are now
coming out of hibernation. The water table is very high here and I’m
surprised there aren’t more mosquitoes. Where stately homes in middle
Georgia have a circular driveway, homes here have a little lake in
front.

The park has a little heritage farm with original buildings and tools
used by “yeoman” farmers in the mid-1800s. They also have a museum of
naval war stores, which we have learned are mainly the tools involved
in tapping longleaf and slash pine trees to get the turpentine and gum
used for ship building in the nineteenth century.

We’re only about 40 miles above the Okeefenokee Swamp, which sits just
above the Florida border. We’re headed that way today, down to
Waycross. Yesterday we went to a raptor show given by a SOAR group. It
was volunteer appreciation day at the park. Then we drove to
Fitzgerald, GA for the Wild Chicken Festival. (Fitzgerald is also home
to the Spittin’ Image Tabernacle. No joke.) In the early 1960s,
somebody imported Burmese Game Cocks with the plan to hunt them like
Quail. That didn’t work out but apparently the chickens were hard to
round up. They eventually came to town and now they number about 900.
They roost in the trees and shrubs all over town (although it appears
there are not too many in the black section of town), and some people
are wanting to get rid of them. We were tempted to mention Anson
McCook’s “a buck a duck” plan for Drake Park but seeing as how these
folks are celebrating their chickens, we didn’t. We watched the hot
wing eating contest but skipped the boiled egg eating contest. We were
sorely disappointed that the State Prison Cloggers didn’t show up as
billed. There were conflicting stories as to what happened.

Coca cola is sweeter here. Doesn’t seem to matter whether it is bottled
or fountain. Of course, sweet iced tea is the drink of choice here. And
it’s really sweet. We missed the Fire Ant Festival in Ambrose, but feel
sure there is more here to entertain us.

The job is going well. I even got 100 bucks out of Tidwell Carter for
the ad he bought last year and never paid for. Tidwell was so stunned
it amused me. I may have left him with the impression that I was going
to be back every month to collect a payment.I was very polite and
smiled a lot.

Love to all. We watch the weather channel every morning and feel your
pain as best we can. Which is probably not very well. Our lives have
been so much easier since we signed up for this internet service that
gives us access like a cell phone and works every day no matter where
we are. No more trying to steal a signal or driving miles to hunt down
an internet cafe.

Sam

Dear friends,

We be packing up today, March 12th, getting ready to go farther south to our next Georgia job at Douglas, GA. I have tried to take the last week off, hard as it is to quit working when still in the job park, so I feel pretty much up to taking on General Coffee State Park. We learned a lot here (translate to “hard job”). When we signed this park up we figured we could sell ads because it is one of only two parks in Columbus. Well, the reason there are only two parks in Columbus is because nobody knows anything about RVs and nobody cares. Two of the ads I sold were to new business owners who don’t speak the language – I had to fill out the check for them! I don’t feel bad because I lowered my price and I know the ad will bring them business, but I was glad no one was looking when they handed me the check book (I filled out the stub real carefully). Gawd.

We especially enjoyed Columbus because we got to spend time with our friend Angelo Cacciatore. Those of you on the Oregon Bike Rides will remember Angelo; Dave rode with him on the Ride Across America and the Mississippi ride also. Even more fun, we got to meet Teresa, Angelo’s bride. Teresa still lives in Manhattan and works there. Angelo just finished up a job here and now is on his way to Columbus, Ohio for a 9-month or so consulting job. We shared a meal with them and couldn’t help but bask in their love. Angelo lights up around her and it’s easy to see why – Teresa is a perfect match for him, pretty and petite and really smart. She laughs a lot and calls him “Ang.” They met on e-harmony.com and have very good things to say about the service. They could do the TV ads!

We did some sightseeing this past week. Went to Calloway Gardens and enjoyed time in the butterfly enclosure. It is full of exotic plants and equally exotic butterflies, most of them from south Asia. We also took Davey out for his birthday, to the Springer Opera House for a production of Guys and Dolls. The Springer opened in 1871 and it is testimony to the interests of Columbus society that they have maintained it so beautifully. I particularly enjoyed mingling with folks in the huge, ornately furnished “saloon;” the women looked like they just stepped out of Talbot’s catalogue. There are lots of little sweater sets and pearls in Columbus and the women like a title in front of their name, like “Mrs.”

We have been awakened more than once by machine gun fire from the nearby Ft. Benning Military Reservation. Also cannons and other explosives, but the machine gunning has been particularly unnerving. Those are boys out there in the dark, shooting those guns in conditions not even remotely like what they will be if they have to use those guns for real.

Hard as this job was, I didn’t have to call on a new classification of desperation: the tombstone cleaner. Am still running into the southern stall … respond with good cheer and positive comments, promise to call back and don’t. Real estate is not a big thing here. Three pages of pest control and only two pages of realtors in the yellow pages.

Seems like everything has burst into bloom or will within the week. Along with the blooms are a few bugs. It is in the mid-eighties today, slightly sticky, but still nice. A ladder-backed woodpecker has joined our sparrows at the feeder tree. Davey rode the annual “Wheels of Fire” ride yesterday, doing 48 miles in Harris County, home of Pine Mountain, Warm Springs and FDR Park. Somehow he managed to get 3,000 feet of climbing in. The ride is a fundraiser for the volunteer firemen of Harris County and drew about 400 riders. More than a few dips in the road, obviously.

Love to all,

Sam

We be WET in Georgia! We’re in Columbus, working a 70 space park that has never had a map. We’ve caught some drain-clogging rain, real downpours, but the temps are mild so we aren’t complaining.

We see signs of spring in the South. The daffodils are up, camellias ready to pop, tulip trees heavy with bloom, and little piles of pine needles everywhere. People are raking up their mulch. The southern pine tree has a long needle and the branches are bushy, in spite of the skinny little no-board tree trunk. They bundle these needles and sell them in nurseries.

The birds are wonderful, very song-ful. We always put the bird feeder up as soon as we get to a park job. Generally, the job takes us two feeders full. Here, however, a full feeder lasts only two days! Lots of Sparrows and a few Cardinals. The little lake at the end of the road hosts a Great Egret.

I’m aware of more differences, the further south we go. By the time we leave here, “lovely” may be stuck in our vocabulary, we hear it so much. People talk a lot slower than we’re used to; I am learning to pace my speech. There are three pages dedicated to pest control in the phone book. The laundry room here is a porch, open air.

Columbus is a big city, too big for us. Downtown is beautifully restored and very charming. It’s a city with a rich heritage and currently celebrating black history month with a lot of style. They have lots of history markers around the city, too small to read from the car, of course, and I have to say it is somewhat offenputting to realize a used car lot is situated on the ground of a small but memorable civil war battle. The Chattahoochee River runs through downtown, separates Georgia and Alabama and has a beautiful long riverwalk.

I sold an ad today to the Ossahatchee Oyster Bar and asked the owner, a gruff old guy who sleeps in his clothes, I know, What’s it mean, Ossahatchee? “It’s a Indi’n name!” he hollered. Well, I figured that, I said, but what’s it mean? “The Indi’ns give the crick that name!” But … I just looked at him, hopefully, I guess. “Means gitcher o’sters here!” he barked. I love this job.

Love to all of you from both of us,

Sam and Dave

Well, we be leaving middle Georgia, heading for Pine Lakes Campground just north of Columbus. Hopefully it’s two hours warmer. The Camellia Festival is supposed to be going on the second week in February, so we don’t expect the 19 degree frostiness like we’ve been having. We got the bottom tail of the big New York storm, I guess.

I’m a little tired and looking forward to a few days off. When we’re working on a job, it’s hard to quit working, even on the weekends. As long as we’re in the area, I can spot businesses I haven’t called on (bail bondsmen and tattoo parlors) or potential advertisers who have somehow dodged my seven calls leaving me teetering on the edge of
harassment. If they only knew I would rather get a “NO” than leave without an answer.

We’re leaving Indian Falls State Park with a couple of large sales pending. I’m sure the folks involved told me they wanted to buy an ad, but I can’t wrap it up, can’t reach them. Closing a sale is not always easy for me, and closing a sale in Georgia is very difficult. This southern experience is most interesting for us, and one that must be experienced first hand. Sometimes I feel we have dropped into the Stepford Wives. Everyone is in sync, knows the rules and understands what’s going on except us. Instead of the usual turn downs (won’t work, too expensive, etc.), here, I get “We must politely decline, but I thank you so much for your persistence in trying to help us.” Honest! Word for word! Looking to get my hair cut, I asked a woman how she knew whether a beauty shop was for white or black hair. She said, “Well, we just know, but I don’t know how you would know.” Very little is straight forward here. It’s hard to take things at face value. We can’t even see the face. Segregation is still very obvious even though there are no signs or instructions. We’ve done very well in sales. I’m not sure why. I guess it’s just that “persistence in trying to hep ’em!”

Karen and Mike Stahlberg came to see us a week ago. They drove down from Marietta where they flew in for a Superbowl Party. It was great to see friends from home. We had a little champagne and finished the wonderful smoked salmon my brother sent for Christmas and marveled at Mikey’s new titanium knees.

We’re staying at the Bird’s Nest again, on our way to Columbus. This little park at the Blue Bird Coachworks is so great. They just wave us in because we’re driving a ‘Bird, and everything is free. I don’t see any camellias, though, and the pecan trees are not in bloom yet.

We send warm wishes and hugs for Valentine’s Day.

Sam and Dave

Well, after years of waiting, and months of searching, we finally found a dog for our family. It was a tough choice. I have been very set on an english cocker spaniel for many months. We even had ourselves on the puppy list for the two dogs being bred in Utah. But, in both cases the litters fell through. I was very disappointed. I was even more disappointed to find out that other puppies from around the country cost in the neighborhood of $900 and $1,000. Unfortunately, the van needs a new clutch and brake slave, which is nearly $700 at the mechanic, so… We decided to wait.

Well, I happened to look in the Salt Lake newpaper on-line and I saw that someone was selling an english springer spaniel. My mind started turning. I figured that it would be a while until we could afford an ECS. Even then, I’m not sure if I could feel good about spending $1,000 on an ECS when we still struggle to get our kids in soccer and swimming. So, we called on the springer. Jamie and I had the day off so we went south to West Jordan to take a look at her, and came home that evening with Roxy. To be honest, the real kicker was her birthday. November 17, 2005. We share the same birthday! OK. Maybe a coincidence, but I like connections…

Susie came up with the name Roxy because she really likes the song Roxanne by the Police. I was a little stumped, though, when Becca asked “Dad, what does it mean to ‘put out the red light?'” Think quick, Jason! “Uh, it’s just something some folks do in Paris…” Anyway, now we call her Roxy and the kids think she’s fantastic.

So, now we have a liver and white english springer puppy. She spent about 2 hours Saturday night checking the place out. Now she is playing like crazy and her little tail hasn’t stopped zinging since. We have her crate set up in the bedroom, and she is comfortable in it. We’re making it her safe place so that she won’t be stressed getting in it if she is a nuisance with visitors or if she has to spend time at the vet, like when she get F-I-X-E-D.

I was really surprised, though, by the reaction of the cats. They both could tell something was up right when we got home. As soon as we put her on the floor, both cats were right up in her face, sniffing her nose. They aren’t behaving agressively at all! They are behaving intensely curious, though. I don’t think the cats have been farther than 5 feet from her since she came in the house. Catarina, in particular, seems to think it is her mission to keep an eye on her. Sneaker keeps circling, and when Roxy settles down to chew on her toys, he sits down watching her from just a couple feet away. At one point Roxy decided that the cats might be fun to play with, and started prancing and growling at them, head down and rear end high up. She was bouncing back and forth and the cats just looked at her with that superior, disdainful expression that cats are so good at. Then she started jumping forward, like she would like to pounce on the cats. Sneaker tolerated that pretty well. Caterina, though, got a little puffed up. Then, the moment we were waiting for happened. Roxy got a little too close, and “YIP!” It doesn’t look like Catarina scratched her. More likely she just popped her one, and it scared her. Whatever the case, she has given the cats a respectful distance ever since.

Well, we are all excited to have Roxy in the family. Susie and Becca are looking forward to doing agility with her. I’m looking forward to taking her to work with me and training her to be a therapy pet for our senior clients and for the local elementary schools. Jamie and I are also looking forward to Xander having a buddy to play with when Katie starts going to kindergarten in the fall.

Dave Here:

We be sitting in the “Bird’s Nest.” One of the things I wanted to do if we got to Georgia was visit the Bluebird Wanderlodge Factory, and guess what? – it was right on the way! When we hit Fort Valley, GA and drove into the Blue Bird Coachworks, the guard at the gate just waved us towards the RV Park, called the Bird’s Nest. It’s about 35 spaces in an old pecan orchard. Pecans keep falling off the tree onto the top of the bus. Sam has been gathering them off the ground.

Emphasizing our belief in connection, this is what happened:

We stopped at the only private RV park in Columbus, GA, since we wanted to visit with our old friend Angelo, who I met on the cross-country bike trip. Many of you will remember him since he came out for OBR a couple of times. Anyway, the park did not have a commercial map, so we naturally signed them up. While Sam was talking to the park owner she mentioned our heading for the Blue Bird factory, Well, this lady’s cousin just happens to be in charge of tours here. She called her, and we were scheduled in for last Friday. We arrived at the appointed time and were treated to a personal tour by the head of product development. The factory doesn’t work on Fridays, so we had the run of the place, seeing how they build these babies, including, of course a visit to a finished coach.

Blue Bird like ours were built onto school bus bodies, but now they build them from the ground up, mostly of stainless steel. They don’t use another company’s chassis, for instance. They start with huge steel rails and build the chassis, then they add the body, which is a cage of stainless rails. They then put on the steel sides, stretched tight and welded to the rails so it won’t move in the cold or heat. It makes the sides extremely smooth, and the whole thing very strong. The top is also one sheet of stainless.

By the time the coaches reach the end of the line they have all the usual stuff most new coaches do such as slide-outs, plasma TVs and all the tricky electronics you can imagine from GPS to automatic blinds. Really nice. In spite of all this, they are still priced competitively with other luxury coaches. We figure we can make the half million for the small 38-foot coach in ten years or so of park maps, if we work full time. Yeah, that’ll happen.

The Bird’s Nest is a great little park. Every thing is free, including the laundry – there’s a first! They even provide lunch at the clubhouse Monday through Thursday. Who said there’s no free lunch?

It’s been great! Tomorrow we head north to work our first two state park maps, then back to Columbus for a couple of weeks. We’ll be in the Peach State for awhile. Still aiming for the Atlantic – we’ll get there yet.

Happy New Year,

Dave

Sam here, with just a couple of observations. Alabama is the New Mexico of the South – very poor. The roads are the worst we’ve experienced on all our travels. Not only pot holes and patches, but ripples, big ripples both up the road and side to side, and no shoulder. Our cupboards were a mess. The roads were fairly clean, though. We wonder if all the trash blew north during the hurricanes.

Dave has told me about the Kudzu he saw when he rode back here. He remembers lush green vines covering virtually everything, creating a dense blanket of vegetation. Well, A’ll tell you wot, Kudzu ain’t the same in the winter. It covers nearly everything, but it’s dead and it looks like hag hair, or a thick gray hair net, covering everything, bushes and trees alike.

We are just getting introduced to the south. Already we can feel that this is really a different culture. The Bluebird Factory is so large (the school bus part) – they are only making 50 motor coaches a year, now – they have close to 200 employees in the coachdworks. Since Fort Valley is so small, I asked the product manager if they had a problem finding housing for their employees. He told us most of their employees don’t live here. When I asked why, he replied that this is a black town. I couldn’t quite understand his tone, or his expression, although I noticed it. Later I got to wondering if it was in response to my expression. We had dinner tonight at a Mexican restaurant and everyone in there was white. Another learning experience: You can’t buy a beer on Sunday.

The old homes are so beautiful. The maintenance has to be horrific. Old homes are carefully signed with their history and age. We also see signs for the Sons of Confederate Vets, just as big as Daughters of the Revolution. Lots of flags down here and they all fly alongside the Confederate Flag. Lots of big hair, too, but I’m trying not to be in judgment.

We really enjoyed our visit with Angelo. He and Gracie, his beautiful Vizula dog, brought us a pizza and we sat around the Bird and shot the breeze. (Gracie is not hyperactive; I thought she did really well, sitting around watching us eat.)

We’ve been off work since Christmas. Time to get cracking!

Love,

Sam