Happy New Year to you all! We be rolling through the south, headed to Georgia. I think it took us four days to get across Texas, but we crossed Louisiana and Mississippi in one day each.

We followed the Brazos Trail from San Antonio to Louisiana. Got likkered up before we left Texas and enjoyed a great meal. We asked the bartender where we were and he said, “Nacodoches.” Nacodoches? “Yeah, he says, the G is silent.” Nacogdoches.

Texas is full of new and different things, including the club you have to join to drink in Nacogdoches. Texas has beverage barns; you just drive through and pick up your hooch. Baton twirling is big here. It’s pansy planting time in Texas. The miles and miles of cattle are not Brahma and they are not Angus, they are, yup, Brangus.

I like to collect odd combinations of alleged businesses people advertise. They are all held up to the standard of our all-time favorite, “Fred’s Fill-dirt and Croissants.” Texas has offered a couple of good ones: “Creative Childbirth and Pony Rides.” We found “Boot Repair and Bait” in Louisiana.

Towns in Texas don’t give the names of service clubs on a sign at the city limits – they give the high school sports records. Bibles, Bass and Football are very big down here. We stopped in a tiny town for lunch one day (lunch in our house) and noticed an historic marker which listed every reverend of the little Missouri Synod Church since it came to be in 1900, but didn’t tell us why this little town is called Dime Box. The legend CHURCH appears on a diamond shaped highway sign about every mile.

I was thrilled to go through the charming little town of Lufkin, Texas and spot murals on main street by Lance Hunter, who teaches at COCC. His style is so distinctive and the murals are the best I’ve ever seen. They are very big; you kind of have to look at them from across the street.

Louisiana is very poor compared to Texas; you can really tell when you go from one state to the other. We are amazed at the roads. We took Hiway 84 across Louisiana, a fairly rural route but divided highway part of the way. There is no shoulder on the highway, and the grass grows right up to the road. But it is all mowed, mowed clear back to the stands of pines, so it gives a very clean appearance, very open and clean. The little towns are partially deserted, dusty and empty, with an auto repair place and maybe a cafe.

We stayed in a park right on the Big Muddy, in Vidalia, LA, right across the river from Natchez, Mississippi. Natchez is a stunning little town, full of ante-bellum homes and food joints like Hot Mama’s Tamales We went to the Sand Bar and I had catfish filet and cornbread hush puppies. The catfish was much better than my first experience last year in Bisbee, AZ. We’re having a little trouble with the dialect here. The Sand Bar is full of pictures of celebrities, and Dave asked every waitress who these people were. None of them knew, probably because the stars were old. Well, I guess they knew Bill Clinton. What was funny was Davey asking about one particular photo and the waitress said, “That ‘un thar, hit’s ar bouse man.” Huh? “Ar bouse man.!” Finally, we figured it out – it was her boss! My favorite still goes back to Texas and my new friend Darl, he’s in the “riil astyte bidiness.” Anyway, we also split an order of deep fried pickles at the Sand Bar. Dear heaven, everything is deep fried. Wuh. The women here are round and beautiful and obviously have no problem with their body image. We saw a license plate in the parking lot that said FATNBAD.

Today we crossed Mississippi on the Natchez Trace Parkway. It’s an amazing history, to think of a couple of hundred years of people walking a route, enough of them to wear a rut in the land some six or more feet deep. The Parkway is a National Park and beautifully maintained. It must be so beautiful in the springtime. Right now most of the trees are bare, and many of them broken and damaged from the hurricanes. The Magnolia trees are huge and still hold their large, waxy leaves, as do Laurel and some Water Oaks, but the Box Elders and others are bare. The pine forests are quite large, even though the trees are typical jack pine. We went through Willamette Industries forests at least once. And the roads are lined, of course, with cotton fields, bare now, except for tufts on the ground.

We have visited large Indian Mounds in Natchez and along the Trace. The history we have been able to pick up indicates the Natchez Tribe built these mounds, usually in multiple layers overs long periods of time. As late as the mid 1700s the Tribe was using them as ceremonial “altars,” and graveyards for the Chiefs (and the Chief’s wives who were routinely strangled so as to accompany the Chief into the hereafter)! Major Tribes in this area were the Choctaw, Chickasaw and the Natchez.

Tomorrow we continue on US 20, through Selma, Alabama, to Columbus, Georgia. We’re going to spend a couple of days with Angelo Cacciatore, a friend Dave met on the Ride Across America. We’re looking forward to it. We haven’t seen rain since we left Logan in November. We watch the weather channel every day and can’t believe the flooding in Bend. And Seattle-Tacoma has had rain ever since November, it seems. We are starting to feel a little humidity here in Mississippi (it will get down to 57 tonight), but it feels good.

We send love to all. Wish we could share very giggle.

Sam

We be barefoot and bird watching in San Antonio, Texas. And watching a little football this January 2nd day. Can’t help but wish we had gotten here a little earlier, to catch a Friday night game or two.

I have long had a bias against Texas and Texans, but I think I can get over it. We really like this area. This is what Texans call their Hill Country and it somewhat resembles a rolled out northern California. The soil is yellow-white and the freeway I-20 cuts through banks of soil, so it looks like the road is lined in gold. Lots of oak trees dotting the low, rolling hills. No big hills, let alone distant mountains, we’re talking very big spaces here … kind of pretty. The oak trees are different than ours – same shape, but dark wood and small, dark green leaves that don’t seem to fall off in the winter.

This is a very mild winter, they say. Locals complain about the heat (!) It’s in the high 70s, low 80s, with a breeze. Gets down to the low 40s at night, with an occasional 32. We just walk around with our faces turned up, smiling.

There are Cardinals here – just beautiful! We put out a feeder whenever we stop for a few days and enjoy watching the birds. The birds sing at night here, like they do in the tropics.

We were amazed to see huge fireworks stands along the roads. Turns out the Mexicans love fireworks and we only had to step outside to see the skies light up on New Years Eve. No gentle oooohs in the night, either. There were lusty, blood curdling screams!

We are in a park about 20 miles southwest of San Antonio proper. It is the closest RV park to the center of this town on one and a quarter million. It looks like there are only three or four RV parks period – we figure they have all sold out to developers, as we pass mile after mile of housing developments going up. We went through the Alamo the other day and were impressed at the city’s appreciation of their history. The Alamo looks so small, situated smack in the middle of town, a shrine of about one small city block, with 150 year old trees and tiles, and right across the street from a 40-story Marriott. The city is very clean, as are the highways. We spent an evening on the Riverwalk, a stretch of shops and restaurants lining the San Antonio River canal, which is about 45 steps down from the street level. I first saw pictures of the Riverwalk in Sunset magazine in the 70s, and have always wanted to come to San Antonio at Christmas, to see it. They decorate the area with millions of lights – it’s truly beautiful. The sound of Mariachis is everywhere, flat boats full of tourists float the canal, and the ethnic diversity of San Antonio is really evident on the Riverwalk. We ate right on the canal at Coyote Ugly and toasted the city. As much as we enjoy the small towns, there is a lot to be said for a city.

It’s a good thing we enjoyed the Riverwalk when we did, because they are draining the canal tomorrow, for the annual cleaning. After waiting 35 years I would have been crushed to get downtown and find a slough.

Texas is in the middle of quite a drought. When we were at Lake Sumner State Park, watching the reservoir go down, down, down, we got interested in the politics of water. When we went to Santa Rosa, a week or so later, we watched the Santa Rosa Lake go down, down, down, to replace some of the water taken out of Lake Sumner. This is all water on the Pecos River, which has been damned like the Columbia. The politics involve money which New Mexico borrowed from Texas, and now Texas says we want you to pay us in water. So the Pecos pays the debt.

Dave has old family friends who live in this area and we enjoyed time with them this past week. They live 14 miles south of where we are, in a little town called Castroville. Dave found a brand new, hardly opened little RV park down there on one of his bike rides, and we would like to do a map for them, but the owner isn’t ready. We have talked with him quite a bit, and he is a good friend of Dave’s family friend, so we have all the odds on our side, but the time isn’t right. And there is just something about it that says don’t push it, so we will plan on heading east in a couple of days. We could leave today but I have to make sure I can see the Rose Bowl Wednesday!

Our internet access has been very spotty at this park, and it is always spotty when we are on the road, so we will touch base with you all when we can. We missed our friends on New Year’s Eve, and thought about calling but were afraid it was cold and snowy in Bend and we might slip into a neener, neener, neener … not nice of us. Love to all and best wishes for the best new year.

FLASH! Just got word from our managers that there are three parks needing maps in Georgia. Our fellow Southeast Pub reps Frank and Leslie are having some health problems and need to take some time off, so we will do these parks for them this year, and they can have them back next year. Two are in northern Georgia, and the other is General Coffee State Park in south Georgia, home of some protected turtles. Will have more details on the turtles later (probably more than you want to know).

Rachel, we always like it when you tell us where to go. Send more info on mounds. We keep running into them but can’t seem to get good stories.

Love again,

S

This November 26th, we be seriously buffeted by 40 to 50 mph winds,
parked next to a visibly disappearing lake in eastern New Mexico. To
give you an idea of the remoteness, we are on the weather forecast with
Muleshoe, Texas, and PBS plays Montovani.

When we drove into Fort Sumner last Saturday, the town was deserted;
even Dave’s Grocery was closed. Turns out there was a football game —
the Fort Sumner Foxes whupped the Texico Wolves for the State A-1
Championship. Yee-haw! The population of Fort Sumner is listed at
1,028; there were 1,127 people at the game.

We really, really like this little town. People are very welcoming.
They have a long, close relationship with the State Park we are
mapping, which was formed by damming the Pecos River. Sadly, Texas has
water rights on the Pecos and when Texas asks for water, Sumner Lake
goes down. We’re just hoping the lake doesn’t go away before we leave.
Four years ago it got so low all the fish died. From what we hear it
was a very unattractive situation.

Days are sunny and warm; we’re at about 4,200 feet, and nights get down
to freezing, though we never see any eidence of frost. It is very
flat. I tend to look at landscapes and paint them in my mind. There is
a lot of sky in these paintings. I made myself a fleece jacket and hat
yesterday, just in time, I think. (I made a turban hat out of red
fleece – they’ll love that in town, don’t you think?)

Billy the Kid died here. We think. There is a grave, caged against
thieves, and an ongoing battle to exhume the remains to make sure.
Another claim to infamy is the Bosque Redondo (round wood). The
tragically misguided attempt to relocate 10,000 Navajos from Arizona,
and just enough Apaches to rile them up, ended in what the Navajos
still call “The Long Walk.” It is now a state monument with a
beautiful museum.

After the reservation experiment failed, and the outlaws died and the
government left, the area was developed by wealthy Mexican landowners.
The original family names are still very evident, 150 years later.
People stay here. Half the people I’ve called on went to school with
the park superintendent. If young people leave, they come back to
raise their families. There is no industry and the town is dirt poor,
so it takes a conscious effort to live here. It is the most cohesive,
content community we’ve been in.

It is also the only town we’ve been in that has a windmill repair shop.
(Big one, very dark and oily and truck-shop smelly. I’m trying to sign
them up as trailer hitch welders).

We’re a little neervous about being this far north in December. They
get a little snow each year. But we signed up a nice park in Santa
Rosa, 30 miles north, and can see a real profit potential in it. (Took
it from the competition!) So we’ll be close to Muleshoe and Wagonwheel
for another 2 to 3 weeks. Santa Rosa is on Route 66, home to the Blue
Hole, a geologic phenomenon that offers a very deep, clear, freshwater
scuba experience.

Dave really has his work cut out for him here. He has had to build a
map of the park, almost from scratch. It is quite detailed and the
park people are really happy with it. Next he has to build a map of
the town, so we can pinpoint the location of the advertisers. Both of
them. (We knew this was going to be a tough job, but I’m still
confident.) Plus, he has to create ads for me – no one has any
advertising copy. He makes them for me to take on call backs, and itâ€s
helpful. I actually have four full ads sold (two are out of town) and
about five “most likelys.” I need at least seven to meet production
costs.

Love to all. Attached are pictures of our new favorite place. It’s part
of what we love about this job — it lets us be travelers instead of
tourists. We never would have come to this place, let alone stay two
weeks, unless we had a purpose. We’re so glad we didn’t miss it.

Sam

November 16, 2005

We’re heading to a job, using our Passport America card. Rates are half price at Passport America “resorts.” Our first stop, south of Nephi, in Levan, Utah, was nine bucks. It was so cold that when we opened the door in the morning a kitty jumped in. Riding Highway 70 to Green River we climb 3,000 ft to 8,000 feet. Great highway; Dave recalls riding part of it on his Bike Across America trip. The geologic formations start here.

November 17, 2005

Moab, Utah. Still cold. Twelve Bucks. We left Utah at 90 miles above Bluff, just south of Moab and are so grateful for the Colorado highway. The road from Moab to Monticello is so rough and swoopy it upset everything in our cupboards. We saw a semi lying on its side next to the road. I’m sure it just bounced off.

Colorado is new to us. We’re struck by the rich farmland at 7,000 feet elevation. Dove Creek and Cahones, Colorado are small towns supported by pinto beans. We’re on the Trail of the Ancients, headed to Cortez.

Today is Jason’s birthday. I remember so well his C-section delivery. “Sam, there’s nothing in here but this baby.” “Keep looking!” In Jason’s baby book, under “where baby came from,” is a Lippy’s Loop. I should have had it bronzed. Every time I thought I was driving my bus of Life, I’ve gotten a little reminder like that. I’m just along for the ride. And what a great ride!

November 18, 2005

Grants, New Mexico. Thirteen Bucks. Diesel is $2.56. Everything is cheaper down here. Tomorrow weâ€ll get to Fort Sumner, NM, where we will do a map for the Sumner Lake State Park. S.E. Publication has contracted with the state of New Mexico to map their State Parks. Sumner Lake has never had a map so we will start from scratch. Map guy will be busier than usual. Fort Sumner is a small town so I will also sell in the surrounding area, namely Roswell to the south and Clovis to the east. I can hardly wait to get to Roswell. There is a fabric store there that tops my list of fibre experiences.

We left Bend exactly one year ago today. It’s been great. And as much as we loved spending time with our family, we’re both really glad to be back on the road. We continue to learn: Today we turned on the CB for the first time. The lady trucker in the hammer lane rolled down her window and hollered at us to get in front of her to avoid a rollover accident up ahead, eastbound on I-40. Both lanes were at a standstill at the time. At any given time we could see 7 to 12 trucks on this road, but it turns out there were way many more than that. Trucker talk on the CB is better than Court TV.

So we’ll be busy for the next couple of weeks. We’re in Santa Rosa, N.M, tonight, and I’m pitching park management to do their map. If we get it, we’ll do this job after Sumner Lake.

Love to all and best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving.

Sam

We be a little shook up, and a whole lot lighter in the wallet, but we be safe. Sixty miles north of Logan, Utah, on I-84, the right front tire of the Bluebird blew. It was awful. An explosion and the bus is lurching violently toward the ditch. Trucks doing 70 mph right on our tail … I don’t know how Davey managed to keep us on the road. If he hadn’t been paying attention we would have lost it, for sure. (Coincidentally, we heard about a blowout at nearly the same place a couple of weeks ago when a 15-passenger bus rolled and killed 9 Utah State students.)

Adventures on the road! Can’t have so many good ones without a knarly one every now and then, I guess. Whew!!

We’re getting ready to head south. Seeing family and friends this past summer has been wonderful. When I count my blessings I put my brother and his wife at the top of my list. They are taking such good care of my mother, and doing it with a loving spirit. It allows me to travel without worry and guilt. I’m very, very grateful.

Our company meeting near Orlando was not the high powered sales training we expected (and hoped for). Rather, it was our introduction to Southern values and Southern cooking (and eating). A big Southern value is connection to family, and Southeast Publications is a big family. So we met a hundred of our fellow sales reps and our leaders and tried not to fall into judgement. I opened a cupboard in the dark and smacked myself in the eye the morning of our first meeting. Every day the blood seeped deeper into my orb and creases and very few people asked how it happened. They might have looked at Dave funny. It helped keep me out of judgement.

Parenthetically, LeRoy Smith, a very large, very slow talking colleague from Missouri, offered a suggestion to explain my black eye: Jes tell ‘em he said to “Siddown and shuddup,” and you didn’ hear the “shuddup.”

Every now and then we have to remind ourselves that we have chosen to work in a trailer park bidiness, and we are living a more or less trailer park lifestyle. Sometimes it’s kind of a shock. But Ah’ll tell yew whaaat … it’s allus interestin’.

So we’re off, in a few days, headed south and east. We will be looking for RV parks to work, having given Les Schwab a very large part of our maintenance budget (A little over $3,000 for tires, for those of you who are thinking of joining the lifestyle or are saying, maybe later, and looking for validation.) Attached are pictures of the kids, and one of Honey-Ma with her new scooter. She asked this guy if he wanted to run down to the tavern; I just have to trust that he passed. This time.

Love to all.

Sam

Another month has flown by. Just wanted to send out a few photo’s of Xander. We are having so much fun with this little guy! He is just the sweetest little boy.

One of Xander’s favorite things to play is chase, he just laughs and laughs. He will laugh so hard that he can’t crawl away very fast!

Look how grown up he is…

He figured out that if he pushes on the lego box he can walk around the kitchen.

Xander and Becca enjoying music together.

Another favorite activity. He loves to cruise around the house holding onto anybody’s hands. Susie is a wonderful big sister to Xander.

This is what he figured out tonight. He always finds me and starts to pull himself up against my leg until he is standing, wanting to be picked up. Tonight I didn’t pick him up but started to slowly walk and he walked with me hanging onto my pants. He really liked it. I am betting in the next week or two he will be walking on his own.

Love to all,

Jamie, Jason, and the kids.

We be in Sequim,, Washington (pronounced Skwim, from the S’klallum word for quiet waters). We were at the newest RV park, the Gilgal Oasis for a week and are now at the Sequim Bay Resort, which is above the John Wayne Marina. Work is going well. I try not to start before the sheet-creases leave my cheek; we get home around 4:30 but usually have paperwork for a couple of more hours. Dave always has computer work, as I make calls and get a maybe, we put together an ad and usually get a sale.

Working four jobs non-stop has not been our idea of a part-time job but it has been excellent training. After we finish in Sequim, we will see our families near Seattle/Tacoma, head to Utah to see more family, and then strike out across the country, generally aiming for Georgia. Although we are independent contractors working for Southeast Publications, and can do a map for any RV park that does not have one, our managers are great about finding jobs for us along the way of our travels. These are parks that have been done before, but the rep isn’t going to do it again for some reason and has put it in “inventory.” We have our eye on a park in Savannah that a rep can’t do because of illness.

We are parked right on Sequim Bay and have a beautiful view. Sequim is in between Port Angeles on the west and Port Townsend to the east. They call this area the “blue hole” because of the rainshadow effect — they only get 16 inches of rain per year. The climate is very mild all year and the flowers are breathtaking, even this time of the year. I’ve never seen Dahlias like this. Sequim calls itself the lavender capital of North America and is home to many large lavender farms. I met a wonderful woman named Phoebe Smith who runs a lavender and garlic farm. She showed me through the garlic shed (100 varieties!), each bin hand-marked with a description of how it cooked or stored or tasted. Thinking about Phoebe, I once again realize that one of the best things about this job is meeting interesting people. When Phoebe signed the paperwork and wrote out her check for me, her Chihuahua, Rosa, was slowly but steadily creeping up to me on the couch. Just ignore her, Phoebe says. So I did, but Rosa verrrrry carefully got up to me, put her paw on my arm, and without even a hint of friendliness, pulled herself up and gently put her nose to my mouth. Two sniffs and she backed away, just as slowly and carefully. I wonder what she would have done if I had just eaten something Chihuahuas like? Phoebe also has exotic chickens, which I love, and she keeps a bucket of feed handy so people like me can feed them. A sign on the pen advises visitors of things that upset the chickens: words like Colonel Sanders and Tyson, Kentucky fried ….

The first park we did here was owned by Christian people who were quite strict about who we could call on for ad sales, or so we were told. Actually, the only people they didn’t want to advertise involved gambling; we found them very helpful and supportive. I asked the owner if she wanted me to call on her church for an ad and she said well, yes, if you want to, it’s on Kitchen Dick and Hooker Rd. Dave and I just looked at her blankly, not wanting to laugh. But she caught it and we all had a good yuk. The park we’re in now is run by a couple of ladies, one of whom i KNOW must be ex-military. We got off to a rough start because they were afraid we couldn’t do two parks at the same time and do them both well, but we’re okay now. This property is owned by the John Wayne family; they’re lucky to have such good caretakers.

We are having much more success on these jobs, and actually took the whole weekend off. Went to the hydroplane races yesterday but it got real boring when one of the boats had to be rescued and the cranes weren’t in position to get other boats into the water. Davey rode the bike path to Port Angeles; it comes out right at the Ferry and city marina, so I met him there. The bike path apparently was not built on a railroad bed. He said at one point it was so steep he had to stand up and lean over to keep his front wheel on the ground!

One year ago yesterday we signed the sale papers on Q Photo. It has been such a great year. We count our blessings often.

Love to all,

Sam

We be a little tired, having worked harder than we’re used to for two full weeks, but we be happy with our first job here at Millersylvania State Park. Southeast Publications gives rookies a tough job to start with, and it didn’t take us long to figure out that no one’s made any money on this park in a very long time, if ever. It is remote and the printing costs are very high because of the Park’s need for recycled paper and a pocket fold. Our commission comes out of what’s left after the printing cost is taken out of our gross revenue. The Park Manager was not very encouraging when we started the job. He said “the last lady had a real hard time.” (I guess so, she was here a month and sold six ads.) We were tickled to tell Ranger Sherm that we have sold 14 ads and still have some “maybes” out there.

Dave has been the greatest support team. He didn’t feel like he was doing enough, just driving me around and doing the maps. Never mind the fact that I could never have found my way around Olympia the way I needed to. Davey is really into it now, though. We have discovered that if we call back on an undecided prospect with a nicely done sample ad for his company, they almost always buy. One guy was right in the middle of his turn-down when I handed him the ad Dave had made – he just looked at it and said “I’ll go get you a check.” We didn’t realize a lot of people just can’t create an ad, can’t put their ideas on paper, and they don’t want to admit it, so they resist buying until they see that it is done and it looks good. It also establishes our credibility and professionalism, hence builds trust. Dave’s ads sold four or five of our total sales and we will use his skills more now that we have it figured out. our managers tell us that they don’t include computer work in the training because few people in the generally older sales group have the skills, but the half dozen who can do it can double the average gross of a job. Yeeee-haw!

We’re having a little champagne tonight (8-31), our last night in this beautiful fir grove. As you can see from the picture, we’re maintaining our high level of dining experience. Ed has 35,000 pennies glued to his Sunset Grill signs and grills a mean burger.

9-2-05 We’ve settled into Midway RV Park in Centralia for 6 day’s work. The park can only give us until the 11th, but we can come back if we haven’t sold out the map by then. We have TV coverage here and are horrified by the results of Hurricane Katrina. We be upset about it, but feel we have to change our plans to go to Maine for our friend Carol Perry’s birthday party. We fear being stranded without fuel somewhere along the way, never mind the increasing cost. Cygnus gets about 8 miles per gallon and somehow we don’t notice the cost when we move around as slowly as we do, but to make a 10 day trip over so many miles at possibly $4 per gallon is daunting. We are really disappointed.

We are enjoying being close to family up here in Washington. Dave’s sister Carole is coming down for Labor Day and we’re taking Honey-Ma to dinner this Sunday. We had a great visit with Dave and Jacqueline Pratt last week and will see them again next week. Being married to Dave’s Dad was a hard time in my life, but I got Jason, and I’m so glad that Dave is still in my life. Dave was 16 and Kevin was 8 when Jason was born; they helped raise him. (Thinking about it, no wonder I had gray hair at 30!) Kevin and Shelly and Morgan have been gone but we will be able to see them before we leave.

Now that our plans have changed, we don’t know for sure what we will do. There are other parks to work in Washington and our managers know we would like to work in Idaho, Oregon and Utah. The Southwest beckons as the weather turns colder …. we’ll see.

Xander is 8 months old. We love this picture of him with both of us – so typical of us!

We love you all,

Sam

Hello Everyone,

Well Xander is 8 months old tomorrow. Time flies. He has been so much fun. We have really enjoyed every moment with him. He is such a mellow kid. Just about 3 weeks ago he learned how to really cry. He has fussed here and there but not much real crying. Anyway he was standing against the chair in the living room and fell and hit his head against the table. He cried hard for 10 min. it was starting to scare me but he was ok. But since then it’s like he has discovered the power behind a good cry. I cry I get what I want! He especially likes to use his new discovery in church when it is nice and quiet. Church is getting more and more challenging. He is so wiggly, it is like a hour long wrestling match trying to keep him on my lap. He literally turns circles in my arms. It was so cute a couple Sundays ago Xander recognized Jason up on the stand and he kept squealing trying to get his attention, he was so excited to see his Daddy.

Xander is still on the small side but he is getting there. He weighs 15 lbs now I think. He is not very good about drinking formula, he wont let me hold him anymore while he drinks his bottle, drives me crazy. So I lay him on the floor and he drinks 2 oz maybe. In the morning when he wakes up is the best time to get him to drink it. But he eats enough solid food, I am surprised he’s not bigger with the amount of food he consumes.

We started calling Xander our little bulldozer. This is how he first learned to crawl. He literally put his little head down and started pushing with his legs. He figured out quickly that it wasn’t too fun on the carpet but he loved it on our bed. It was so cute. He did this for about a month but now he crawls like he’s in the army, once in awhile he will get up on his knees and go a little bit then he either face plants or flops on his bellie and starts to army crawl again. His favorite thing is to walk hanging onto someone’s hands. He really likes to cruise around that way. I think he will be an early waker like Susie was.

Xander loves his walker, he especially liked it when the garbage got set out for a second while dinner was being cleaned up, in seconds he had a mouthful of rice and rice all over the floor and the walker. YUCK!

Xander just loves his sister Katie. He hears her voice and he just starts giggling and wiggling and looking for her. I know once he starts walking there is going to be some serious chasing each other going on. They have so much fun together.

Last night we gave Xander some corn to chew on and at one point it fell and I went to grab it to give it back to him and he squawked at me. If he could talk he would have yelled “Don’t you touch my corn!”

Thanks for letting me share my sweet little boy with all of you!

Love,
Jamie

It seems like forever since we last be writing. We spent six weeks in Bend, and I have to ask forgiveness of all those friends we wanted to spend time with, truly intended to see, and didn’t. Dave was gone a week on Bicycle Idaho, I took my mother on a week’s trip, and the rest of the time seemed to be taken up with the yearly doctor visits, dental appointments and many, many hours resolving the tax situation which resulted from the sale of Q Photo.

Bend didn’t feel like coming home. We don’t miss our old houses, and are overwhelmed by the growth and changes. It strikes us that Bend now resembles Palm Springs, only with more entertainment.

We are now on our new job, just started, and staying at Millersylvania State Park, south of Olympia, WA. Here’s how it works. We are independent contractors, working for Southeast Publications out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We design and sell site maps for RV parks, marinas, fairgrounds, any facility that requires a map to lead the visitor where they want to go. We contact the facility (mostly RV parks for us right now) and negotiate to make a map for them in exchange for up to two and a half weeks free space in their park. They do not have to pay for the maps. We calculate how many they need for a year and promise them one year’s worth. The map has a diagram of the spaces, buildings, etc on the front, usually has the rules and maybe local history on the back, and the inside has a map of the area, surrounded by 14 to 18 ads for businesses and services in the local area. It’s an 11 x 17, folded in the middle. Dave is Map Guy, I’m the traveling salesman.

We got our training from our new managers in Black Diamond, WA, at Sawyer Lake Resort. They are very successful, and like a lot of Southeast Publishing Reps, they are full time RVers, but are hardly retired. They are about 50, work steadily for about 9 to 10 months a year, and make an average of $150,000. The commissions are very good. You need to sell about 5 to 6 ads to make the cost of printing; 65% of what’s left is the rep’s commission. A number of RVers work a park, sell 7 ads, and give up. They just like the free RV space. The company prints the maps, filling it up with “proud to be an american” or stats on how long it takes plastic to break down in the dump, or something. We don’t think that is fair to the company, and we want the money, so we’re working.

We are at Millersylvania State Park because Southeast Pub has a contract with the State Parks in Washington, and they need maps. It’s good to have a renewal job to start on, but State Parks are reportedly hard jobs to do because they aren’t color (the State wants recycled paper), they need a large volume and have to be pocket folded (high production costs to meet). This park has 48 RV sites and 138 camping sites and they could have put us almost anywhere, but we got lucky and ended up in the volunteer’s space, a beautiful little meadow ringed by tall cedars, up the road from the park at the District Park Headquarters. Because of the trees, we have no telephone service in the bus, so I go out in the middle of the meadow to make my calls.

I haven’t done direct sales for a long time, but I have always kind of liked it. I was very successful at selling telephones when I worked for Ma Bell. I didn’t do very well selling cemetery lots – just couldn’t close a sale. Would sit there for hours talking to little old people, but couldn’t seem to ask them to buy. When I was young and slim and relatively virgin, I did very well selling maternity clothes, of all things. I like meeting people and I really believe in the product, we use site maps whenever we can—they help us locate the grocery, the laundromat, etc. Fortunately, Dave doesn’t mind driving me around. He has a good sense of direction, and he’s really good with the maps.
Some general observations this first week: It’s hard to make a presentation to an Asian lady who doesn’t know what an RV is, let alone a site map. If a store that calls itself the Redneck Store has a sign on the door that says NO SOLICITING, they probably mean it.

When we finish up here in about 10 days we go down the road to Centralia to an RV park that looks like it might have a funk factor of seven. We have a couple of advertisers who could be in both site maps (casinos and RV dealers) so I will try to do them at one sitting. Weâ™ll see. I am so enthusiastic they are having a hard time turning me down. They are, of course, but I can tell it’s hard on them.

We spent time last weekend with son Kevin and his Shelly and Morgan Ann who is 13 now. How did that happen? She will be driving before we know it. It was great to see them. Kevin was having a weekend with his old high school pals – five of them have remained close. We laughed so hard we hurt.
It’s all good, friends. We send our love to all.

Sam