On The Road Again (apologies to Willie Nelson)

Saturday: Mary Jane returned from South Carolina and I returned from World of Concrete in Las Vegas.  We still would rather stay in the travel trailer than a hotel room.  We had stored the trailer in the Mar-Mac Warehouse in Denison.  We set it up inside the warehouse and stayed Saturday night and Sunday night. 

 

Camping in the Denison Warehouse

Mary Jane in Eisenhower State Park (Denison, TX) 

Lake Texoma Sunset

Monday: To avoid Dallas traffic as we headed south to Houston,  we headed out of Denison on Hwy 69, towards Greenville. TX.  You absorb the countryside off the interstate system, rather than passing over it (even worse in an airplane).  Small towns, many dying as in SC.  Images of “cowboy towns”, not in wood like the western movies, but in brick, but still  with the same boardwalk and shed roof off the store buildings.  Someone could buy the town and make it a tourist destination.  No pretense of landscaping here.  Whether it is a house trailer or $1mm home, no shrubbery, and no landscaping (except expensive fence on the higher dollar properties).  Out of Greenville on Hwy 34 to Ennis and back on to I-45.  Finally, there was roadwork and traffic block and, thankfully, off the interstate at Madisonville.  Backroads through Bedias, Roans Prairie, Shiro, back on I-45 and off at Willis.   

Various friends have suggested different places to see and places to eat in Texas and on the way: The Shed in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Fredericksburg, Texas, Lukenback, Texas, Stonewall, Texas and LBJ’s birthplace and ranch.  And be sure to get chicken fried steak in Stonewall.  We have been to Fredericksburg on a previous trip, and we had chicken fried chicken at The Cotton Patch in Denison, TX.  If chicken fried steak as good as chicken fried chicken, we look forward to it!

Death (but not Fear and Loathing) In Las Vegas (apologies to Hunter Thompson)

The Mar-Mac routine (after forty years of World of Concrete) is to set up a meeting room at the Westgate, in addition to our booth on the floor, and meet with customers to review our year.  We buy a coffee pot at WalMart and a bunch of breakfast and snack food.  With room service coffee at $50/gal, you can buy a lot of groceries.  Our customers like it better, too.  It is a pretty intense schedule for everyone involved whether you are on the show floor or in one-on-one meetings in the suite.   

Roy and Tom are old hands and enjoy a little blackjack at the tables.  Josh is taking advantage of the chance to see shows, see the sites and take in the world.  I enjoyed spending some time seeing things things from Josh's view:

Sunrise in Las Vegas from Westgate (previously Las Vegas Hilton in glory days)

Stratosphere built with Mar-Mac Wire

64# Nugget at the Golden Nugget.  I try to see it every trip!

Sights on Fremont Street in old Las Vegas

Fremont Street

Cirque du Soleil

Cirque du Soleil Beatles Love

Cirque du Soleil Beatles Love

Cirque du Soleil Beatles Love (see this one if can only see one)

During our first meeting my sister called to tell me our mother had died.  She had dementia and was slowing deteriorating.  Like a typical McLeod, she had a strong life-force.  In June, she had been placed in hospice with “a week to live”, but was still with us last week.  She was in a pretty miserable place with some functions working fully and others failing.   I have been emotionally moved and touched by human responses, maybe more than I have by her actual death.  This is one message that was beautifully written and really got to me.

John,

There’s never the right words or enough words to express sympathy. When it comes to mothers, I’d suspect the words have yet to be created. Maybe they never will be. She’s one of the last of the old orders of things to pass away – and we’re left with a lifetime of memories that got us to where we are today.

Death is a great teacher – and facing death is always a humbling experience. If death teaches us anything about life and love - it’s that they both go on.

So, look to the heavens in that Texas sky and find the Milky Way. Many religions say it’s the path taken by the departed souls towards the heavens … the twinkling stars along the path, little campfires guiding them safely towards their next destination. 

Once upon a time … there was humanity

While my relationship with God appears to be “goofy religion” to some people, it seems to me to be equal parts “alone time with God” and “personal caring connections” with other humans.  I am still trying to figure it out.

Church On The Road

1/20/19 Mary Jane and I decided we wanted to try and attend a church service wherever we happened to be while we were traveling.  We have been partially successful.  It takes some effort to find a church and figure out when they have services, and it is pretty easy to just let it slide.  We went to Trinity United Methodist church in Denton, TX, tried to go to Sadler United Methodist Church in Sadler, TX (church was dark when we went for the 6:30 PM service on the sign).  I made it to the Reformation Lutheran Church in Las Vegas today and was rewarded with a service that was worshipful and rewarding (great music, too).   I could not get the video to upload.  My blogging skills are low!

Trinity UMC, Denton, Tx

Trinity United Methodist Church

 

Opps!  We missed it.

Sadler United Methodist Chur

Great Music At Reformation!

Reformation Lutheran, Las Vegas

Reformation Lutheran, Las Vegas

North Texas and Oklahoma

                                                                                                                                                                  1/12/19 Dennison, TX Birthplace of Dwight D. Eisenhower.  One of the things you do not get to unless you slow down.  

Hanging out with Dwight in Dennison on a cold day!

1/18/19 We spent the last nine days at the Thousand Trails RV Park in Gordonville, TX.  It is part of the Thousand Trails System where you pay a fixed fee and camp for free for a year within the network.  A membership in the network was part of the deal when we bought the travel trailer from the dealership.  The Thousand Trails campgrounds are not ubiquitous, and not always sited the most conveniently for your given situation.  I had to drive an hour and a half into Dallas to make calls, and then back home.  It was certainly a decent facility with a hot tub and a clean, brightly lit, warm coin laundry and we enjoyed our stay.  We have paid for membership in the Texas State Park System, and generally, those facilities are more spacious, with roomier campsites.  They often do not have sewer dumps at the campsite, which necessitates breaking camp every five days to dump the tanks. 

 Doing laundry after getting out of the hot tub on a cold day

1/19/19  I am on the plane fly to Las Vegas for World of Concrete.  I am reflecting on the trip thus far, and would say it has been a learning experience.  We certainly have more to learn, but I am curious whether the second month will be easier and more efficient. Generally, it is turning out pretty much as I expected, given a few caveats, some of which have already been mentioned:

1.      I cannot move as fast and efficiently as when you are doing “normal sales travel”.

2.      I did not really anticipate having to do certain tasks that must be taken care of whether I am in the office or on the road. 

3.      I did not anticipate the time it takes to properly document and follow up on sales calls.

4.      I did not anticipate the effort it takes to make and break “camp”.  I am understanding I must be careful in planning where to land at each move, in order to be able to make calls efficiently and to avoid excessive moves. 

5.      There are some things dealing with our basic life functions that we take for granted at home.  These things take extra effort on the road.  The travel trailer has a two heat sources, an electric heater and a propane furnace.  Both have thermostats.  Nevertheless, they both have to be managed.  Use the heater when plugged in at a campground to avoid burning propane that comes in refillable five gallon tanks.  Kick in the furnace when the heater will not keep up.  Make sure the refrigerator is switched to propane when you are traveling, and that it is on electricity when plugged in.  While the trailer is a “four-season” unit, it is not as well insulated as a house.  It cools rapidly when the sun goes down and the wind blows, and heats rapidly when the sun comes out.  Despite thermostats, the process is far from automatic.

6.      Mary Jane and I have both seen our situation as “being like a turtle” where you are carrying your home on your back.

While I am discovering things I did not expect, there is nothing that is an undue hardship or a “deal-killer”.  I am not certain MJ feels the same. 

                                                                                It is nice to see a lot of Mar-Mac product in a customer warehouse!

Texas Images:

Note the planters at the church -->

Looks to me like the turn of the century (the last one)

                                                                              

Good Designs:  I have always been impressed at how quickly a professional can do his work compared to how much time it takes me to do it myself.  I long ago understood that much of that efficiency comes from his experience and proper set-up or shop to do it.  It also has to do with having the correct well-designed tools to do the job.  As I have collected my own limited set of tools for various jobs, I have come to admire good tool design.  You might ask what this has to do in the context of “living in a trailer down by the river”.  When you are at home, you have your own bathroom, and you have it set up just like you want it.  When you live in state parks or RV “resorts”, you use the bathhouses.  If you are not properly equipped, the trip to the bathhouse can be inconvenient and clumsy.  Enter the WalMart bath caddy.  It will handle taller bottles of soap and “condiments”, wet washcloth, razor, hair brushes, etc.  After you learn what not to wear to the bathhouse, and have all your “stuff” in the caddy, you can actually make a trip to the bathhouse reasonably efficient.  Hats off to a well-designed shower caddy.  By the way, you might ask, "why use the bathhouse when you have hot water, tub and shower in the trailer?".  The answer is, "its a tight fit in a camper shower!"

Martin's Venture West - Start of an adVenture

MartinsVentureWest - Start of an adVenture

There is an old joke about a preacher calling for confessions in a revival.  After several admissions of guilt, the punchline has the preacher saying, “Damn, brother! I don’t think I’da told that!.  My hope is to not ramble too deep into my thoughts or to embarrass myself.  When Mary Jane and I embarked on this adventure, several people expressed an interest in keeping up with us.  The purpose of this blog is to record images, thoughts and experiences from our trip. 

In 2016 Mary Jane and I, along with friends Bill and Susan Baum, borrowed my sister, Mary Ann’s, 36’ International Class C RV and drove from Minnesota to Yellowstone, to the Tetons, to Denver over a ten-day period.  We have been toying with the idea of buying a RV or live aboard boat since then.  In December, we bought a 32’, bumper hitch travel trailer. 

Our Mar-Mac road warrior sales staff has been incredibly stable.  Roy Guild and Tom Porcelli have a combined 50+ years with Mar-Mac.  We have not had the same luck with keeping a salesperson in Texas.  Jarret has been president since January 2018 and running most of the Mar-Mac operations.  Mary Jane and I are still figuring out what to do when we grow up.  Making sales calls in Texas and surrounding states seemed to be a good opportunity to change our routine, see more of the country, and still have a job and a reason to get out of bed in the morning.  And we are off.

I met Jeff Rochler in Jamaica in October. He was reading a book titled Nomadland by Jessica Bruder.  It introduced me to the culture/community/lifestyle of people that live in campers, RVs, travel trailers, converted buses, box trucks, cars, and other mobile structures either on or off the grid.

As an old friend, Leon Banks (a public defender lawyer at the time) told me, “John, you have no clue how the other half lives”.  Although we have spent a limited amount of time at this effort, I am convinced that the RV community is probably only one of many groups that live largely under the radar of what most of us regard “mainstream society”. 

December 24, 2018, Monday, Christmas Eve – Started packing the trailer and preparing the house to be gone.  Did this for three days and left Beaufort on Thursday December 27. 

It looks much worse than it is!

Drove to Helen, GA, and met Nora and John and their kids Emma and Cate.  It rained solid for twelve hours and then on and off for another 12.   We all stayed in the trailer the first night and John slept in his tent the second night.

Saturday, December 29, 2018 – John and Nora headed for home and we headed for Atlanta to see Martin, Kristin, Will and Brecker.  We stored the trailer at Kristin’s parent’s home.  It was no small trick getting it into an Atlanta neighborhood and into the driveway without tearing it up.  Thank you Rick and Brenda!

Monday, December 31, 2018, New Year’s Eve – Left Atlanta and drove to Newton, Mississippi, Turkey Creek State Park.  Stopped in Birmingham for coffee with an old friend, Mac Sauls.   Picture of Mac in his "rat rod".  '53 Chevy Truck on the outside, Corvette underneath.  

Tuesday, January 1, 2019, New Year’s Day – Left Turkey Creek and headed for Longview, Texas.  We did not realize that most campground personnel do not respond to emails or phone calls during holidays.  We ran out of daylight and had no campground confirmation.  We ducked into a roadside park (Hitching Post RV Park) in Hallsville, TX.  While it was no state park and no resort, the people were nice and helpful, the bathrooms were warm, and the showers were not.  None of these is a given in any particular situation.  Although we were forty miles or so short of where we wanted to be, we opted to stay where we were for the two nights we planned to stay (just drove a little further to see friends and work).  Mar-Mac has customers in this area and we have friends in Kilgore.  I guess it is fair to assume that all our friends are old friends rather than saying we were here to see our old friends Bobby and Jacki Beane.  I made sales calls in the area. 

Thursday, January 3, 2019 – Headed for the Dallas area and drove to Lake Ray Roberts, Isle du Bois State Park.  We started too late, drove farther than we should have, and dallied along the way (replenishing groceries and buying stuff we should have brought from home).  We had to check ourselves in, find a site, and set up in the dark and cold.  That part was no fun.  Nevertheless, it is a very pretty, very spacious wild life preserve that was a pleasure to stay in.  We stayed for five nights, which seemed to be a luxury.  We are learning that we will drive some extra miles with no trailer in order to stay set up longer in one place. On Friday, we picked up the salesman car from the warehouse and worked in that office for the afternoon.  We had a fun lunch in the office with Oren, Tony and Jordan.

Fort Worth Stock Yards - For the tourists (us), but great fun! Longhorns, history, and the best steak I ever had at Cattlemen's.  Professional Bull Riders competition Saturday night and honoring the flag that would make you cry.

   

                    

Wednesday, January 9, 2019 – We had not realized that Isle du Bois had no sewer hookups.  After five days, our black and grey water tanks were filling up.  You have to break back down just like you are leaving in order to move to the sewer dump to empty your tanks.  We would have stayed there, but figured we could get a little closer both to the warehouse in Denison, and to Oklahoma City by moving north to Lake Texoma to the Thousand Trails Campground.  We had a short trip, and plenty of time to select a site and set up. 

Reflection:  If you consider your everyday life living at home or as you normally do, as being at a speed of 100%, you will find that life in a travel trailer can only move at 75% (at best).  Otherwise, it will get very stressful.  We may find this to be less true if this becomes the new normal. 

Reflection: I thought there would be all the time in the word when we got on the road and in campgrounds without all the distractions and projects of home.  I was wrong.  I am not sure it is any different.  You must still be focused and purpose to no let time slip away with distractions.  Our natural inclination is to seek comfort.  Comfort is the enemy of purposefulness.  I find that it requires a higher level of energy, time,  and effort to do this. 

Reflection: Generally, people are pretty nice and want to be helpful.  Sometimes it takes a little extra effort to break through on the crusty ones.