On The Road Again?

It may take some coaxing but I have starting working on John and Phil to do another RV trip together. This one would start in early October 2010 and involves heading east to Hershey Penn for a huge car swap meet (no surprise with that agenda). Then introduce John to the Amish country and introduce John to the Amish. Great potential with those photo ops! Does permission for a boys road trip qualify as a "haul" or "hall" pass?
Then return back to California via a different route.
Better to leave this world with more memories than we can remember versus going out with too many regrets over what we did not do in life especially with good friends.

Home

Hard to believe that 12 days and nearly 3,000 miles have already passed and that we will all be sleeping in our own (large and stable) beds tonight. The trip went by very fast and with far more laughs than we ever imagined could take place. Especially when considering that these were three very independent people in a somewhat cramped environment travelling on many unknown back roads using a GPS system that did not like us at all and no sense of direction or the difference between right, left, forward or backwards. Without question (at least in my mind) I could have continued this journey longer (aside from being homesick that is).
We met extremely nice people everywhere we went and had interesting conversations with folks engaged in various occupations and economic situations. There was very little talk of sports between us (nice), but a lot of discussion concerning the nation's current financial situation. A card dealer and 42 year resident of Las Vegas felt this was the worst of times he had ever seen, our plantation tour guide in the back country outside of New Orleans noted that business was down on their tours, managers of RV parks, bartenders, waiters, store clerks, etc. all echoed the same opinions that business was slow and getting slower and that like never before they were worried about the future. Much of our lengthy daily drive time saw discussion on how we planned to deal with this situation, both at home and in our business lives.
But more than anything else aside from the occasional teasing, a little bit of (me) grumbling this was a stress free journey. I am very fortunate to have my two co-travelers as life long friends. On the surface we may seem to be somewhat of a mismatch of backgrounds, but I got a lot out of this trip and would do it again without hesitation. I learned a lot and will be using much of the advice I got as I phase back into "the real world".
We live in a great country and if you ever have an opportunity to undertake a similar trip I hope you are able to go with the quality type people I went with and have the experiences I had, it will never be forgotten.

Cabela's Hat Trick

Today we are scheduled to achieve our goal of visiting three Cabela's stores in the southwest (Gonzales La., Buda Texas and Glendale Az). Nice thing about traveling in a cavernous RV is that if there is an outstanding sale taking place we have the room to store it on board. So far we have not broken anything at Fred's house, which with Jim's luck in the RV is a very noteworthy accomplishment. I am replacing John's vehicle a piece at a time (and fortunately at about $1.99 at a time).

The Candy Bar

Truck stop gift shops are not a good place to visit. We saw candy bars we had not seen in years, so we had to purchase some old time favorites, and we created a new type of bar.

The Bus Hits Tucson, Locals Run For Cover!

Fred Pilster becomes today's star host and Murielle learns more about Fred than she probably cared to. Easy drive from Los Cruses to Tucson. The drive saw some very pretty terrain for John and Jim. We picked up Phil at the Tucson airport and we were guests of Fred at his very nice new home. A lot of laughs, saw Fred and Jim's Sun Devils humble the lowly U of A Wildcats on TV in a super basketball game. Thursday with some luck we see the Glendale Arizona Cabela's store then either Las Vegas or the Grand Canyon.

Lost Crossroads AKA: Los Cruces

While Phil is off doing several more auditions in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, John and Jim are toiling over long and desolate stretches of Highway 10. Never seen more road kill in my life. El Paso lived up to its name and next time we will el paso on stopping here. Warning-if you pass through Los Cruces and a local restaurant says it closes at 8:00, it actually means 6:00, but Dominoes does deliver. This part of the country needs water, greenery and more teeth in its residents.

Observations

Austin is the first area we have seen on the trip that was not physically or socially impacted by hurricane Katrina in August 2005 or the more recent one Ike. The massive physical destruction we saw in New Orleans and the other parts of Louisiana was staggering and after nearly 3 and one-half years much of the damage remains very visible making it hard to imagine the conditions left at the time. In Texas, especially Houston, the social impact is obvious as more than 200,000 people left Louisiana with most coming west. These displaced people left behind very poor living conditions and were in no position to upgrade when they reached their safer new destination. The locals in New Orleans voiced no criticism of how the federal government handled Katrina, but they remain very vocal in their criticism of their state and local handling of preparation for the storm.
Today we will start heading south and then west and parts do not look overly scenic but we anticipate being exposed to very different lifestyles than we are accustomed to in California.
The hospitality given to us by Bob Plate will be hard to replicate and unfortunately (for us at least) we were not able to see Sarice as she had to head to the Bay Area for meetings this week. But we appreciate the time we were able to spend here getting a taste of true Texas living.