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I was kidding with Barbara one
day. “When we get out of the studio, let's buy an RV, rent out our
house, and travel for a year.” To my great surprise, she didn't
even need to discuss it. She just said, “Okay.”
We put our house up for lease.
Luckily, Rhower BF Goodrich was just about to open up in Arkadelphia.
We leased it to them for a year, to be used by their executives
coming into town to train new employees, as a sort of hotel. We
bought an older model RV, 32 feet long. We also got a dolly to pull
our car on. Barbara began to pay our major bills off, a year in
advance. Everything else was on automatic withdrawal. Our house rent
would pay for our lodging. We sold the business to Kinley and Mickey.
We would be free as a couple of birds!
The first day out, I began to
learn how to drive that big rig. I saw right off that, in making a
left hand turn, the trailing car would be thrown out into the far
right lane. I had to learn to take over both lanes when about to make
a turn on a four lane road. Many months into the trip, I would pay
the price for that little problem. The big rig caught a lot of wind.
On the interstate to Memphis, seemed like every big truck that
passed us was blowing us into the ditch. And, I could not back that
long rig very far, with the car on. I had to have half a football
field to turn around in. Our plan was to travel a couple of hundred
miles to a destination, hang around until we had seen it, then move
on.
We only traveled to West Memphis
that first day. I had enough of that new stress by then. The second
day out, Barbara made one of our best moves of the trip. She bought
roadside service Insurance.
It was on special for $69.95. It would
quickly pay for itself, as it turned out. We camped near St. Louis
that second night, and I ran into a lady I knew from Arkadelphia in
the park. That never happened again.
We decided tomorrow, Sunday, would
be a good day to see St. Louis. That proved to be true, and we toured
many large cities on a Sunday after that. The St. Louis Arch proved
to be one visit Barbara regretted. The trip up and down proved to be
very crowded, claustrophobic, and the arch swayed. Although we did
have a magnificent view from the top, she was so sick by then, she
didn't care. I had trouble getting her in that tiny car for the ride
back down. We learned another lesson that day. Mark where we park the
car well. We almost never found it.
Our next stop was in the driveway
of our friends, Cheryl and Wes McGowan, in Hannibal. One of our less
expensive stops.
Moving on to Chicago, we camped a
few miles outside. We toured the Field Museum. We saw the two lions
who killed scores of railway workers in Africa, and actually shut
down the project until a Great White Hunter brought them down. At the
Museum of Science and Industry, we saw many more amazing sights. Then
we spent lots of time just driving around seeing the sights of
Chicago. Lost, most of the time.
The next day, driving through
Indiana headed for Michigan, our RV just shut down on us. The RV,
fortunately, was old enough that a semi-shade tree mechanic could
work on some things. I made a lucky guess, pulled the car off and
bought a new fuel filter, and it worked.
We arrived in Holland, Michigan
just in time for the Blueberry Festival, just the first of many
special events we would run onto, by accident, that year. Holland is
all about wooden shoes, tulips, and people who came from the real
Holland. We also got to watch diving pigs at the Michigan State Fair.
After detouring inland from Lake
Michigan to see the Gerald Ford Library, we drove on up through
Michigan along the lake on a cold day, for us. We realized northern
people are just different. They swam in Lake Michigan on that cold
day, in droves, while we stood shivering in our coats watching them.
Those pore' people just have no summer, and they just work with what
they get. They even acted like they enjoyed it.
We took a ferry over to Mackinac
Island and spent a fun day in a society with no motor vehicles. Even
the UPS man drove a horse and buggy. Someone clued us in on a neat
little trick. Go into the Library, pick up a newspaper which keeps
you from loitering, walk out back, and you will see the very best
view of the island.
The bridge into Canada was very tall,
and driving over it in that tall RV was scary. Trying to get
directions from a native, he told us, “That won't be hard to find.
Hell, Ontario don't have but one damn road.” That proved to be
almost true. Roads are very hard to maintain in the winter, and road
crews work hard on their “One damn road” all summer. People seen
to get impatient with the many long traffic delays on that road.
Once, we were stopped in a long line of backed up cars. A northern
redneck (yes, the South does not have the market cornered on
rednecks) got out of his car and yelled, “Hey! What's the trouble
up there?” Someone yelled back, “They're moving the bodies out of
the road.” The redneck shut up.
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