Newsletter 17

NL 17

Sep-Nov98

Charles Kurault

Hey Folks!!!!

We got a lot of replies wondering why the long delay from the date on the last newsletters, and the actual time they were received. Well, the problem was that I had some bad email address's in my newsletter groups and they prevented me from sending any newsletters at all. So I decided, after wasting several ten dollar bills of long distance to no avail, to send an individual letter to each of my addressees and clean up my address book.

Sure enough at least 20 were old and would not go through. I learned that Internet etiquette should include a last email to all correspondents about a change or cancellation of the previous address. Oh well.

I am now back in Louisiana and have a real phone of my own to hook up with the net at will! Boy it's great! I have some new leads on companies that might give us what we need. The problem in producing what we all want and need is that most corporates are jaded by talking to many "fast-buck" types in the past and take forever to realize that RVrs are an enormous market that is worth their interest.

I left off last time as we were staying in the Camp Rilea campground in Warrenton OR. (5 miles south of Astoria on the point where the Columbia River joins the Pacific Ocean.)

We toured the Lighthouses and forts on the Washington side of the Columbia and continued to enjoy the Oregon coast for a few more days and then headed up the coast to the tip of the Washington peninsula. We cut across to the East side of Hwy 101 and proceeded to the town of Chimicum, just below Port Townsend. There we stayed at the Escapees Park in Chimicum and boy was it a great stay.

As usual we met some great folks and were welcomed like family. But the area was breathtaking in it's own right. You can't even imagine what a northern rain forest can be like till you've been there. We went to the "Wooden Ships Festival" in Port Townsend and viewed many beautiful sailing and motor yachts, while drinking some excellent local "micro brewed beers", in the sunshine and light winds. The reputation of Seattle and its surrounding areas of continuous rain are grossly exaggerated. It was early September and the temperatures were 65-80 degrees with bright sunny days every day until we left the area about a month later.

After we were at Chimicum for about a week, we went to McChord AFB Family Camp for another two weeks. The injuries I sustained several weeks before (falling off the four-foot ladder) seemed to be getting worse and I began to fear for a punctured lung or at a minimum some severely cracked ribs. I went for x-rays to the Madigan Army Medical Center just outside of Tacoma and was reassured that I had some severe bruising of my ribs and shoulders, but nothing broken. I took a months worth of Norgesic and Naprosyn and it's still not healed completely. I guess I'm not in my twenties anymore! (sigh). It's a lot better and in another couple of months should be good as new. I don't climb any ladders anymore unless someone is holding it steady. I still scamper all over the roof of my RV on the secured, permanent ladder, and have no fear of heights. Just unsecured ladders.

While at McChord we visited Seattle and went to the "Pike Street Market". Whoa! Street musicians and every kind of store, fresh seafood market, and restaurant you could imagine. There was a guy from Peru playing bamboo pipes and a small guitar at the same time who reminded me of the sound of Paul Simon's "El Condor Pasa". And a black street group doing acapella pop and gospel tunes as professionally as any one I've heard. All for the price of a quarter in the collection box if you feel like it.

The seafood markets were a show of their own. The products displayed defy description in variety and volume. They had fishmongers in the crowd who hollered out orders and threw the fish or lobsters or crabs 20-50 feet through the air over the heads of the crowd while ordering the cut or cleaning required by the next customer simultaneously. Then it was returned over our heads wrapped and ready for the customer as if throwing 20 pound fish and two pound crabs like a softball was an everyday thing! (for them it was). We bought five pounds of fresh boiled Dungeness Crab for dinner and hoped it was worth the price. Boy was it good! Unlike most other crabs, the Dungeness yields chunks the size of large shrimp in every cavity. One Dungeness fed Lynn and me to the gills (pun intended).

We toured the space needle and the harbor before we headed home. Seattle was a lot like San Francisco as all the east-west roads are unbelievably vertical, only flattening out for the cross streets. I'm glad we didn't bring the trailer into town or we may have ended up in the sound.

From Seattle we went east on I-90 then south on I-84 to Richland where we visited Troy and Kim. Troy served with me in Europe and was our "ski buddy" for most of our trips there. He had since gotten out and finished his BS degree. He just started as a foreman for a major exporter of French-fries. We visited for two days and then headed across upper Oregon and into Idaho just past Boise to Mountain home AFB, where we stayed for a few days and visited with an L/C who was a Lt. last time I saw him. We then headed to Ogden Utah and checked out the Great Salt Lake.

From there we hit I-80 across southern Wyoming and hit the first really bad weather, since starting out, just outside of Laramie as we crossed the top of the Rockies. The temperature dropped from 75 to 38 in less than ten minutes. At the same time we went from sunny and clear to heavy ice crystal fog. We were afraid we would get caught in a snap blizzard and finally came down out of it into the turn off for I-35 to Denver. At that point we were in a light drizzle and some really greasy driving. Since it was only 1 PM, we figured we'd be in Colorado Springs by three. NOT! It took two hours just to get from one side of Denver to the other! Drizzle, traffic jams, more drizzle. We pulled into the Air Force Academy FamCamp just before dark in a light drizzle and a heavy fog.

Called our old friends Dave and Mariana who came by within the hour for a long overdue visit. They were with us during our tour of the Academy from 1978-81. They have built a house with a view of the entire Front Range including Pikes Peak and the Academy grounds. The sunset from their living room picture window was spectacular.

Two days later we left for Chanute Kansas, where the HitchHiker factory is located. We gave up trying to find a replacement window on the road and were going to have it replaced there.

So we departed I-35 in Colorado Springs for a cutover hwy to I-70. As soon as we turned off the interstate in a very busy part of the Springs we heard a loud "boom" from under the truck and what sounded like the whole transmission was falling off. I pulled over twenty feet from a major turn off and looked under the hood and could find nothing apparently broken or on fire. As we were in the way of what seemed like 50 cars a minute, I tried to move the truck and see if I could at least pull it off out of the major traffic flow. It moved but made a gawd awful noise. I had to drive another two miles to find a place to pull over. At ten miles an hour.

It turned out that the exhaust pipe had fallen off at the header down pipe and had dragged the whole distance. It was fine and I re-attached the clamp and continued on our way to Kansas.

Folks, I now know why they used Kansas as the setting for the Wizard of Oz. Through beautiful sunny skies, we fought a 40-60 mph headwind across the entire state. My fuel consumption dropped from 12-13 MPG to 7 MPG! Then, 32 miles outside of Salina KS., we hit road construction for 23 miles. It was smooth but only one lane. That was when we heard the "boom" again! Figuring the exhaust pipe had dropped again, we slowed to 30 MPH, which didn't make the seemingly 2000 vehicles behind us very happy. We were in the left lane with the right lane closed and newly re-topped with a four-inch difference in surface height. Thinking I was going to rip the exhaust completely off, I had to pull over into the "closed lane". The guardian angels were there again. Instead of dropping down to the ground, the exhaust had only dropped an inch. But this time the clamp was ripped in half. The wind was at least 60 MPH in the bright sunshine. Lynn and I were walking around the truck at a 45-degree angle just to stay upright in the wind, to try and fix it but there was no immediate solution to our broken exhaust. Since no one was stopping, and we were still 23 miles from Salina (the next city) we tried to come up with a solution to get us into town for the night, until we could find a muffler shop in the AM. There was no way to fix the clamp and with no other option, I went for the down home solution.

I wrapped the clamp with ten layers of good ol' duct tape and hoped for the best. I warned Lynn that she'd smell some burning duct tape but to bear with if it didn't go "BOOM" again. By then all of the 2000 people that were behind me had passed by (making a gesture with their fingers to let me know they thought I was number one in their book), and I was able to pull back on the road.

If you think a one ton diesel dually truck can't tiptoe down the road, you weren't watching us that evening.

We made it to Salina and stayed overnight, had the exhaust welded, and proceeded to Chanute, KS and the factory. Only a One-inch piece of the tape had stayed uncharred and held for the 23 plus mile trip to the muffler shop. G.A.s were working, as usual, overtime.

We got to Chanute at about four in the afternoon and were told that it would be 7-10 days before we could be worked in as a walk in. So we were directed to the city park, golf course, lake, and RV park. It was 1/8 of a mile from the factory and was gorgeous. 3 bucks a night with the first 48 hours free! Of the 50 spaces almost all were filled with HitchHikers there for factory warranty work.

The weather was beautiful and we got in for repairs on the standby list on the 21st day after we arrived. We have all brown windows but they don't make brown anymore. Our choices were duct tape or a black window. So now we have one black window. It beats the duct tape!

While we were there, we met Bob and Gloria, who we will be meeting in Conroe TX this Friday for the renaissance festival this weekend. Sometimes you just click with another couple and these guys are one of those. Chanute is an active gorgeous little town that's a throwback to the good ol' days when you could leave your doors unlocked and your neighbors really were. We were invited to

dinner by Melee and Lyle, who just heard we were stuck there for a while.

Stuck we weren't.

Their home and hospitality were appreciated.

A few days later, we all went out to a "colorful" local restaurant that had 2800 Dollars, in one-dollar bills, taped to the ceilings. They bragged about their Mountain Oysters, and since the other two guys with us ordered them, and liking seafood, I ordered some. They tasted just like fried gizzards (which I love) and I really enjoyed them until I found out what they were.

You don't want to know!

Finishing that great dinner (I got used to the idea by then) we were the only six people in the restaurant. All of the help was gone but the cook, who is also the son-in-law of the owner. He came over to our table and expecting to be asked to leave, I was surprised when he asked if we all liked country music. I told him I was an old country boy - from “New York City?” but the other folks were genuinely from Texas and Louisiana, and of course, we liked country.

So Gene Ellis turned on his Karaoke background music and shocked us with some of the best live music any of us had ever heard! He did this in his apron from steak and Mountain Oyster cooking! It turned out that he had had a #48 country hit in Nashville, but had forsaken that career for his wife, family, and the family business. The restaurant was the Fireside Inn, In Thayer KS, about 11 miles south of Chanute on 169. For the next hour we got a terrific private show!

He invited us back for the Friday Prime Rib special, which he said they started cooking on Thursday. We went and found it the best Prime rib we've had! Gene waited till it died down a LITTLE AND AS SOON AS HE'D COOKED ALL THE ORDERS, CAME OUT AND GAVE US ANOTHER OUTSTANDING CONCERT! Gene turned out to be just an easy going, humble, down home family man, who'd give you the shirt off his back, and genuinely enjoyed serving and singing.

We also attended the Chanute frontier days anniversary festival (150th I think?) and saw a wild-west skit with gunfights and much shooting. They had real surrey rides, modeling of old clothes and hats, and how to booths from making lye soap to spinning yarn. The town itself is clean, turn of the century looking, and full of the best of what we wish all of America was still like.

From Chanute we went to the new Escapee Park in Branson Missouri and went wild in the outlet stores there. The only person we wanted to see, Yakov Smirnoff, was out of town for that week. So we spent the time admiring the beautiful fall colors and the shopping. Met another 50 great folks and headed to Little Rock for an overnight.

We arrived at Little Rock AFB FamCamp at about four in the afternoon. They had a lake and a beautiful RV area. When the parking lot started filling up I asked one of the workers what was up? He told me they had an elaborate "haunted" trail for the base set up right there in our park. He then asked us if we were staying in the park. Finding we were, he invited us to the haunted trail as a courtesy for putting up with the noise. Of course Lynn and I accepted and had a hauntingly good time.

They had a great haunted trail through the woods that caused my pants to drop down around my waist about every minute or so until I finally got Lynn to hold onto my arm instead of my belt loops! LOL! It was great.

We got to Louisiana on Friday, 30 Oct. Just in time to take our Grandkids trick or treating on Saturday. Back when we had a house we usually had the best "haunted house" in the area. Lynn and I had costumes and characters we've done for years. When my son arrived to take us with him and our two Grand-daughters (one three who was "Tinker Bell", and the other 9 mo. Old and dressed as a crayon [you had to be there]) he asked where we thought we should go. I suggested our old neighborhood where he grew up.

Sadly, we were the only ones out in almost the entire four-block area! Most of the folks remembered us and lamented that no one seemed to come trick or treating anymore. It seems that the malls and the fear of "bad" candy had all but eliminated the old fashioned tradition of bringing the kids out to the neighbors for their mutual enjoyment of a uniquely American holiday.

We were really by ourselves on the streets of a very good old-time neighborhood where people waited for the doorbell that almost didn't ring. They were deprived of enjoying the kid's shy faces and the fun of guessing who they were. They were so pleased to have us there with our little family at their doors that they tried to unload ten or fifteen candy bars at every stop, fussing over our little girls, and talking about memories and times we shared so long ago. And we haven't been there since 1989! We realized that we were as important to them and their holiday, as they were to making it wonderful for our grandkids. Had us gypsies not made it there on a whim, they would have had no children to fuss over and enjoy. And had we gone to the mall, we'd have missed some real human moments, with people who haven't forgotten their manners, their neighbors, or their values.

It's a shame the parents of today bypassed them for the false security and community of the mall.

Our phone was re-activated on Tuesday (today) and we are now back on the net. It's great to be home but we are going to Conroe on Thurs. or Friday and back here on Monday. We plan to stay until Christmas with the Family and maybe then Mexico for the winter, and Alaska for the summer, and all points in between.

So we have completed our first leg of real full-timing on the road. We've done 10,000 miles in four months. And we have a lot to show for it. One thing that struck us was the absence of the crime, and lack of values we expected. We found almost every person we met, both in the cities, and in the country, to be the kind of decent, caring people we thought had disappeared, by and large, in our country. I can't really blame it on the media, or TV.

I am at fault for not getting out and meeting America on her own terms before now. It's too easy to be caught up in isolation induced by job, family and media.

I used to marvel at Charles Kurault and the people he found for his Sunday segment of "On the Road". I wondered how he ever found the unique characters he presented. Not any more. I now know. They are on every corner, of every town, across our great country.

I've only highlighted a few of the people we've met. I haven't mentioned all the dinners we've eaten at a new acquaintance's house, all the people who led us through town to our destination, all of the chats and characters we've met and shared some moments with. Just the thousands of smiles and handshakes would take a book.

And we have just begun.

More importantly, we have met a lot of great people who've helped us make it, every inch of the way. Anyone can buy a rig and hit the road, but there's a lot more to it than driving and parking a 55-foot rig through narrow roads and towns. My friends with brand new rigs made me feel just as proud of my 1990 rig as they were of theirs. RVrs are probably the last of the American pioneers. With all of the camaraderie, genuine assistance, and common bonds, that the early RVrs in their Conestoga wagons had. As a group I've found them honest, helpful, and as much, or more (believe it or not) as talkative as me!

As we gather every morning in front of our rigs with coffee cups in hand, we've experienced more of the old fashioned sense of community, with perfect strangers for only the first twenty seconds or so, than I ever felt in a tract house community with neighbors of two or three years. The common bond is that we are doing it, AND talking about it.

Home is, now truly, where we park it.

Derek, Lynn, and Bogart the wonder dog