DAYTRIPPIN'

"WHAT'S NEXT, I don't know."

I PENNED THOSE FIVE WORDS into a sentence, hoping that in saying them out loud an answer might come. It was just over one year ago, May 30, 2022. In these days (the days of my 8th decade), things like sanity and certainty are elusive. Most times that doesn't matter. The heft of the outcome from the decisions I make these days is small. My fashion-curious grandgirl asked the other day: "Why do you wear a black t-shirt, shorts and Birkenstocks almost every day?" I explained that having a uniform means one less decision I have to make.

THOSE FIVE WORDS were in a post I wrote for this blog called, "When the End Is A Beginning". It was a post about me selling our beautiful Airstream. It was a decision I made in the moment, basically to stroke the male need to prove we can make a really good deal--sort of pull one over on the other guy. I did put our Airstream out there in the marketplace for a price I didn't think anyone would pay. The next day it was gone. I say that as if it was simple, rather than as the gut-wrenching, remorse-filled decision it was. THAT'S WHY I WEAR A BLACK T-SHIRT, SHORTS AND BIRKENSTOCKS EVERY DING-DONG DAY, MISSY! I CAN'T BE TRUSTED TO MAKE IMPORTANT DECISIONS.

MALACHI, NORA (CAPTAIN OF THE FASHON POLICE) AND JEREMIAH. WATCHING A MOVIE TOGETHER

Well, a year and a few weeks later: we're back baby, back in the RV game; not the Airstream game, but the trailer for traveling one. We had made the choice of next RV and went to the dealership yesterday to seal the deal. We had our two grandguys with us: Malachi (6) and Jeremiah (3). While I went in to the Sales Manager's office to strike a deal that would make the boys proud of their Pops, they thoroughly examined every RV on the showroom floor.

The Manager pushed a contract across the desk in front of me. I looked at it. I looked at him. I marked through his number and wrote my own! An offer I knew he would need to take to the senior-sales-manager-in-charge-of-rejecting-stupid-offers.

"We can do that," he said enthusiastically.

WHAT?! He could have at least given me the courtesy of saying, "Ooooo, I don't know Mr. Pops. You drive a hard bargain. How about we throw in a sewer hose and call it good?"

No! He took my first offer, like I had just lobbed a soft ball to any girl on the Oklahoma University 3-peat National Champs softball team.

We loaded up in the truck and headed to Chick-fil-a where I knew I would be treated with respect and the boys knew they would get a "toy" (which I tried unsuccessfully to talk them into trading in for an ice cream cone which I knew I would get a bite of).

On the way there, the 3-year old was singing, "This girl is on fire" by Alicia Keyes at the top of his lungs; the 6-year old said, "I remember your other trailer. It was SILVER." My Amazing-Missus and I looked at each other and laughed to keep from crying. Not only is the new home-on-wheels not silver, some marketing genius had the brilliant idea to name it a Micro-Minnie-Winnie. She is cute, I'll giver her that. And I know she will help us to have great fun and memories.

The last step on the trail of buying an RV at this dealership is the "walk-through" by our "camping advisor". He began by saying, "Now I'm going to go over things as if you've never owned a travel trailer (or have more than a third-grade education)."

But I have! I wanted to shout. Two shiny, silver Airstreams in fact. But, I listened and nodded while he spoke to me like I was a total idiot. Finally he asked me to sign his report card proving that he had explained, disclaimed, warned, and checked all the boxes. Under my signature was a line for me to put my email address. He had highlighted the word "REQUIRED".

ME: Why is this required, and by whom, and for whose benefit, because I don't see any benefit other adding a lot more garbage to my inbox?

"Camp Advisor": I'm required to get an email so we can send you a survey. Oh, and when you fill out the survey be sure to give us a 9 or 10 on the last question: "How likely are you to recommend this dealer to a friend?"

[A better question would probably be: what is the likelihood that anyone would ever ask you to recommend an RV dealership? ANSWER: Slim to zero.]

I was reminded of that time I begged my geometry teacher to give me a C- even though I would still be hard-pressed to tell you the difference between an obtuse and an isosceles triangle.

The camp advisor continued: "Anything lower than a 9 is considered a failing grade." I didn't ask him what would happen in that case. I didn't care, and Mimi was still chasing the boys around the showroom floor. I told him that grading on a customer service curve with other RV dealers, used car dealers, and politicans, I would give him a 9- with a needs to improve note that he should have his mother sign and forward to the dubious email address I had just put on the report card.

He was unhumored and done with me. His last box was checked.

Off to Chick-fil-a for lunch. I was thinking: if I owned an RV dealership I would only hire people that had worked at a Chick-fil-a, where they don't beg for good reviews. Quality service is just the modus operandi there. Recently, I ordered through the CFA app and checked the box to pick it up in the drive through. As always they were waiting for me. Our attendant was a chubby young guy with really rosy cheeks. I pulled forward and rolled down my window. "Are you Pops?" he asked. I told him I was. "When I saw your name on the order, I thought to myself I hope Pops comes to my lane."

Do they teach that stuff at CFA school or do they just hire people with that service propensity? I felt bad about my attitude at the dealership. I know that my camping advisor is a just guy making a living, a good person, that works in an environment wrought with quotas and unattainable sales goals, who knows his next performance review rests on stuff like getting a 9 or a 10 on that stupid card.

Harry if you're reading this, my email is hey.pops.hey@gmail.com. I hope you get all 9s or 10s.

And, if Harry were here to say, Thank You. I would say, "It's my pleasure. Pull forward please."

WHEN THE END IS A BEGINNING

THE END OF WHAT? The story or a chapter?

Here's the short version: I wanted to see if the rumors are true--Airstream travel trailers are in short supply and high demand; so, people are willing to pay a big price for one. Turns out the stories are true. I came up with a price based on some significant numbers for us--a price that was also beyond what I thought anyone would pay. The next day it was sold.

Having an Airstream has been wonderful, but that was for a season. Want to hear something crazy? We were visiting with a lady while delivering our Airstream to its new owner. She has a vintage Airstream that "might be for sale." What's the word I'm looking for? Tempting? Crazy? Unsurprising?

I belong to a group called "Airstream Addicts". Maybe it is an addiction. There is something about those silvery, capsule-shaped, adventures-on-wheels that gets in your blood. Wanderlust is real.

Stay tuned.

Reflecting on the journey... I've been looking back through photos and reading old journal entries. Here are the highlights of our Airstream adventure for me.

FRIENDSHIPS

We have met people we never would have met without the Airstream. Airstreamers are a tight-knit group and prone to a healthy-elitism or maybe it's tribal pride. For example, for these folks there are two categories of travel trailers: Airstreams and SOBs (Some Other Brand). Early on we joined a group called "Air Midwest," an Airstream rally club of folks mainly from Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. The thing I love about the Airstream community is that it is extremely diverse and people manage for the most part to leave politics outside the campground and do what they do best: tell great stories, share amazing food, laugh out loud, all the while sitting around the campfire as it reflects off of the circle of shiny Airstreams.

FORCED SOCIALIZATION

As a hardcore introvert the Airstream has been good for me. The mixing and mingling at a campground is not only good for making friends that I never would have ventured to know. Pulling an Airstream also starts conversations that might go something like this:

[at the gas pump with the trailer hooked behind]
GUY AT NEXT PUMP: Airstream? Wonder if they still make those?
ME: Yes, they do.
GANP: Are they expensive?
ME: Cheaper than a ride on a Jeff Bezos rocket.
GANP: Mind if I look inside?
ME: Sure.
GANP: No slide out?
ME: Nope.
GANP: Bet you coulda bought a motorhome with a couple of slide outs for what this cost.
ME: Have a nice day.

See, I wouldn't have had those random conversations and social interactions without the AS.

QUARANTINE ESCAPE

Our Airstream provided a mobile bubble during the Covid quarantine. We had our own bathroom, bedroom, kitchen and lounge. We could join other campers and social distance around the campfire in the great outdoors.

This wasn't the first time an Airstream was called into quarantine duty. Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins spent quarantine time in an Airstream after returning from the moon on Apollo 11 in 1969.

ADVENTURES

We have now owned two Airstreams: a little 16-footer called Bambi. Next we moved to a little more room in a 23-footer named LUM NUM. It's a play on a word. When people ask what the Airstream is made of, like a good Okie, I answer, "Lumnum". Between the two we've logged over 30,000 miles of adventures on America's highways and byways. We've been through heat, hail and high winds; cold, snow and ice. We evacuated to shelter during a tornado warning and rode it out during an earthquake. Turns out an Airstream is a great place to be during an earthquake. It just bounces a bit, just like it does going across Oklahoma's lousy highways.

KNOWLEDGE & UNDERSTANDING

I saw a sign in Alva on a recent visit to see our kids and grandkids: "Geology rocks but geography is where it's at!" We've learned about both. We've learned history, We've learned some physics and chemistry, and lived in the midst of sociology and anthropology. We have been awestruck by the sublime. We have wondered and wandered.

WANDERLUST

Two of my personal core values are curiosity and creativity. They are life givers and fuel the fires of wanderlust. Two things I fear in life are stagnation and squandering the opportunities of each day. Airstreams were born out of the wanderlust of a man named Wally Byam, a study in creativity. I know it will be possible to stay curious and creative without an Airstream, but I am so grateful for the time we spent in ours. It provided a challenge and motivation somehow to experience life a bit larger.

AN INSTAGRAMABLE LIFE

I'm 70-something. I should be old enough to not care about "social media" but the fact is that I really enjoy seeing the posts of people who share their curiosities and creativity with a camera, a brush, a needle and thread, a van, a bus, or an Airstream. And to be totally honest I do find it nice when someone "likes" a photo I post. The Airstream provided a source of content and an entry into that world with a dash of hipness-- [an old man driving a gas-guzzling pickup truck... I use it to pull our Airstream... OH, you have an Airstream! I would love to have an Airstream and a gas-guzzling pickup to tow it.]

THE OPPORTUNITY TO LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE (for a brief time)

Especially early in our travels we could travel somewhere and spend enough time to experience the cultural quilt that is America. We could visit local places, eat local foods, learn a little about the stories of what makes this place or that place so unique and valuable.

The Airstream provided a base camp for living in the midst of it all beyond the typical tourist stops. Once people discovered the opportunity for RVing as an escape from the pandemic, RV parks and campgrounds began to fill up. Prices increased and the paradigm shifted. Still, with careful planning way ahead it' a great way to go.

WE DID IT TOGETHER

The best part of our Airstream life was that we did it together. We were a team. We would pull into a camping spot late afternoon or early evening. I would do the outside routine: unhook from the truck, level, stabilize, hookup that kind of stuff. By the time I would finish and go inside, My Amazing-Missus would have our little home all set up and we would sit down for tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. She might work on a sewing project. I might read/sleep or go outside to start a fire. Occasionally I would go to a quilt store with her and occasionally she would go to a minor league baseball game with me. Often our most interesting stops and memories made were totally spontaneous. Just like life.

WHAT'S NEXT

I don't know. I just know I want to do it together--with her, with our sons and beautiful daughters (in-law) and our seven phenomenal grandkids.

HEY, SLOW DOWN

THIS MORNING I’M DOING SOME SLOW THINKING. I needed the perfect soundtrack for this. Mile Davis’ “Kind Of Blue” is just right.

I’ve read Gladewell’s “Blink”. I’ve tried to read Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow”. Without getting mired down in the deep stuff of his ideas, he says we need to do more slow thinking. An example in his book demonstrates whether a person solves a problem "quickly with little conscious deliberation" or through reflective, slow thinking:

A bat and a ball cost $1.10. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

So, did you solve it fast; or slow?

It’s no secret, I enjoy YouTube. I just love that people are creating this amazing content and sharing it so socially. Some of my favorites are:

• MonaLisa Twins

• Marques Brownlee

• Pomplamoose Music

• Casey Neistat

• Memphis Drum Shop

  Numerous road-tripping vlogs like:

• Drivin and Vibin

• Travelling K

Lately, my obsession is with vlog called “Cruising The Cut”. Did you know that there are canals all across Great Britain? They were cut through the land in the 1700s. Today, there are people who cruise these canals on “narrow boats”. These boats are just under seven feet wide and 40 to 60 feet long. These are live-aboard boats. One of the guys that lives on board a narrow boat, cruises the cut at speeds up to two miles an hour and vlogs about it is a guy named David Johns.

Yes, two miles an hour. And I sit and watch video after video of him doing this slow cruise. I’ve mentioned this to a few people and they say, “What?” If I can convince them to watch one with me, they’re hooked.

It reminds me of the value to going slow, of taking in the sights, of paying attention.

Our great friend, mentor and travel advisor, Doug Manning is always encouraging us to take the “blue highways” as we travel. Those are the blue roads on the map, the ones less traveled these days. Any time we’re ready to hit the road Doug tells us the route to take and it rarely involves Interstate highways. He also is a human atlas and knows the sights to see along America’s byways. His mode of travel demands slowness.

Recently on the Airstream website, they had a survey you could take and it would tell you what kind of traveler you are, and, of course, what model of Airstream you need to do that kind of traveling. I took a look at the survey and thought: this is stupid, but I was waiting on my truck to be serviced so I took it. Here’s a screenshot of the results:

Hmmm, maybe not so stupid afterall.

About that bat and ball; if you’re a “fast” thinker like apparently 86% of the test takers are, you answered: 10 cents. And you would be wrong.

Want a chance to slow down and solve it properly? Go.

I feel like I am slowing down, that probably comes with becoming a man-of-a-certain-age. But I like going slower. I drink my morning cup from a insulated tumbler kind of vessel. It holds a little more and lasts me all morning. I read slower these days, not because I can no longer read phrases rather than just words, but because I want to see what words the writer has chosen. I think all good writers agonize over the choice of a word and I should honor that.

Even when I practice at my drum set, which I do most every day, I’ve slowed down. I used to press hard to develop more and more stick speed. Now I play for nuance. I remember my jazz band instructer yelling at me that the bass drum should be felt and not heard. I vehemently disagreed (in my mind) with him at the time, now; I play that way. I agree that the space between the notes is just as important as the notes themselves.

No doubt by now you’ve figured out that the correct answer is five cents. Way to slow down. Makes you wonder what else you’re missing by being all in a big rush doesn’t it?

H2O

I'M NOT MUCH OF A STRAW GUY ANYWAY. I don’t say that to tout any virtue on my part, but simply to say that if drink businesses follow Starbucks and say “No” to plastic straws; it won’t affect my beverage consumption.

I don’t drink soft drinks, and if I have a malt or shake I want it to be so thick a straw is useless. I always order water at a restaurant and drinking water through a straw just doesn’t feel right. Coffee? Yes, please; in a cup, black and hot. I don’t need a “coffee beverage” that is iced and laced with caramel, pumpkin spice, soy, cinammon or a drizzle of anything. So, a drink sans straw is fine with me.

That said, I love this movement toward a plastic-straw-free world. Although I do not literally hug trees, I do believe we are to be stewards of this big ball we all inhabit together. And if the trend is to the mindless mindset of sychophants like Scott Pruitt (may he find happiness in working at his wife’s Chik-fil-a), we must be evermore diligent caretakers.

We travel and camp, although someone said recently, “You guys don’t camp. You “glamp”. According to the Urban Dictionary, “GLAMP: To camp in style, comfort, and/or luxury while still experiencing the great outdoors.”

When you travel in a trailer you hook up to water whereever water is available—to fill the tanks, shower, shave, make coffee, drink, wash dishes, etc. You want your coffee to taste excellent. So, we drag along fresh ground coffee and a pour over kit. The one variable outside our control is the quality of the water.

UNTIL NOW!

We used to haul gallons of water around that we bought in plastic jugs at the grocery store. It was a hassle, expensive and we had to haul the empty jugs back home to put in our recycle bin. Because unlike Scott Pruitt, we care about the earth.

Then I found out about the Berkey Water Filter system.

GAME CHANGED!

This thing works so beautifully in our Airstream that we now bring it home with us and use it every single day. At first the Berkey seems really expensive, until you figure the cost of bottled water and the fact that the Berkey’s filters last for years.

Recently we were in Tulsa on a very-very-very hot day. We were headed to a really hip new bakery that had been recommended to us called Antionette’s. Visit soon.

As soon as we walked in I was glad we were there. The coffee smelled wonderful and I quickly noticed pecan bars in the glass display case. But first, I was thirsty. Did I mention that it was really really hot outside? So hot, that if Scotty-P had been there, and if I had heard him scoff at climate change I would have been tempted to imagine hypothetically smacking that smug smile off his face. Hot weather will do that crap to an otherwise mild and reasonable tempermant.

Then I saw it on a table with a stack of gleaming water glasses—a Berkey Water System Urn, all shiny with beads of condensation on the outside, each one announcing cool wet, fresh, clear, filtered water.

GET ONE TODAY

We have the Travel Berkey, because, well, we travel. It makes a gallon and a half of water with each filling. And, by the way, you can fill them with tap water, the hose at the RV park, or even water from a stream or lake.

Sometimes if we have company over, I wish we had the Big Berkey, but the Travel size suits us 91.7% of the time.

I’m including a link to our model available from Amazon. I like this set up because it includes a stainless steel spigot which I highly recommend. So click, buy, and add water. In a few minutes, draw you a glass of wonderful water, straw optional.

Travel Berkey Stainless Steel Water Filtration System w/ STAINLESS STEEL SPIGOT and 2 Black Filters

Berkey

Buy on Amazon

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