Today we went sailing

We woke up a little early this morning, and were on the road by 9:00 am. The day is dark, humid, and really windy. As soon as we hit the Interstate we felt the full force of a 20 mph crosswind gusting to 40. Each time we were hit by a gust, I had to crank in 1/4 turn of steering to stay in our lane, trailer wagging violently behind us. Even the semis were slowed down, and you could see them blowing back and forth.

Just before Abilene, a particularly strong gust hit us, while we were doing 55 mph. Now the motorhome felt like it was being dragged sideways. Suddenly, we were assaulted by a loud rapid banging noise, reverberating through the motorhome. I got slowed down and onto the shoulder, figuring we'd blown a tire. I climbed out and saw what had happened.

The last gust had torn our awning free from its cover, and was whipping over the roof. This thing is 150 sq. ft. of canvass, and it had become our own private sail. We are lucky it didn't drag us right off the road!

Anyway, we're sitting at the side of the Interstate, with this huge sail flapping and bending its metal supports. I could see where this was headed, and it wasn't good. Jumping into action, we got our ladder out of the trailer. Marlene went and got our sharpest knife and then with a pale face, held the ladder in the strong wind while I cut the top of the awning free from the roof. Marlene was terrified I was going to take off and sail away at the end of the awning. I transferred Marlene from ladder patrol, to holding on the edge of the awning. Maybe with both of us anchoring it, we could keep it from flying away, trailing its supports behind.

With a final rip, the f****ng thing came loose, and we wrestled it to the ground, weighing it down with the supports and recoil rollers. Now I had to go up again and remove the support bar pivots from the edge of the roof. Up the ladder again, clutching my 3/8 socket and ratchet. Each time a truck passes, the whole motorhome sways, then each time the wind gusts, it sways the other way. Hanging on for dear life, I ratcheted those bolts off in record time, and clambered down to earth. We quickly packed up the tools and ladder, locked up the trailer, and tugged the door open to climb in to the motorhome. It was hard to open the door because of the wind pressure. Once inside, we looked at each other, shrugged, and hit the road again. The adrenaline hit Marlene about an hour later, just as we reached a rest stop. She needed to recuperate, and so did I. Her fingerprints are indelibly etched into the dash on the passenger side of the motorhome. While maintaining her death grip on the dash, Marlene was clutching Ben with a grip so tight he had to give her a look, and pull away. Then we realized that we'd forgotten to take pictures!

After our rest stop, we continued the journey. We are out of the sandy, dry, oil well country, and into real Texas red dirt farm country. It is lush and green, and today in the drizzle it looks very nice. We pass the town of Sweetwater, which bills itself as "The Wind Generation Capital of the World". We have seen windmills all over the US and Canada, but never such a concentrated mass of them. The rows of huge, spinning mills go on for miles and miles. I tried to keep count of them, but lost it at 318 windmills. Got hit by more nasty wind, and had to concentrate on the road.

We proceeded without drama until we approached Fort Worth. Now we're in the traffic. Easter Sunday traffic. Eight lanes, everyone cutting in and out, merging in front of 60 mph traffic while still going 40. A real challenge piloting through here, especially with all the construction zones narrowing things down. We were in this traffic through Fort Worth, then Dallas. We couldn't see the beautiful Dallas skyline, because it was obstructed by a thick, grey mist.

Free at last from the city congestion, we relaxed a bit, and were able to look around. We noticed every restaurant we passed had full parking lots. As we drove over the reservoir, we saw thousands of people picnicking in the green areas. Don't people have Easter dinners with their families at home? Even the Dallas Zoo had an over-full parking lot, with cars lined up to get in. All this in the rain, of course.

We figured that the Walmart in Greenville, our destination today, would be pretty quiet on Easter Sunday. Fat chance! The place is teeming with people. There are a couple of other RVs here. We found a parking spot long enough to take our 65 ft., rolled out our slides, put out our orange cones, and fired up the generator and air conditioning. Time to relax, have a shave and shower, a glass of bourbon, and start thinking about dinner. Tomorrow we have a shorter run into Little Rock, Arkansas, but there are a couple of things we want to do there. Stay tuned...

If it's Saturday, it must be Big Spring

Hi again everyone. Tonight we are at a nice Walmart in Big Spring, Texas. We left Tucson on Good Friday morning at about 9:30 a.m., and headed east on Interstate 10. We were kind of sad leaving Tucson, which had become like home to us. But, the world beckons.

Our first port of call was El Paso, Texas, and we had in mind a place like in the movie The Getaway, with Steve McQueen. What it really is, is a big, dirty industrial city. The smog rolls in from Mexico, which we can see on the other side of the border fence in the middle of El Paso. The sister city is called Juarez. There are many US manufacturers running plants in Juarez, to escape the highly regulated US, and the high payroll costs here. We pulled into the Walmart in El Paso, to find the parking lot jammed, and people coming and going at a furious pace. We were able to park, but were afraid to put our big slide out in case someone ran into it. This place was crazy! The traffic continued all night, waking us up at 2:00 a.m. What are all these people buying at that hour?

We made an executive decision to pull out early in the morning, drive to the next rest area on the highway, and relax over a nice breakfast there. And that is what we did. We left at around 7 am, or was it 6? The parking lot was teeming with shoppers already, so we headed back to the Interstate, and drove about 40 miles to a nice little rest stop. We put out our dining room slide, and Marlene cooked up a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs with ham, cheese, tomato, onion, etc.

Thus replete, we rolled back onto the highway. It is windy, and I'm fighting the motorhome all day long as we head east, then northeast. We pass by quite a few ghost towns, all of them looking like they died in the 70's. Then we drove through Pecos. This seemed an interesting place, with old buildings visible, and nice aura to it. We eventually reached Odessa, where we filled up with gas ($2.79 a gallon here) for a total of 65 gallons. We had covered 444 miles since our last fill, so we're doing about 7 mpg in the wind, towing the trailer.

We passed through Midland, TX. the hometown of George W. Bush and his lovely wife Laura. We didn't stop to see the library though. We were headed for Big Spring, and didn't realize we would have to drive about 5 miles off the interstate to find the Walmart, but we were pleasantly surprised to find a busy, but not crazy store with ample empty parking spots. We snagged a spot at the side of the store, along a green belt. To pay our way, we went into the store and bought some Sharpie markers (for autographs) and a pair of driving gloves, to aid my sore hands from fighting the crosswinds.

Tomorrow we continue northeast. It will take us 3 days to drive across Texas. This is a big state, and we have seen our fill of sand, scrub, and oil wells. We're looking forward to Arkansas and Tennessee. Stay tuned...

Back to the dentist again!

The other day, while I was eating my Raisin Bran for breakfast, I bit down on something very hard, and heard a nasty "crunch". Figured it was a hard raisin, and didn't think about it anymore, until the toothaches started. On Monday I got the flashlight and inspected my sore molar, and saw that it was fractured along the top.

After some deliberations, and nagging by Marlene, I called my dentists in Nogales, Mexico, and made an appointment for this morning. Marlene shot a picture of me in the chair, with the dentist and his assistant.

Well, they shot a bunch of x-rays, and poked around, then told me they would have to numb the area and pull the two sides of my broken tooth apart to see if it could be saved with a root canal. No such luck, it needed to be extracted.

In the end, the dentist had to cut open my gum, use a micro-saw to cut the roots from the jaw bone, then using brute force pull out the bits of tooth. The whole procedure took just under an hour and a half. I was given prescriptions for pain killers, antibiotics, and something to keep the swelling down.

All done, and I was presented with a bill for $100. They apologized, usually they only charge $60 for a molar extraction, but that is without the need for surgery to free the tooth.

We walked back to the border, and stopped at a pharmacy to fill my prescriptions, then had to wait a little over an hour in the line-up to cross into the US. Marlene was so worried about my pain, that using gestures she asked the security guy if we could jump to the head of the line. He balked until I opened my mouth and showed him the big bleeding hole in my gum. Then he waved us forward and we finally got to the US immigration officer, who listened to Marlene's story about this being the first time I had ever had a tooth extracted, and immediately waved us through, after reminding us to save the tooth for the tooth fairy!

After the dentist, we went and filled up our jerry cans with kerosene for the jet car. Boy, kerosene is expensive here, over $5 a gallon with tax. Good thing our car only uses about a gallon and half a minute. The really big jets use 75 gallons a minute or more.

Tomorrow we will take care of all the little details, like mail forwarding, returning our rental car, etc. and get ready for any early Friday departure to the east. I've attached our dental pics above. Stay tuned....

Finally able to get some videos on the website

Hi everyone. Well, after spending the day learning about converting different video file formats, and messing around until my fingers were sore, I finally was able to get some of the video of our first show onto our website. I'm putting the videos here too.

Good reviews for our first show

Well, we did it. We made it through our first show, and the fans seemed to love us. Friday morning we awoke early and got the car out of the trailer, where Marlene polished it up while I fueled it, checked the oil and tires. We talked over our planned routine, and then I suited up and Marlene strapped me in for the practice runs.

First thing, I started the engine. Its a complicated procedure, but this time it went OK. As soon as I had engine start, Marlene took off on her scooter to get to her position on the track. I did a couple of fire balls to make sure all was working, and then I drove onto the track. This track is banked at quite an angle, and has lots of ruts, cracks, and holes. Not a nice ride on a scooter, or in a jet car with no suspension.

I ran one lap of the course, then lined up at our predesignated point, and took the engine to 80%, popped the afterburners, and hung on for the ride! I only have a small straightaway to get up to speed, before I must brake hard to turn left. This car is not designed to turn. I made several more laps, trying out the routine a couple of times, using up about ten minutes, and all my fuel. Marlene towed me back to our pit area, (have to replace this scooter, need a quad to pull the car) and we prepped the car for another run, and then critiqued the routine we had designed.

At 1 pm we got all dressed up in our newly made embroidered jackets and hats, and dragged the car to the winners circle on the track. We waited for over an hour, but no media arrived. Guess the track should have offered free food and drinks. Then we would have seen some press people!

At around 2:30 pm racers began to arrive, and get their cars prepared. They had practice starting at 4:30, and going til about 7:30. Ben barked every time a car drove past our pit area, so he was barking himself hoarse, and jumping around like a mad dog. This was Marlene's first time up close and personal with stock car racing, and she was a bit overwhelmed and nervous.

Around 4 pm we saw a beautiful luxury motorhome go by, escorted by 6 white suburban SUV's. It was the Pallin/ McCain motorcade.

After practice ended, I fired up the BBQ and made some nice steaks that we had bought on discount from WalMart. Of course, we celebrated the Sabbath as we usually do, but said an extra prayer for success in our first show.

Saturday is race day! We were too nervous to eat breakfast, so after rising early we got to work getting the car ready to run. We were amused by the stunts of the radio control airplanes at the club next door, and we could hear announcements from the nearby fairgrounds where a horse event was taking place. We could also hear the action at the dragstrip down the road.

We lazed away the day, worrying about whether anyone would show up, and how we'd do. Marlene cooked a scrambled eggs and ham mix for brunch, we sat around watching the race cars practice and get ready.

At 4:30 I went to the mandatory driver's meeting, where I learned the rules at this track. I turned over our carefully designed script for the show, and our music track, to the announcer. I had already run through our requirements with the track operator, and left it up to them to set everything up. MISTAKE!

At 6pm Marlene dragged me in the car to the front straightaway, where all the cars were assembled and the drivers were available for autographs. There appeared to be between 200 and 300 people there. We gave away a lot of our fan cards, and I autographed many. At times I was surrounded by adoring 3 ft. high fans. Marlene wishes she had taken the camera, but we were so wound up with details we forgot. I got asked many stupid questions, mostly by the adults!

Following the autograph session, we hitched a tow ride from a track official, since Marlene's little scooter just couldn't make it up the banking to the exit lane. We now gave the final prep to the car, and we had been told we would be on at 7:20, but at about 6:50 the pit boss came and told us we were on in 5 minutes. PANIC... I quickly suited up, and Marlene started belting me into the car. Of course, we were rushing, in the dark, which slowed us down. Marlene then towed me to our pre-chosen start up spot, gave me the all clear to start my engine, and then she went to her position to give me signals. But then the car would not start. I worked at it for a couple of minutes, and it finally decided to fire up. I entered the track and signaled with my strobe lights that the announcer could start the music. I rolled forward, revved my engine to 80%, popped the afterburners, just like in practice. But this time I held on a little longer, and had a time getting slowed down for the first corner. Too much excitement, I guess.

I blew several good fireballs, and found out later that it set off all the car alarms in the parking area. I then made another lap of the track, stopping in front of the grandstand to blow my big fire. I could see camera flashes all over the stands. I made one more lap, for good measure, blowing some really good fireballs as I exited the track. This performance went well, and people came up to us to tell us how awesome it was, and how they jumped each time I fired the big burner. I waited at the track exit lane for Marlene, and she then towed me back to the pits where we immediately started the battery chargers and fueling the car for the next run, scheduled for 8:40 pm. I stayed in my firesuit, and luckily it was cool enough in the evening that I was not broiling in it.

Some boys came by, asking lots of questions, and full of knowledge about the track. Then the schedule went bad. A couple of accidents set everything back, and then the track operator told us he couldn't turn off the lights for our second show, because they would not be able to get them to come back on in time for the next race. Then, about 10 minutes later the pit boss came and told us that the schedule was changed, and we would now go on at the end of the night. So we ended up going on at 10 pm. We waited for the signal that the minivan I was to burn was in place and ready. I didn't want to start my engine, and then just sit there burning fuel while they prepared. They gave the signal, then turned off the lights. The lights were supposed to be left on until we were in position. Marlene had been given the all clear, but when she drove her scooter onto the track, she was met by a couple of exiting race cars, in the dark, with no headlights of course.

I started the engine, then rolled onto the top of the track to make a slow run around to the burn van in front of the stands. I couldn't see much with only the moonlight to guide me, but I spotted Marlene and about a dozen people milling around my burn van, which was not ready at all. It was placed in the wrong position (but couldn't change that now), and the rear wheels had still not been taken off. Here I am with my jet engine running, and they are standing around trying to figure out how get the wheels off and what to do. Luckily, Marlene was there to order them around in a voice that could even be heard over the sound of my 2000 horsepower military jet engine! Finally, they got it together, and I was in position, about 5 ft. from the rear of the van. I proceeded to blow the van to pieces with a huge explosion of fire and wind. Marlene now centered her attention on a truck that was blocking my exit, using her screetchy voice to good effect. Of course it belonged to the track owner. I was merrily burning away at the van, when Marlene signaled me to move forward. Unbeknown to me, pieces of the van were blowing towards me. I guess the gas cylinders that hold the rear hatch up had exploded, and they flew about 30 ft. Shortly after moving forward, I got the "wrap it up" signal from Marlene and pulled ahead, handed her my rear view mirror, and I took off for the pits. I drove the car through the pits this time, getting me a lot of dropped jaws from the other drivers putting their cars away.

It was over. All the planning, sleepless nights and burned up adrenaline had resulted in a first performance that the fans gave a thumbs up to. We retired to our trusty Georgie Boy, and Marlene whipped up a supper of smokies, onions and sauerkraut, along with a much needed beer. It was now about 11:00. The videographer for the track came by and I ordered a copy of his video of the entire nights racing. I am supposed to get it delivered tomorrow a.m., and hope to put our segment on our website, if I can figure out how to do it.

I had asked the track owner earlier in the evening about our fee, and he said he'd find me at the end of the program. After we finished eating, I went looking for him, and he said he'd be by with a cheque in about 15 minutes. We waited until midnight, then I went looking for him, and found out he had left for the night. I called his cell phone, and got voicemail. Marlene was getting pissed. He finally called back, and said one of his men would run over right away with a cheque, but when we saw them all leaving, Marlene asked me to run over and find out what was going on. I intercepted the operations manager as he was pulling out. He then remembered the cheque, and we were paid. Now we could relax, have a drink, and talk over the weekend. We were not ready to try and sleep til after 1:30, a record for Marlene!

This morning we rose early (believe it or not), and I reorganized the trailer and packed everything away. Marlene went looking for the flashlight she had lost the night before, and found it. I took Ben for a walk, and we looked at the remains of the burn van. I had to get Marlene, and go and take pictures. There is nothing left but the steel. All the interior, paint, tires are gone. There is nothing left but big pieces. The engine mounts burned away and the engine fell out. The gas tank blew off, and I found the exploded gas struts from the hatch. The tires were still smoldering. Have a look at the before and after pictures above.

We left the track, drove back to Tucson where we deposited our cheque, and made a quick shopping trip to Walmart. Now we are back at Desert Pueblo RV park until our departure on Friday. Next stop... El Paso, Texas. Stay tuned.....

Off to our first gig

We have accomplished a bit in the past 10 days or so. Our new kitchen cart arrived, and we are very happy with it. It has a wood top and two adjustable metal basket shelves. We have mounted our little oven on the first shelf, and a drawer on the bottom shelf for stuff like bread, chips, etc. It is really well made, and it doubles our counter top area.

We also got our Flame hats embroidered with the name of the car. We had the embroidery done locally, and it was amazingly cheap. In fact, it was so cheap that we went to Target and bought a couple of nice windbreakers, and then had them embroidered too.

Serviced our new generator, and it runs well. Now we have out main generator, and a back-up.

We had a little rain here, and with the spring weather the cacti and fruit trees and rose bushes have exploded into flowers, each giving off it's own wonderful scent.

We also drove to Lake Havasu again, and delivered the Echo to Veronica. We stayed overnight, and headed back to Tucson in the morning. Veronica is still having some pain after her fall a couple of weeks ago. We rented a car (Mazda 3) so that we could get back from Lake Havasu, and get around for a couple of days. Still cheaper than storing the car in Tucson for months, plus we'll have it available when we are in Edmonton.

Went to the airshow at the air force base in Tucson. It was very well done, and we walked our feet off for a couple of hours. Marlene got to see a jet car (one of our competitors) do a full run for the first time. After we'd seen enough, we decided to leave. Big mistake. It took us almost two hours to get out of the parking lot. What a cluster f_ck. There were airforce MP's, regular airforce personnel, sheriffs deputies, Tucson police and Border Patrol officers all directing traffic, with no one in charge. One lane going out, eight lanes coming in. We were pissed.

Tonight we are at Tucson Raceway Park (www.tucsonracewaypark.com), camped in the pit area. Even though we are here, we still had pasta night as usual (meatballs in garlic red sauce this time). Only 1/2 a mile away is the local dragstrip, and we can hear the cars running and see the track lights. They are racing there on the weekend too. Tomorrow we have a media day and practice, and Saturday is our big first show. We are nervous and excited. Tonight we walked the track and ran through our act. Tomorrow we'll do it in the car. Stayed tuned....

We visit London Bridge

This past week we drove the Echo to Lake Havasu City. It is a small Arizona town, about 260 miles from Tucson, situated beside Lake Havasu which is a lake formed on the Colorado River after the construction of the Parker Dam. The town was only founded in 1964, and its big claim to fame is the transplanted London Bridge. This is the original bridge, built in 1731, and it was purchased by a fellow named McCullough (the chain saw king), disassembled, transported to Arizona, and re-built at the lake. There is a story about the purchase of the bridge, that McCullough was very disappointed when he saw what he had bought. He thought he was getting that tall bridge shown in all the postcards of London, but that is the Tower Bridge. What he got was a somewhat dilapidated bridge made of large stone blocks. Anyway, the bridge was supposed to become a big tourist draw, but it never really succeeded at that.

There are many Canadians and Americans from northern states who come to Lake Havasu every winter. Marlene and I found the place a bit too small for us, and since we don't golf and don't have a boat, it would get boring after a while. We also found that the people here are not as friendly as they are in Tucson.

We were in Lake Havasu to visit family, though. Marlene's sister Veronica, their cousin Rose, and Rose's husband Joe have been at the lake since New Year's day, staying in a nice rented mobile home with views of the lake.

Unfortunately, on the first night we were in Lake Havasu, Veronica tripped while running for the phone, and injured her jaw. The injury didn't appear to be too serious, but it was surely painful and put a damper on Veronica's holiday and our visit. But we had a nice visit, and saw the bridge, and we also took the ferry boat across the lake to the California side to see the Indian casino there. Veronica treated us to lunch at the casino. This is a pretty small casino, not like others we have seen throughout Arizona, where the Indian tribes have really built some big gambling palaces.

We left Lake Havasu on Thursday morning, and headed back to Tucson. The Echo did very well on gas, using just over half a tank each way for the trip. We will be going back to Lake Havasu on March 20, because Veronica has kindly agreed to drive the Echo back to Edmonton for us, following behind Rose and Joe. We will leave the Echo with Veronica (along with our walkie-talkies) and they will be leaving for home on the 24th. This way we will have the Echo available for us in Edmonton when we are there this summer, and we won't be paying to store the car in Tucson. Also, we really don't know when (or if) we'll be returning to Tucson. There are so many other places we have yet to see.

Our show in Tucson is on March 26 and 27, and following the show we will be heading east for our Ohio and Quebec dates. We are working hard to get more bookings, and would really like to do more jobs in Canada this summer.

On Friday we sold our tow dolly, since we no longer will be towing the Echo. I advertised it on Craig's List on Monday, and got about 12 emails. Sold it to the first guy out on Friday. We took a bit of a beating on it, because this same dolly costs 1/2 as much here as in Canada, but we would have spent a lot of money storing it otherwise. It is amazing how much the Canadian dealers mark up these dollies and trailers. This dolly can be purchased new here for $1100, and in Canada the lowest price I was able to find anywhere was $2100. Our trailer cost us $5400 in Indiana, and the exact same trailer in Alberta was $9200. There may be a business opportunity here!

Yesterday (Saturday) we went to look at a generator for the trailer. I wanted something big enough to power the motorhome too (for backup) so we needed at least 5000 watts. I found a John Deere 6200 watt generator with a Briggs and Stratton motor (actually the generator is built by Briggs, and marketed in different colours under their name too). I liked this generator rather than the Chinese ones because parts and service are readily available. After some dickering we were able to buy it for just $300, which is a good deal as new ones cost $1100 here. The generator has only about 30 hours on it, and runs well. It needs the carb cleaned because gas sat in it for over a year, but otherwise its ready to go.

Things are taking shape here, and we are getting anxious to get working, and get on the road again. Stay tuned....