I might be susceptible to peer pressure.

[whiteworks]

Last year or so my buddy Ed calls me up and says you want to go to Florida and pick up a motorhome with me and bring it back to Cali? I’m like don’t twist my arm mother fucker, when do we leave?

With in a few days we getting in a car at my house to take us to LAX, no wives, no kids, carry on bags only, fat envelope full of bail money and a couple plane tickets to Tampa. Now you gotta understand, Ed and I have been fucking around professionally for over a quarter of a century at this point, we've gotten into some shit over the years

curbside drop off at LAX and I notice all the young chicks with matching duffle bags, interesting... but we are on a mission so we take notice and keep moving. Get through all the check points and cavity searches and then we’re chillin waiting for the plane to board. Here comes all those young chicks that had the matching duffle bags, okay cool, time to see what’s up with them. Turns out they are the USA woman’s hockey team, they had just won the gold medal and were in town to be on the Ellen show. At this point were shooting the shit pretty good, and I ask this chick if she has her medal? She’s like yeah, you want to see it? I’m like fuck yes I want to see it! The girls break out the medals and we’re checking them out, then the airlines wheel in this big cake and ask all the girls to come up to the front. By this time we’re all friendly with like half the team and they ask, “can you watch our bags?” (The ones with all the gold medals in them) apparanelly we look like solid citizens n shit. No problem, we got you. The girls go up, they announce on the loud speaker who they are and the whole place starts cheering, we all have cake and board the plane. Here is where things get interesting, somehow our two seats are right smack dab in the middle of the entire hockey team group, totally surrounded by world class athletes. I’m not gonna lie, some of the hockey chicks were a little rough, but in a kinda hot like a she can take a punch and throw one also sorta way. Once in the air, we were like let’s party and the airline got the champagne flowing, you gotta understand these girls were high on life, they just won a gold medal, are on a national media tour and headed back to tampa to there training facility and then to the white house to meet the president, the energy was something very special to be apart of and to date one of my favorite flights across country.

TBC.......

 

[whiteworks]

Somewhere over the USA we’re watching the Ellen show with the whole team on it, and we’re siting in the middle of the group, the champagne is flowing and we’re basically on the team now

 

[monkeyswrench]

"Solid citizen"
Appearances can be deceiving...that's how some of us got married!

 

[whiteworks]

When we landed in Tampa they had fire trucks on the runway with lights on and water canons blasting to welcome ”us” to town

the boarding area has all these people and news cameras waiting as we deboarded the plane, the whole thing was really cool.

But now it’s back to business, we get an Uber, dudes from Cuba or Puerto RI o, I’d dunno but he speaks exactly dick for English and we had him drive us for like 45 minutes out into the country and down some dirt road to where the motor home dude owner lives. The guys freaking out, Dios Mio and blessing himself as we’re bouncing down this dark dirt road I’m sure he thought we were gonna kill him or something. The guy we picked up the motor home from is some big time super cross guy, has a track in his front yard, cool pad for sure.

 

[SKIDMARC]

Great story so far.

 

[JUSTWANNARACE]

Great story so far.

Agreed..



Please dont bail on the site before you finish!!

 

[ElAzul]

Now let's see what the new cooch coach is capable of!!!!!

 

[JUSTWANNARACE]

Now let's see what the new cooch coach is capable of!!!!!

Well... Well.. Well..

HOLD MY BEER!!

 

[whiteworks]

supercross dude is like here’s the keys watch out for the tree on the right about 1/4 mile down the driveway. The whole transaction had already taken place, vehicle had a pre purchase inspection done, funds had been wired.

Our plan was to go to the closest Walmart and buy some shit. First thing on the list is some windex, a squegee and a ladder. The windshield had the Florida slime on it and we could barely see out of it. About three miles away was a Walmart so we made our way down the dirt road and didn’t hit the tree to the Walmart. Right as we’re walking up these ladies come out and lock the door behind them, 10:00pm, lights out at Walmart in bumfuck Florida.

there was a rite aide across the street that was open, we scored some windex and paper towels in there, but no ladder. We’re resourceful and I’m Florida so we improvised and got the windshield mission accomplished.

windshield clean and I charted a course to the Gainesville Walmart supercenter, 24/7 365, they will leave the light on for you. We pulled in there about 1:00 am, was a couple hours drive up the 75. We had a pretty solid short list of provisions to get us through the night and morning, then the plan was to stock this bitch up proper and cruise across the southern route to LA.

once inside the Gainesville Florida Walmart supercenter at 1:00 am it became very clear that these there may be a bit of a substance abuse issue going on with the restocking staff. I’ve been around people on drugs before, I have no idea what kind of drugs these folks were on, but it wasn’t the normal kind people do, maybe they were into huffing or something, it wasn’t good.

we figured it’s Florida, one of the top things on our list to buy was some guns for the ride home to keep us safe. Unfortunately these people were not allowed to sell us guns, which I’m actually thinking is a good thing, not only that, these fuckers were not even trusted with the key to the pocket knife case. Fortunately we were able to find some pocket knives hanging, pepper spray, and a rape whistle. We also bought some pillows, sheets, blankets, coffee maker, coffee cups and morning stuff for breakfast.

we stayed the night in the Walmart parking lot, woke up the next morning and proceeded to drop at least a grand on shit we thought a motorhome should have in it for a trip across the country.

 

[2FORCEFULL]

LOL... I don't see any girls,,, so I guess you each have a rape whistle and knife to be protected from each other???? again...LMAO... what happens on the road in the RV,... stays in the RV....did you two go to band camp together???

 

[whiteworks]

For some reason it seemed like a good idea to run up to Georgia and purchase an 30 long enclosed trailer to bring back, they are like $5k cheaper at the factories out there, who knows. Personally I advised against it once I saw the trailers quality, they are nice and all because they are new, but pretty much cheap shit. Whatever not my deal, but I did learn that a diesel pushers allows you to spend money while your spending money. This trailer transactions was all done by phone at 75mph.

before we took off we realized that we had a valve stem extension rubbing on the rim, seemed like it was about to wear through and if that happened we would lose airpressure, tires goes flat, Rios the side of the coach off, better safe than sorry so we find a tire shop to get it sorted. we find this dude who has a roadside Quonset hut that he wrenches on cats out of, and has a dope vet sitting next to it. He wasnt even 30, but had his road side hustle on. He called us a roadside repair guy for semis. Corvette guy didn’t have big enough equipment to take the wheel off. The tire guy that showed up was definitely in the local klan, he was about as good old boy as I’ve ever seen, he liked us though so it was all good.


one of the things I noticed up in Georgia on the way out to Cochran was all the yards were well kept, the cemetery’s all had fresh flowers on all the gravesites, that caught my attention. I was thinking maybe a tornado came through last year and wiped out half the town. I asked the dudes at the trailer factory about the flowers and if a tornado had come through. He laughed and said let me tell you how thing work round here, on Sunday we get up and go to church in the morning, then we head over to the cemetery and put fresh flowers on out dead relatives graves, then we go get drunk and bbq. He said the town shuts down on wednesdays because people need a break mid week LOL

it’s different there.

At this point the pusher and trailer are 70’ long, super cross dude took his personal plates off the coach, Ed forgot the paper work in California, and our new trailer has no plate on it either. So off we go, to the BBQ joint

 

[whiteworks]

LOL... I don't see any girls,,, so I guess you each have a rape whistle and knife to be protected from each other???? again...LMAO... what happens on the road in the RV,... stays in the RV....did you two go to band camp together???

I don’t know about all that, but this ain’t no broke back rv trip going on here, you try an jack this RV you’re gonna have to shoot us or your getting stabbed with little pocket knives and sprayed with pepper spray, and beat with the mini baseball bat tire thumper we picked up . Obviously not as armed as we would like to be, but none the less able to put up a fight.

 

[CarolynandBob]

The south is different.

Coming from CA to West TN has been interesting. Some stuff we have seen is eye opening. Definitely some red neck back word ass country fucks around here. I love it. Everyone is super nice. I haven't come across 1 person that was an asshole yet.

 

[RVR SWPR]

You should feel good WW.You no doubt gave those girls the security of being with their Dad for the flight.
J/K WW,great read this morning.

 

[brownsuger]

Well, when you started talking about the hockey team and the gold medals... I was like, don't tell me they ran off with one of the girls medals....

Great story, please continue... Nice pics...

 

[boatnam2]

Great story, I know there is going to be a stop at the local titty bar!

 

[BingerFang]

Excellent story! Very curious to know who the super cross rider was, can you at least give a first name? None of those bikes look familiar

 

[2FORCEFULL]

I don’t know about all that, but this ain’t no broke back rv trip going on here, you try an jack this RV you’re gonna have to shoot us or your getting stabbed with little pocket knives and sprayed with pepper spray, and beat with the mini baseball bat tire thumper we picked up . Obviously not as armed as we would like to be, but none the less able to put up a fight.

LOL... carry on,... this is the best on RDP in a long time... I'm reading every word...when I wanted to do the same, figured I need to take a hot dinner and piece of ass with me, she said no.hire a driver...lol

 

[2FORCEFULL]

what brand rv??? what power?? and what brand trailer???

 

[Sleek-Jet]

I love small towns in the South and Mid-west.

Great story, waiting for the rest.

 

[whiteworks]

Great story, I know there is going to be a stop at the local titty bar!

thats was part of the plan, last time I was a tittle bar in the south I was 16 or so, it was bring your own beer and for an extra dollar the lactating stripper would squeeze her titty and squirt milk at your buddy.

Excellent story! Very curious to know who the super cross rider was, can you at least give a first name? None of those bikes look familiar

We’re just refer to him as BRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPP as that’s what we renamed him on our drive home. It’s a good thing that meat head had factory bike mechanics because he had zero ability to tighten a screw on this coach, matter of fact when a screw would come out of something during his stewardship if this domicile, he’d put them in a cup holder LOL motorhomes definitely require a bit of mechanical aptitude to keep things sano, this coach was a year old and dude was in o er his head mechanically to keep it tight, that’s why he sold it.

LOL... carry on,... this is the best on RDP in a long time... I'm reading every word...when I wanted to do the same, figured I need to take a hot dinner and piece of ass with me, she said no.hire a driver...lol

This is why “we“ all started this sight back in the day, it was about talking story and sharing cool shit. seems Like the mods have done a good job of keeping the Karen’s and Kyles out of here over the years though

what brand rv??? what power?? and what brand trailer???

40’ Fleetwood discovery on a freight liner chasis, big power, trailer was some brand, wow or cool or some shit. Like I said, nice because it was new, but a POS as far as quality enclosed stuff goes.

 

[whiteworks]

after the BBQ joint in Georgia we hit the rest stop on the side of the 75 south to stay for the night. Pulled in, pushed some buttons and boom, Taj Mahal set up right there on the side of the highway. However if you‘re stating in a r3st stop it’s best to stay at the end away from the trucks as those mother truckers don’t turn those things off, lesson learned. Woke up in the am, dumped the shitter and filled the holding tanks, it was a nice rest stop.

so now we have an empty trailer and I’ve got $10k cash burning a hole in my pocket that I brought for bail money or souvenir shopping, wife’s birthday was coming up so maybe pick her up a little something, who knows. For some reason it occur3d to me that there was a a paulownia supplier in Georgia, turn out we were about three miles away from them, so I made the call to see if we could stop by and look at some lumber and they were not down some country ass dirt road.

Paulownia is a unique species of lumber, it made its way to the USA from Asia somewhere in the 1800’s. The seed pods are large and were used as packaging material to crate ming vases up and transport to this country. People would open the crate, grab the vase and dump the seedpods out back. paulownia is a very invasive species of tree and it soon took off like a weed. It’s the fast growing tree on the planet, from seedling to harvest is 7 years, compare to a 30 year cycle for most commonly used lumber here. It’s also the highest oxygen producing tree on the planet, has these giant green leaves about 2’ around. it also throws thes very fragrant flowers, it’s a very unique species. To harvest the lumber you stump the tree, from that stump and existing root system the tree will grow back and be ready to harvest again in seven years. The wood is light like balsa and strong like oak, very clear grain and if the little suckers are trimmed off early on there will be no knots and you get a clear grain quality lumber grade.

the World Paulownia institute just happens to be located in Georgia, these kiwis came over here at some point and set up shop there hustling paulownia as the next greatest lumber technology (Which it is) The guy has created seven different genetic strains for different climate regions and also sterilized the strains so it’s no longer invasive, he has all the paper work to export seedlings and sets up paulownia plantations globally from this facility by cloning and exporting trees. Jimmy carter has a paulownia grove and is well Known as a wood worker that grows his own lumber, these folks set him up 30 years ago.

we pull in and I meet the mrs. of the operation and ask to see some lumber, we go into a good size steel building next to a nice house, there is about 50 pieces of 4/4 lumber in there, I ask how much it costs and she says how much do you want, I say a maybe all of it, my trailer is empty and I can’t get this stuff in California. She says, oh you need to go over to the warehouse then and look around. We hop in a truck and a worker drives us about a mile down the road to there mill, it’s massive, turns out these kiwis have been buying up this town for the last 30+ years and are substantial property holders. i get some pricing and start picking clean big umber to bring back and build surfboards out of, this stuff is capable of hitting foam and glass weight but out of wood, pure gold in my hands. I ended up with a couple grand in lumber in the trailer and we hauled ass back down to Florida.

l

 

[whiteworks]

We decided to get off the interstate and see some back country, this was a two lane country road (more like 1 1/2 lane road in this beast) but it allowed us to clip a corner of the drive back into Florida off and see some country. We pulled over to take a br and met this good old boy from Alabama who was on a walk about, he’s gone down to south Florida and was walking some ancient trail back up to somewhere, told us hed come into a town about once a week, grab a hotel and get rested and cleaned up, also said he’d waded through waist deep Everglades on this trial down in Florida, he was a half a bubble off, but nice enough guy.

 

[DrunkenSailor]

Great tale. Nothing like driving across the country.

 

[whiteworks]

Things I learned about running a big pusher across country is you are kinda tied to the interstates for any big distance moves, that trucking infrastructure is in place and you’re on that level of vehicle. The truck stops all have these squeegees on long poles so you can clean your windows, and they also have wide berths to get trucks around for fueling and service. That’s the down side to a big coach, you can only get so far off the beaten path before things get akward. Best move is to have an iPad with a nav app on satelite view and take a good look at where your going to pull off before you do. The good thing is you are fully self contained and as long as you have fuel and provisions you can keep on living for long periods of time. I thought this run away truck barrier was interesting, I. Wondering how many times the tanks got taken out before they put his in?

we stopped at the rest stop in Tallahassee and I’ll tell you what, I was blown away how clean and nice it was. There was literally an office door inside the restroom and a dude that was cleaning when we came in walked back into his office, place was spic and span, top to bottom, every square inch of the grounds manicured. No joke, nicest rest stop I’ve even seen in my life.

 

[JFMFG]

You have my 100% undivided attention

 

[AZMIDLYF]

Lol, half a bubble off. Interesting info on the Paulownia.

 

[MissB]

That looks like all kinds of fun D!

 

[WhatExit?]

I keep thinking, "I don't have time to read this" as I kept reading every word...

Where to now?

 

[scouter]

Enjoying your story.......

 

[That Guy]

Very cool of you to share....thanks!

 

[sirbob]

How did you start in FL head up to Georga then go back down into FL? Seems out of the way to go west?

Great stuff so far !

 

[RichL]

Still following.

 

[Joe mama]

Great story and pics. Can’t wait for the finale.

 

[HotRod82]

"Hot like she could take a punch and also throw one kinda way".....lol.
Great story.

 

[SoCalDave]

Subscribed...

 

[Sherpa]

always loved the "lets go down this road" type of trips......... unplanned, just a map.....

--Sherpa

 

[charlyox]

Great story. We are all sucked in like a good series on Netflix.

 

[stokerwhore]

DUDE, I'm supposed to be working right now lol. Totally go sucked into this. Great thread

 

[stephenkatsea]

Outstanding thread! That's the kind of real deal USA stuff I love. Beginning with your time spent with our USA soccer gold medalists. It's all really good stuff. Not all of our country is the shit hole so much of CA has become. And CA was once really nice. Thanks for sharing. Hope there's more to come.

 

[buck35]

always loved the "lets go down this road" type of trips......... unplanned, just a map.....

--Sherpa

We found ourselves 2 miles from the Auburn car museum in Indiana by taking the road less traveled. Only way to see America!

 

[whiteworks]

Our next push was to cover some ground since we were driving in circles for a while to get the trailer, New Orleans was the spot, plan was to get in, secure the rig, and go have badass meal and evening in the French quarter. At some point during the ride the foot pedal on the toilet snapped off, we put some pliers in The head but that was on the list of shit to fix ASAP. I’d been going back and putting all the loose screws Brrrrrraaaaaaapppppp had accumulated in the cup holder back in place and dialing in the coach while under way.

by this time Ed’s getting comfortable in the new rig, knows where his corners are at for the 70’ of contraption we are rolling down the road in, and also has a good feel for any wind push we get from passing semis, we’re running 40,000 lbs. 80mph hammer down now, we got places to be and good times to have Before these hall passes expire. So in the new found comfort, about 3:00 pm rolls around and it’s cocktail time, I go in back and mix Ed up a tumbler of happy juice, and we’re cruising. Well the fancy coach obviously want designed around Mobil happy hour with a big tumbler cup and has no appropriate cup holder, no problem, I’ll make one real quick.

closest rv Park I could find to the French quarter was about 3 miles away, had good “security” Level reviews on the inter web so I booked it. They gave me a gate code to punch in when we arrived and it was a self park deal. First off three miles north of the French quarter is like a fucking third world war zone, rough is an understatement and I’ve been to some fucked up places. As we’re driving to the RV Park we pass this liquor store gas station, it’s the most ghetto shit Ive ever seen, must have been 25 people out front all doing different weird hood shit at the same time, across the street up on a light pole there was a camera pointed right at this place of high hood activity with a blue police roller light above it blasting. Straight up, we’re just gonna watch this shit and tape it so we know who stabbed or shit who when it jumps off tonight.

by the time we got into New Orleans we were pretty beat and the thought of going outside of the rv Park (which was a 3 acre 12’ high gated lot with prison yard lights blasting in the middle of the ghetto, was less than appealing so we threw on a Walmart purchased dvd and laid low.

 

[AZMIDLYF]

The cup holder is priceless!!

 

[stephenkatsea]

There are now areas of NOLA which are extreme ghetto. It wasn't always that bad. The company I worked for was based in NOLA, owned their own high rise office building on Canal St. I recall going out with buddies, who lived and worked there, to places away from the Quarter where we were the only non blacks in the entire place. Outstanding hospitality, food, live jazz and ice cold beer. We were never hassled, ever. It's not like that anymore.

 

[Tom Slick]

How did you start in FL head up to Georga then go back down into FL? Seems out of the way to go west?

Great stuff so far !

Remember they went up to GA to pick up an enclosed trailer.

 

[whiteworks]

In the morning we got up, shit, shower, shave, push some buttons and hit the road. In order to get back to the interstate we have to go leftpulling out of the ghetto rv Park, but it was a divided road with a median so we went right, I hopped on the satellite view and found a rouute threw a neighborhood that would get us pointed in the right direction so we could exit the ghetto and get on the highway. All good, until.....

we bob and weave through a small old residential streets and get to the road where we need to turn right and we’re dialed in, unfortunately there is a low tree blocking the road, if we try to back out we have to go around three corners in reverse with a 30‘ trailer. But there is is no curb to the right and we opt to drive across someone’s front yard. Now before doing this we weighed the situation out, this is swamp land, maybe we get out in the middle of the yard and bury this bitch to the axel, who knows. If that happened we planned on throwing down a little cash and having a hood rat party while the tow truck showed up to pull Us out, so with little options, pin it to win it Brrrrrraaaaapppppp

 

[whiteworks]

Next stop was to get The toilet fixed, we ended up just buying a new and higher quality head, we installed it in the parking lot with our wal mart tools and asked the dude who worked there for a good local food spot, he was like you all like boudin & Cracklin? We like no habla swamp speak, it we got pointed in the right direction and we’re on our way.

out in front of the rv place in louisana is this slide contraption, check this shit out, there is a blow up air bag and you launch through the air into it. This brought back terrifying childhood memories of lake Delores. There is no fucki g way you could have this thing set up in California, I’m guessing the liability laws in Louisiana are similar to those of Honduras?

 

[AZMIDLYF]

Lol, my Aunt did exactly that in the yard and ended up buried and towed out. Glad your fate was different.

 

[Bails]

WW since you picked up a load of paulowina wood does that mean you might be open to sharing with a fellow hollow wood surfboard builder? I'm starting my second board.

Great write up, thanks.

 

[sirbob]

Remember they went up to GA to pick up an enclosed trailer.

Ya I guess I forgot how far west the top of FLA goes. I suppose you might drop back down to the 10 after going up into GA??