RFD (10-07-12)

One of the things I enjoy about this lifestyle is the cute little interesting tidbits I learn along the way, although to be fair, its not really because of this lifestyle, but more a factor of us being retired, with so much time on our hands to go out and discover these things.  The other day I learned more about RFD, as in "Mayberry RFD".  up until the very late 1800s, farmers and other rural inhabitants had to drive to the nearest town to get their mail. Many times that was an all day event, so it had to wait until they needed other things from town, which meant they sometimes went a month or more between post office visits.  In the late 1800s the idea of Rural Free Delivery  came into being and after much study, the government decided it made sense to institute a wide scale system of delivering mail to outlying residents.  By 1902 the conversion from town based post offices to home delivery was well underway.  Its hard to believe, but we've gone from 76,000 post offices in 1901 to 35,000 post offices in 2012.   To people who live in an urban or suburban area, including myself, up until a few years ago, it's really difficult to imagine just how isolated and rural some parts of this country STILL are!  Paul and I enjoy, and are in awe of, some of the really small farming communities that we pass through in our travels.   I just had a conversation with my son yesterday about how diverse this country is.  He lives just outside of Boston,  about 300 yards from public transportation, and can be anywhere in the city that he wants, in less than an hour, without getting behind the wheel of a car.  His day to day experience living in this country is completely different from someone who lives in a small ranching or farm community.  Neither way of life is better than the other, of course, but they sure are worlds apart!

the house Samuel Clemens was born in

We spent one day exploring Hannibal and Florida Missouri, home to Mark Twain /Samuel Clemens.  One of the museums contains the house he was born in.  8 people lived in this two room  house while his father had a larger house built. Growing up, Samuel Clemens was fascinated with riverboat pilots, and vowed that he would become one when he got older. And he kept that promise to himself.  



the mighty Mississippi



For many years he worked as a riverboat pilot, but then, he also worked as a journalist, a typesetter, and a gold miner.  I was surprised to find out how well traveled he was.  He lived in quite a few states in the U.S., in addition to living in Europe for many years. Once he decided to leave the river, he spent much of his life as a traveling speaker as well as a writer.

My favorite quote of his from the museum:

My books are water: those of great geniuses are wine.  Everybody drinks water.

We continued along our way and soon made it to Boonville MO. We spent the night at Boonville RV Service, so we were there first thing in the morning, ready to meet with Dale to see about our pin box. He had, in the shop, a Roto-Flex pin box that he gave us to try.  This pin box should address some of the chucking, or “front to back” jerking motion when we tow the trailer.  We can’t have a pin box with airbags because the hitch in our truck is an air ride hitch and the two would work against each other. It’s been a few days now, and Paul says he can tell the difference. The other option out there, for those wondering, is the Mor-Ryde hitch.



Paul and Dan



Since we finished up with Dale sooner than we expected, we scooted over to Kansas City.  We’ve been trying to stop in and visit Dan Hammond, a friend of Paul’s from his days with Ford Motor Co. since we went on the road 3 years ago, and we finally made it! Because our visit was last minute, we just met Dan at a local BBQ restaurant for dinner. Dan is one of those genuinely nice people. We always enjoy his company.

We continued on our way south for a day, then we stopped to “reconnoiter”.  We knew we have a few days before we need to be in Livingston, but we weren’t sure which route we wanted to take, and what we wanted to see along the way.  So, one morning we both had maps open and were discussing our options, with nothing popping out at us as very appealing.  It was at that very moment that I got a text that said “ Any plans to do Dallas on your way south? We are headed to the state fair in a few days”. It was from Julie and Mike, good friends of ours, and that was all it took to put a plan in place.  After finding out where they are staying, we responded back “ we’ll be there tomorrow”.  So that’s where we are.  More on that another time.

By the way, we did get the fenders repainted on the truck.  They had it for 4 days and ended up having to give us a loaner because we had borrowed Jess's car and she needed it back. It was all worth it though.  The fenders, of course, look new, as does the whole truck since they detailed it inside and out!