You'll never believe what happened today! The day started out with Troy, Kathryn and Gayle cutting and bagging brisket and finishing up the ribs in a hot trailer. Meanwhile Joe drove to Rapid City in his air conditioned truck. We had a couple of customers interrupt our preparations. What a drag!! These folks ruined our no customer streak.
As we were preparing meat to not sell over the next couple of days, Joe was going to go bribe the Ford people to remember us, when up zoomed the owner of the property like a raped ape with his fur on fire astride his red hot Harley. As Troy ran out to take a picture, he overheard the grouch ranking on Joe. This is pretty much how the converstion went, "Do you own this trailer?" "Who invited you here?" "How much are you paying for your spot?" Joe replied, "We haven't discussed that yet" to which freindly fred...I mean Kenny, replied "It costs a lot of money to get a vending spot around here this time of year. You don't have a permit or insurance." (Actually, we weren't required to get a permit on private property, and we do have insurance.) From there he kicked us off his property. Joe, bless his heart, offered to buy Kenny lunch, which sent him stuttering, and off he ran. Then, as we were packing up, the police arrived to make sure we were leaving. Seems Joe's abundant willingness to leave his dirt hole wasn't enough as he had to call the cops to boot. When we do get a bike/trike, Sampson Motorcycle products won't get so much as a squirt of pee from us thanks to the low life demeanor of the owner.
The officers acted as though they were expecting trouble, but they soon discovered we're a pacifist organization. Let me remind you that we had been previous invited to join Ford on their prime location. As Joe was being told to leave the premises, visions of Ford danced through his head. Needless to say, Joe thought about buying a Ford...lasted a couple of seconds. Ford greeted us with opened arms and we have experienced a miracle. If you are looking for a vehicle, we would highly recommend Integrity Ford, because they have shown nothing but integrity with us... and we are Dodge owners. By the way, Mark and the gang at Mulligan Trailers also got kicked off the same property. They were told they had until tomorrow morning to move off...they have 70 trailers parked there. They had driven 5 hours to help move one of Kenny's antique firetrucks and had mowed the weeds on his property. Thankfully Mulligan Trailers had another spot offered to them, which turns out to be better than the cricket/fly infested, dirty ****hole lot. We won't mention names, but you may have purchased a motorbike muffler from Kenny. His company's name...well let's just say in the Bible this guy has muscles as long as his hair remains long. Another clue...his backstabbing girlfriend was Delilah. Oops, we mentioned his name earlier.
But this piece of rectal splatter did us a favor. We are in a great spot and have encountered some extremely kind and gracious folks here in Spearfish. We have really come to like this area, due to the people we have come to know...just avoid the bowling alley and a certain casino in Sturgis. Stay tuned for more adventures of the Spuds Four.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Today started off around 4:3o this A.M. I didn't get up then but I was awake. I headed for the trailer at 0600 and nothing was running....the generator was out of gas. After putting in what I had it was off to get more and hit Wally World for some things like signage and what not. around 0900 we were all at the trailer waiting for the brisket and butt to finish. Thanks to the gas problem, it was running late. We got signs up, banners hung, tables ready and then we lay in wait for the 1st customer. Noon came and went.....we're still waiting. Around 1500 the 1st customer showed up. We're cooking with gas now I tellya. While sitting around watching cars, trucks and some beautiful bikes (and trikes...I want a trike) zip by, we got a call from the Ford dealership down the road wanting us up there. The Ford Dealership has a really nice corner spot for us. As tempting as it was for us to jump at the offer, we had a moral and verbal obligation to those who got us into t They've put in some advertising for us and are hoping we will be a draw for them. It's great to be wanted... But on the other hand, Ford wanted us too. I guess there is always next year. So all is not lost.
We've spent a little time getting to know people and have met some real jewels. There is a couple vending in a Taco wagon here at the rv park. They are a couple of real characters, and we have a deal to share food with each other (great deal since Gayle loves mexican food).
We've spent a little time getting to know people and have met some real jewels. There is a couple vending in a Taco wagon here at the rv park. They are a couple of real characters, and we have a deal to share food with each other (great deal since Gayle loves mexican food).
Today turned out to be a productive day. Joe and I drove to Sam's Club in Rapid City. They are well prepared for venders. We got everything we needed and ordered for the rest of the week. Then we needed to find a bread outlet. Joe had the name and phone number of a store, but our paperwork disappeared. So we asked people at Sam's Club for the nearest outlet. We walked into the outlet and Joe asked for the contact we had been given, and we had the right store! He set us up with our buns and we are on a route for his driver. The trailer is now parked on our spot, and last night we prepped and started smoking 8-10 pork butts and 7 brisket. So you know what we get to do today... Joe sent Kathryn and me to get water from the rv park around 8:30. Kathryn and I contemplated taking a shower, making a mocha, and just resting for awhile before heading back to the trailer, but the thought of Yosemite Sam appearing drove us back to finish helping.
Our big fiasco today was trying to find a car wash that fits our trailer. We drug the trailer thru Spearfish looking for a car wash, and had a nice tour of the town. Many people now know we are here! However, there was no fitting car wash for us in Spearfish. We thought we had water on our vending spot, so we went to K-Mart and bought all we needed. When we got parked and ready to wash, we found that the water had been turned off. So we turned to Kay who is managing the property we are on, and she knew of a car wash in her town, which is 10 miles out, so we went for another scenic tour. It really is pretty countryside out here. We found our car wash and cleaned up the trailer so it shines. Kathryn and I scrubbed the deck of all the old grease and meat stains, and it was gorgeous. However, after prepping all the meat last night, it's back to its old stains again. I think we'll be "swabbing the deck" quite a bit.
Our rv park is filling up. We are in ghetto row...anything older than 2000 and less than 40 feet (with the exception of our neighbors next door) is situated along this row. Debra, I'm beginning to think you are right. Bikers these days are too old to get rowdy and cause trouble. Heck, I think they've been spending the last 20 years accumulating money so they can ride in style.
Our big fiasco today was trying to find a car wash that fits our trailer. We drug the trailer thru Spearfish looking for a car wash, and had a nice tour of the town. Many people now know we are here! However, there was no fitting car wash for us in Spearfish. We thought we had water on our vending spot, so we went to K-Mart and bought all we needed. When we got parked and ready to wash, we found that the water had been turned off. So we turned to Kay who is managing the property we are on, and she knew of a car wash in her town, which is 10 miles out, so we went for another scenic tour. It really is pretty countryside out here. We found our car wash and cleaned up the trailer so it shines. Kathryn and I scrubbed the deck of all the old grease and meat stains, and it was gorgeous. However, after prepping all the meat last night, it's back to its old stains again. I think we'll be "swabbing the deck" quite a bit.
Our rv park is filling up. We are in ghetto row...anything older than 2000 and less than 40 feet (with the exception of our neighbors next door) is situated along this row. Debra, I'm beginning to think you are right. Bikers these days are too old to get rowdy and cause trouble. Heck, I think they've been spending the last 20 years accumulating money so they can ride in style.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Sunday, July, 27
I did my hippie trip in 1988. It was simple, rustic, and had hurdles. Well...deja vu...with a twist. As Kathryn and I are hurdling down the interstate in our borrowed 1984 Winnebago with windows wide open (Joe said not to run the generator as it uses too much gas), I realized, I'm reliving the 80's!
We made it to my mom's place in Rupert. After discussing the pros and cons of taking or leaving the behemoth gas-binging Winnebago, we decided to continue as planned. We kissed and hugged the kids "good-bye" and headed out into a beautiful sunrise at 5 ;00 on Friday morning. The trip through Idaho was nice and uneventful...then came Montana......and Wyoming.
The first panicked call came from Troy and Joe (in the Winnebago) just after 1:00 in the afternoon. "Pull over, pull over, we blew a tire." Troy was driving and had just experienced his first blow-out. Thankfully, we had listened to Darrell telling us where everything was to change a tire. We all got our hands dirty and Troy learned no new metaphors from Joe.
The second panicked call came from Joe (in the Winnebago) around 4:30. "Pull over, pull over we blew another tire." (4 panicked yells of disbelief and dismay) This time we had no spare and we were in a two lane construction zone. Not a pretty picture! This was Troy's second experience with a flat tire. Kathryn and Troy got to experience Joe's transformation into Yosemite Sam. None of us could remember the original Yosemite Sam being able to use old words, make up new ones on the spot and parcel them out in the conversation like that in the cartoon version. Leaving Troy to read his book in comfort and contemplate his recent language lesson, we trudged ahead to the next town only to meet an unfriendly local yocal at the local tire shop. "We ain't got that tire here. You got go Billings-way, hunnert miles up the road....got me a semi truck comin in....you gotta move." But being the modern, sophisticated people we are, we had GPS, and found a tire shop 30 miles back. Unfortunately, they put us on a tight time schedule of arriving before 6:00 or they have to charge $90 overtime rate. We arrived two minutes late....that's right, 2 minutes, to two jovial men who had $$$$ signs in their eyes and one had apparently won a bet. Yosemete didn't take this news well. To make a long story short we got our tire and free ice cream sandwiches, and they were kind enough to knock that $90 down to $75 before the 1/2 hour mark. Back at the ranch... we quickly discovered that trucks and most cars don't slow down for people changing tiresfeet off the road. It was the scariest moment I've in a long time. But Joe and Troy were troopers, and Troy learned a few new colorful metaphors pertaining to flat tires and Montana drivers.
After getting over that hurdle, we moved on to the next town, got gas and had dinner. We had to come down from the trauma of the day, and find some humor in our adversity. And we needed to thank God for our safety, medicinal whiskey and quart size shot glasses.
We spent the night in a rest stop outside of Billings. Whatever rest we got...it was needed. We got into Gillette, dropped off the trailer, headed off to the Caviar Dreams Campground and RV Park to set up house. As it turns out, our "house" is the Clampet residence and our neighbors are a blatent display of our declining economy. In setting up, Joe hooked up the water and a few minutes later found the shower working better than expected. He had put his open bag of clothes in the shower stall to make room for us. Here's a lessen for you, check to make sure the knobs are in the "off" position. In our effort to advance the "there goes the neighborhood" theory already flying around the park, we hung out Joe's tighty whiteys, t shirts and best sweat pants to dry (more on that later). The rumors cranked up a notch I'm sure.
Taking into account our RV park neighbors, if it looks like we aren't making $ vending, we will make up housekeeping and murdercycle washing flyers for these folks and probably make a killing. Joe even volunteered to do it topless and in a thong if it would help the bottom line. After a long and very pleasant shower, we decided to do some exploring and headed to Deadwood. It is an old western town where Wild Bill Hikock was shot and killed. Unfortunately all we saw was casinos. We blew a whole $8.75 on gambling, ate dinner (where we met some fine folks from Sioux Falls), and headed out to Sturgis. Sturgis is fairly quiet yet, so we had some time to take it all in. We visited Sturgis' world famous "biggest biker bar" in the world Full Throttle Saloon, where a beer was had and Joe met a fellow who sets up most of the vending for Sturgis. File that one in the memory.
A triker (as opposed to a biker) pulled up to us at a stop light as we were heading out of town and we almost lost Kathryn. Good thing the guy's one tooth (I am not kidding) looked bad, and got in the way of his impeccably bad attire and body by Budweiser (as well as Kathryn's picky high standards of wanting a man with at least 3 teeth) knocked him out of the running or we would have been looking for more help. God's helping out again.....
The weather has been very warm (downright hot when you have to work in it). But last night we saw some beautiful lightning strikes and the wind came up in the night which made for great sleeping weather. Which takes us to the next paragraph.
Just prior to our sight seeing departure from the Caviar Dreams Campground and RV Park, we pulled out the awning just to make things cozy and give Joe someplace to hang his stuff. Upon our return from site seeing , the first thing we noticed was the awning had been neatly put back in place. The second thing we noticed was a towel and one pair of the afore-mentioned tighty whiteys on the step going into the ghettobago. With only a little curiousity we hit the rack and enjoyed the sounds of the storm. Early the next morning, our neighbor came over to find out if the awning had been damaged. It seems that while we were out playing around, 5-6 of the neighbors were keeping our awning from blowing away in the wind. With mph winds whipping things around, they fought and wrestled the awing back into it's rolled up position. pretty nice folks our neighbors. I thanked him for that and for tossing my towel and underwear back on the steps. He said that I will be short a couple pair as they took off across the highway with the wind. He wasn't going to chase after them. I suggested the help go look for them, but they immediatly consulted their union handbook to see if chasing down/hunting underwear was in the contract. It wasn't, so they remained steadfast in their refusal to do either even to the point of talking to the shop Steward (Gayle) who backed them up. I hate unions!!
Today we shop in Rapid City and I think we're going to try to hit the Crazy Horse monument and Mt. Rushmore. Yes, Hunter and Hailey, we will find you some nice presents there. We love you and miss you much!
We made it to my mom's place in Rupert. After discussing the pros and cons of taking or leaving the behemoth gas-binging Winnebago, we decided to continue as planned. We kissed and hugged the kids "good-bye" and headed out into a beautiful sunrise at 5 ;00 on Friday morning. The trip through Idaho was nice and uneventful...then came Montana......and Wyoming.
The first panicked call came from Troy and Joe (in the Winnebago) just after 1:00 in the afternoon. "Pull over, pull over, we blew a tire." Troy was driving and had just experienced his first blow-out. Thankfully, we had listened to Darrell telling us where everything was to change a tire. We all got our hands dirty and Troy learned no new metaphors from Joe.
The second panicked call came from Joe (in the Winnebago) around 4:30. "Pull over, pull over we blew another tire." (4 panicked yells of disbelief and dismay) This time we had no spare and we were in a two lane construction zone. Not a pretty picture! This was Troy's second experience with a flat tire. Kathryn and Troy got to experience Joe's transformation into Yosemite Sam. None of us could remember the original Yosemite Sam being able to use old words, make up new ones on the spot and parcel them out in the conversation like that in the cartoon version. Leaving Troy to read his book in comfort and contemplate his recent language lesson, we trudged ahead to the next town only to meet an unfriendly local yocal at the local tire shop. "We ain't got that tire here. You got go Billings-way, hunnert miles up the road....got me a semi truck comin in....you gotta move." But being the modern, sophisticated people we are, we had GPS, and found a tire shop 30 miles back. Unfortunately, they put us on a tight time schedule of arriving before 6:00 or they have to charge $90 overtime rate. We arrived two minutes late....that's right, 2 minutes, to two jovial men who had $$$$ signs in their eyes and one had apparently won a bet. Yosemete didn't take this news well. To make a long story short we got our tire and free ice cream sandwiches, and they were kind enough to knock that $90 down to $75 before the 1/2 hour mark. Back at the ranch... we quickly discovered that trucks and most cars don't slow down for people changing tiresfeet off the road. It was the scariest moment I've in a long time. But Joe and Troy were troopers, and Troy learned a few new colorful metaphors pertaining to flat tires and Montana drivers.
After getting over that hurdle, we moved on to the next town, got gas and had dinner. We had to come down from the trauma of the day, and find some humor in our adversity. And we needed to thank God for our safety, medicinal whiskey and quart size shot glasses.
We spent the night in a rest stop outside of Billings. Whatever rest we got...it was needed. We got into Gillette, dropped off the trailer, headed off to the Caviar Dreams Campground and RV Park to set up house. As it turns out, our "house" is the Clampet residence and our neighbors are a blatent display of our declining economy. In setting up, Joe hooked up the water and a few minutes later found the shower working better than expected. He had put his open bag of clothes in the shower stall to make room for us. Here's a lessen for you, check to make sure the knobs are in the "off" position. In our effort to advance the "there goes the neighborhood" theory already flying around the park, we hung out Joe's tighty whiteys, t shirts and best sweat pants to dry (more on that later). The rumors cranked up a notch I'm sure.
Taking into account our RV park neighbors, if it looks like we aren't making $ vending, we will make up housekeeping and murdercycle washing flyers for these folks and probably make a killing. Joe even volunteered to do it topless and in a thong if it would help the bottom line. After a long and very pleasant shower, we decided to do some exploring and headed to Deadwood. It is an old western town where Wild Bill Hikock was shot and killed. Unfortunately all we saw was casinos. We blew a whole $8.75 on gambling, ate dinner (where we met some fine folks from Sioux Falls), and headed out to Sturgis. Sturgis is fairly quiet yet, so we had some time to take it all in. We visited Sturgis' world famous "biggest biker bar" in the world Full Throttle Saloon, where a beer was had and Joe met a fellow who sets up most of the vending for Sturgis. File that one in the memory.
A triker (as opposed to a biker) pulled up to us at a stop light as we were heading out of town and we almost lost Kathryn. Good thing the guy's one tooth (I am not kidding) looked bad, and got in the way of his impeccably bad attire and body by Budweiser (as well as Kathryn's picky high standards of wanting a man with at least 3 teeth) knocked him out of the running or we would have been looking for more help. God's helping out again.....
The weather has been very warm (downright hot when you have to work in it). But last night we saw some beautiful lightning strikes and the wind came up in the night which made for great sleeping weather. Which takes us to the next paragraph.
Just prior to our sight seeing departure from the Caviar Dreams Campground and RV Park, we pulled out the awning just to make things cozy and give Joe someplace to hang his stuff. Upon our return from site seeing , the first thing we noticed was the awning had been neatly put back in place. The second thing we noticed was a towel and one pair of the afore-mentioned tighty whiteys on the step going into the ghettobago. With only a little curiousity we hit the rack and enjoyed the sounds of the storm. Early the next morning, our neighbor came over to find out if the awning had been damaged. It seems that while we were out playing around, 5-6 of the neighbors were keeping our awning from blowing away in the wind. With mph winds whipping things around, they fought and wrestled the awing back into it's rolled up position. pretty nice folks our neighbors. I thanked him for that and for tossing my towel and underwear back on the steps. He said that I will be short a couple pair as they took off across the highway with the wind. He wasn't going to chase after them. I suggested the help go look for them, but they immediatly consulted their union handbook to see if chasing down/hunting underwear was in the contract. It wasn't, so they remained steadfast in their refusal to do either even to the point of talking to the shop Steward (Gayle) who backed them up. I hate unions!!
Today we shop in Rapid City and I think we're going to try to hit the Crazy Horse monument and Mt. Rushmore. Yes, Hunter and Hailey, we will find you some nice presents there. We love you and miss you much!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
So Joe has always wanted to go to Sturgis. As we were planning for our trailer his comments always came back to- not getting into the state fair- but maybe we could find a way to get to vend in Sturgis. We're kinda like the guys in Wild Hogs, we want to live the dream...safely. Anyway, as it turns out, Joe got his trailer from Mulligan Trailer Sales in Gillette, WY. They happen to have a corner outside of Spearfish, S.D. where they display their trailers during Sturgis Bike Week, and they asked Joe if he would be interested in setting up his bbq trailer and vend at the same time. Well...would we! So now we are down to our last night at home wondering if we will be watching bikes roll by and wave... or will we be running our tails off. We really hope to be very busy and have a great time seeing a heck of a lot of nice bikes come our way. We hope to meet a lot of people and hear their stories, and we hope to bring home a bunch of our own stories. We'll keep you posted.
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