Ride with George

Ride with George

As many of you know I do RideShare driving occasionally. Driving for Uber and Lyft gets me out of the house allowing me to meet some interesting people and provides a small stream of income that makes no specific demands on my schedule.

Lyft has an option on their app that allows riders to schedule a trip ahead of time in contrast to the consistent rides that randomly bounce the driver all over the city. The scheduling feature allows drivers to view the available rides and decide if we want to accept the fare.

On Saturday I was planning to go drive in Cincinnati during the afternoon. I was casually checking for scheduled RideShare opportunities. Late Saturday morning a ride appeared on my app that was a rather profitable ride from Lebanon (my home town) to Cincinnati within an hour or so.

That was perfect. It would get me into the city to drive and pay me very well to get there. I clicked on the ride and scheduled it.

When I arrived at the home, a man and his teenage son came out and affectionately said goodbye to one another. The boy got into the back seat of my Yukon and I started the fare and began the trip to the far side of Cincinnati, about a forty minute drive.

I tried to engage the boy in conversation but was defeated in my competition against his cell phone. That’s not unusual with teens, they live in a world that doesn’t know how to communicate with real life people. Normally I just turn up some music and leave the rider alone. But for some reason decided to push a little more.

I learned that his name is George. Then I asked him if he likes to read. He replied that he doesn’t, but prefers to watch YouTube or movies. Again, although concerning, it’s typical. I explained to him that I’m an author and I write books. He perked up a little and asked what I write about. I felt like I finally had found something to talk about.

I explained about the historical fiction Simon Series books I write, and then I told him about Pagiel and the book I wrote about a fourteen-year-old boy who attempted to kill himself. Now I had George’s attention.

He asked why Pagiel shot himself. I tried to balance the truth but not say too much. I explained that Pagiel came from a broken home (knowing this was true of George too, because I was taking him from his dad’s house to his mom’s). As a young teen Pagiel got deeply involved into video games and spent all of his time on YouTube and watching movies. This drove him deeper into witchcraft, demonic things and other perversions. Now George was listening intently.

I handed George one of my cards and told him to look up the Pagiel website when he got home. (the card is for Tikvah.Life but is a landing page for Pagiel.Life and many other websites).

Again, It was very quiet in the car. After about fifteen minutes I heard soft sniffling from the back seat. I looked back to see that George was crying. He had earbuds in his ears so I couldn’t hear what he was listening to, but he had looked up the Pagiel.Life webpage and was reading and watching the videos. He started asking questions.

George asked a lot of questions about Pagiel and this opened the door for great conversation. I told him about Pagiel’s life before, and I told him about his dark life and demon friends. I told him about the attempted suicide and gave him details about Pagiel’s physical damages and blindness. Then I told him how God began working in Pagiel’s life through prayer and Bible. I told him how Pagiel finally gave up on his own way of life and gave himself to Jesus. Then I told George how different Pagiel’s life is today. I told him how happy Pagiel is. I told him how Pagiel and I travel and talk to churches, and youth groups and anyone who will listen about how God transformed Pagiel’s life from darkness to a new and brighter life.

George said he would watch the other videos, as I said goodbye and dropped him off at his mom’s apartment.

After pulling away, I checked my messages and there was a voicemail from George’s mom that had come in much earlier. She was simply making sure George was on the way. I texted mom and apologized for not responding but that I don’t take calls while I drive.

I then told her that George was a very enjoyable passenger and he’s welcome to ride along anytime.

She wrote back and said, “Thank you! He’s already reading me a passage from your book :)”

My heart was warmed and I said a prayer for George and his family.

I’ll probably never know the rest of the story. I’ll never know why this teenage boy was crying in my back seat. I’ll never know what God does with George’s many tomorrows, but I know who holds his future.

I thank God for opportunities like this. This isn’t the first, and I’m sure won’t be the last. But God sets the appointments, I’m just the RideShare driver.

Retirement

Interesting conversation with a gentleman camped next to us. . .

We happened to be chatting about our individual lives and what brought us to where we are in life. He worked 30+ years for a UAW (Union) plant in Michigan and his wife was a school teacher. They both retired with full pensions, social security, and insurance. The American dream – right?

So, here they are. Parked in a campground with a 28’ camper. She hates it because it’s too small. He hates it because their new trailer has lots of trouble like leaks and electrical issues. They sit inside because it’s too hot most days and he listens to his wife yell at him because there’s no room for visitors or family, no space to cook or relax, no room to get away from each other.

They can’t afford to buy a larger or newer unit. They don’t own a truck, so they can’t move anywhere. 

So, this is retirement. Sitting in hot, humid Florida; hating your home, location, and situation. Can’t travel because they can’t afford a truck. 

Yes, this is what they worked a lifetime for – this is retirement – this is the American Dream!

He asked what brought us here. I told him our story. We lived our part of the American Dream. We owned the big house, had the great business, and lost everything.

Now we live on the road. We have a nice home on wheels that we built ourselves. We work a few months, then play a few months. We are not rich, but we’re not broke either. Our insurance is God alone. 

Amy said “why wait until you’re old and retire to be miserable, when we can be miserable now!”

She’s kidding of corse. But we enjoy our life together. We enjoy seeing new places and working different places. Sure, there have been many times during our last couple years that we’ve had struggles and hatted our location or job. We’ve been broke with barely enough money to buy fuel. We’ve also had seasons when we could take a breath and relax for a couple months. We have the luxury of moving on if we don’t like our circumstances, we’re not stuck for 30+ years at a job only to retire and be stuck again. 

We miss being with friends and family. We miss the relationships that were built. Our hearts often ache for true friends and we search for purpose in our travels and our life. But, we’re incredibly blessed and happy that we spend 24/7 with each other and love being together, even in our little home on wheels. We love our opportunities to reunite with old friends, and occasionally even with new friends. Even as I write this, we are anxiously anticipating meeting up again with some new friends that we met for the first time just one year ago. Now those friendships have become important relationships to us. If it wasn’t for our travels, and our summer work together, we never would have enjoyed a new and lasting relationship.

So, I wonder what tomorrow will bring. I wonder who we will meet. Will we meet someone who will be a new friend for a season, or even a lifetime? Maybe we will just chat with our neighbors in this little park, or enjoy the beauty of temporary location. Maybe – maybe tomorrow will bring new struggles, new problems or maybe it will bring new excitement and new joy.

Either way, we’re glad to be living this life on the road. We’re glad we can do this while we’re young. Yup, we’re not retired; we probably never really will be. We don’t have pensions and we don’t have Social security. We work. We find creative ways to support our lives. But we don’t live to work. We don’t spend our lives working so we can retire and hate our lives. 

We just live!

Work Done In Florida

Florida is the land of dreams. Palm trees, oceans, miles of white sand beaches, amusement parks, everglades, alligators, and more. It’s warm year ’round and even when it’s a bit cool, it doesn’t last for long. Almost heavenly.

We knew we had to get out of Michigan with the bus. The cold and condensation of moisture inside our bus was not yet controllable. We had months of work that had to be done to make the bus into a welcoming home, and it couldn’t be done in the north. We put it on Facebook that we needed a place to work, someplace south and warmer. An invitation came from an uncle of Amy’s that she hardly knew; but family just the same. He was kind enough to offer his place, electrical and water hook up for the bus and all the tools and advice we could use. It was in Florida, the land of paradise.

I was a little apprehensive about driving the bus so far from ‘home’. I still didn’t get it through my thick skull that ‘home’ is the bus and we’re near home every time we’re near the bus. But, it’s hard to get far away from the familiar.

Well, off to paradise we went. Amy had never been to Florida, so I thought “why not?” It’s not snowing there, we will have everything we need, and we can get all our work done.”. So, off to Florida we drove. I remember crossing the state line and starting to see palm trees along the road. You really know you’re in a different place when the landscape changes so much.

We arrived at Uncle Oren’s house on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and backed the bus in beside his house. The yard is all sand. In the north I would be afraid of this much weight on sand, but he assured me that it would be fine. He was right. The sand is firm and solid. The big tires moved across without hardly an imprint.

The first couple days were spend unloading our bus bays of saws, tools, and wood that we had brought with us. Oren had a large carport tent that he lent us to keep the sun off while we work. The sun was hot during the day, but the evenings were comfortable. We would wake to comfortable temperatures but everything soaked with some kind of heavy dew. Apparently maybe a mist from the nearby ocean. Whatever the source, absolutely everything was wet. The walls of his house next to the bus, the bus windows, the tent over my tools, my tarps, the sand would stick to our shoes… it was as if it poured rain all night. But, by ten o’clock or so, the hot sun would come out and steam away the moisture. Until about noon it’s like a sauna, hot and wet. By noon or so, it’s pretty much dried up the ground and it’s just a blazing sun. Now for folks that like to sleep til noon, then lay on a beach and drink umbrella drinks, that must be paradise. For this Englishman who get’s sick in the sun, I’m starting to wonder if this really is paradise afterall.

We began to find our way around the territory a bit. Oren’s home is in a country setting and a quiet side street in a small subdivision type residential area. Neighbors are not too close and nobody really minds a bus in a yard with saws running. We’re not far from the town of Spring Hill, which has everything we need like Lowes and Home Depot. All the roads are lined with restaurants, supermarkets, medical clinics, barber shops, adult stores, and churches (usually together). We’re not city folks, but it is nice to have the necessities nearby.

We began to make some progress with the bus. We started by building the drawers for the kitchen and bedroom cabinets. The boards were already cut up in Grayling, but they had to be assembled, the slides installed, etc. By the end of each day the heat was exhausting and I had these terrible little bites on my ankles. I could never find the creature that was chewing on me, but each evening I would sit down and take off my shoes and socks and begin to rub Cortizone into these awful red welts. We also began to learn of other critters to watch out for. Apparently there are plenty of snakes and bugs to be leery about. Neither Amy or I are big fans of anything that slithers, and so far have not met any up close, but there is a certain anxiety about the potential of meeting one unaware.

As our friends in northern Michigan began to share stories of a record winter we were complaining of extreme heat and nagging bugs. Seems it was good that we escaped Michigan. The north has experienced one of the coldest winters, with the most snow that it has seen since the 70s. Looks as though this cycle has began to make a swing. I’ve heard it said by the ol’ timers that the weather runs in forty year cycles. I guess maybe when we’re old we might be able to tell the young ‘ins the same thing. It’s been hard for us to get any sympathy for our overheated woes from our Michigan friends who are cold and buried in snow; most waiting for this global warming thing that the government keeps working on. I think Al Gore might actually be dumber than a bag or rocks, but that seems to be the first criteria to being in a position of governmental power… I digress.

While we have been here, we have enjoyed a trip to Orlando to visit Sea World. Oren and Patty had some complementary tickets through a membership they have. So we went. It was a great day. A little cool for the locals that day; probably in the mid to upper 50s, but for us, it was a nice change. It’s a great place to visit if you get a chance. To buy tickets would be out of the question for us, just too pricy. But, if you are offered some kind of pass, take it. Lots of fun things to see and do. The crowds were terrible, people wall-to-wall. So, I suggest that you go when its snowing or blowing to avoid the cowds… seriously. If you go at Christmas or spring break, you’ll never really see anything but a bunch of crazy people.

Amongst all our complaining about the hot humid air, the burning sun, the skin crawling bugs, the flesh eating fire ants, the threat of snakes and other jungle creatures; we are incredibly grateful – thankful to Oren and Patty for allowing us this time and place to accomplish a great deal of work on the bus. We expect when we leave here in March we will have most everything finished on the inside. That makes for a very successful winter. Without their offer to park here and work we could never have done this. We truly are thankful.

Full Time

Here’s the million dollar question: Where do we go from here?

We have no home, no plan, no direction, no ideas. We know we would like to avoid freezing our pipes and tanks, so that usually means something south. We know we need Internet access, even if through our Verizon account. We know we don’t want to go terribly far, we will spend a few weeks (without the bus) in Vermont in February.

Ideally, we would like to find someone who would allow us to park, work on our bus, plug in a cord, let us pay for our electricity, and let us be a blessing in friendship. A shed or barn with a place to keep our tools out of the weather would be almost to much to ask or imagine. We’re pretty simple people with very few needs. But, we need a place. A campground for “work camping” is a possibility (we are doing that now), but it might not be ideal to be with rows of campers when we are working on the bus. I think we prefer a back yard or driveway with friends, but we really don’t know what we want.

We’re looking for new friends, a place to park for the winter months, and hopefully get some work accomplished on the interior of the coach. We would appreciate and value your thoughts, opinions, and ideas for direction.

Thanks,

Dave & Amy

Bus Build Project

The progress of our bus build and is listed here along with a few photos of our early travel.  I strongly suggest, if you plan to build a bus, be sure to take it out for a ride as often as possible.  You’ll loose heart if you never drive it.

We have finished a winter of working on the bus and everything we set out to do is completed.  There is always room for improvement and projects, but the living area is comfortable and complete. 

Two videos below.  The first is a tour by Amy of the interior and the second is some technical details from Dave.