The Ladies Of Highway 287

If your rolling across the top of North Texas on highway 287 be on the lookout for these nice ladies and their early 70's Cadillac. The last time I saw them was during a Christmas trip to Colorado this past winter. They were dressed in Santa's Elf attire and I regretted not taking a photo for my blog. They look a little more comfortable in the summer...

Made the drive up to Colorado yesterday from Houston in 16 1/2 hours. I plan to visit family and friends for a little while in Denver/Boulder before seeing where life takes me next...

The Mystery of the Long Term Traveler

It's a mystery to many how anyone can travel either full time or long term. On a regular basis I get comments like, "Your lucky to have so much freedom", and, "I wish I could just pack up and go whenever I wanted". Sometimes these comments are tainted with an element of jealousy and/or accusations of avoiding responsibilities and failing to commit to this and that. Often times people making these comments have far more money than I could ever imagine having. People assume it takes a lot money to travel but it definitely does not. Well, at least for a backpacker. It's mostly about a lifestyle choice and everyone is wired differently. As with every choice there are pros, cons, and trade offs. For those who love to travel and enjoy a simple lifestyle the pros often outweigh the cons. Anyway, the real mystery is in how things always work out. I guess it has to do with the flow. I simply decide that I want to do something or go somewhere and somehow I always seem to come up with what I need. It just happens. No wondering or worrying. Not a lot of intense planning. It's funny how it works out. Naturally I put out effort and devote time into coordinating the necessities of life but it's all really quite simple. I'm not a trust funder. I have no big savings account. I don't spend money I don't have. I'm not doing anything illegal. I guess I'm just lucky and blessed…

Needless to say there are sacrifices to be made. While I'm planning for a trip I watch what I spend and choose wisely as to what I can live with or with out. No fancy dinners etc. It's all quite simple and extravagance has never been my aspiration or style anyway. Material goods are a hindrance more than anything and I have no desire to acquire lots of stuff. This is very freeing. When I'm on the road if it can't fit everything into a 60 liter pack then I don't need it. Actually, I find a 60 liter pack to often times be too big and can manage quite well with a 30 or 40 liter pack if I'm not carrying camping gear.

When I travel I like to mix it up but spend most of my time on the backpacker trail. I'll camp, stay in hostels, and check into a B&B every now and then. The longer I travel the more I rough it. After awhile roughing it doesn't seem all that bad. At first it can be kind of difficult to sleep well in a hostel but once I get use to it I'll find myself sleeping as good as anywhere despite a snoring German or a Saturday night street party going on right outside the window. As I've said before, things that may drive me nuts during ordinary life at home seem like no big deal when I travel. It's a great feeling to live that way and I think it's becoming more and more a part of my character.

What a person wants out of travel depends on the person. I was telling a friend of mine how I'm interested in traveling through S.E. Asia on $15 a day. He thinks it's a wonderful idea while his wife cringes at the prospect. While on the Caribbean Island of Dominica I met a couple from Denmark. They were out of their element and fancied a posh resort. On Dominica there is only one really nice hotel along with a couple of simple small resorts. The rest is not too fancy. If your looking for a Grand Hilton or something of the like it's not the place. It's a very poor Island. I told the couple about a place that was $15 a night located a few miles outside of the main city. We hopped a local mini bus as they dragged their large suitcases and I crawled in with my pack on my lap. After a few miles we got off and walked a quarter mile down a dusty road to a really cool place built atop a cliff. It had a nice common space and a spectacular view. Built and run by a Belgian. I thought it was amazing and immediately decided to stay a few days. The Danish couple was unimpressed and yearned for white linen sheets and funny drinks with umbrellas. I kicked back with a local beer and made friends with a Canadian who also thought it was an amazing place. It was about 10 am and the Danish couple left looking for Euro perfection upon a 3rd world island…….. At 9 pm I was still drinking beer with the Canadian when the Danish couple showed up again. They had a rough day and at that hour the place didn't look so bad after all…. There's a relativity factor going on in travel and it really depends on what the individual traveler wants to get out of it.

Motivations For Travel

I guess I’ve always been a wandering spirit at heart. If I stay too long in one place I feel like I’m missing out on something. I’ve always been intrigued by different cultures, foreign places and natural beauty (mountains, countryside, etc.). My first real trip aside of family vacations was when I was 17 and drove to Yellowstone by myself from Houston. I was gone for 2 weeks and camped along the way. Going it alone added an extra dimension that gave me a lot of confidence to do more. After high School I moved to Colorado for four short months before deciding to hike the Appalachian Trail. I then returned to Houston to prepare for the A.T. . I began my hike on March 29 and finished on September 4 of 1985. I honestly feel like I never really got off the trail and often times feel the most settled when I’m on the move.

What I love the most about travel is that I feel like it brings out the best in me. I’m much more flexible and open when I travel. Everyday annoyances and inconvenience are less of an issue and don’t bother me as much. Often adversity turns into an interesting adventure or at least a good story. When on the move I find myself slipping into what I call the flow. The flow happens when you just let life happen and surrender to things outside of your control. Within the flow interesting things transpire. Opportunities open up. You meet cool people that turn you onto this and that which leads to something you would never expect. What is normally considered to be ordinary becomes anything but ordinary. When I’m at home and living within a regular routine life can become kind of dull but when I travel it’s never dull. Well, if it’s ever dull it certainly doesn’t last long. I’ve been on two day bus rides in South America that seemed like no big deal. I’ve arrived in Singapore in the middle of the night with nowhere to stay only to be rescued by an old lady out of nowhere that has THE place for backpackers to stay. I’ve stayed in lovely quiet places for $30 a night right down from a fancy resort that charges $300 a night. While hitch hiking in New Zealand I had a guy drive up and offer me a brand new Subaru to drive up the coast 5 hours away to deliver to a rental car company. It was legit. No scam. I can go on and on about the things that happen when you’re in the flow….. However, I can also tell you about plenty of inconveniences, delayed flights, etc. but in the end amazing things still happen. I absolutely love living in that space. All of this goes without saying that I meet loads of people when I travel. In day to day home life, meeting people can sometimes feel like a chore but on the road it happens so effortlessly. I very much enjoy the people aspect of travel… One thing I must add about the flow is that a loose travel plan is ok but a rigid inflexible plan gets in the way of the flow. For better or for worse I've never be much of a person to adhere to a rigid plan for anything longer than a brief period of time.

My motivations for travel have remained the same over the past 25 years. There are so many places to see. So many experiences to be had. I’ve gotten very good at allotting blocks of time at fairly regular intervals for travel. I work for myself buying and selling old stuff. Mostly collectible. Old records, memorabilia etc. I prefer to work 3 to 4 months at a time then travel a bit before returning to work. When I work, I work. When I travel I travel. The downside is a very modest income and in a lot of ways I sacrifice the fiscal rewards of pursuing a career etc. The major upside is that I have a lot freedom and am 100% debt free. It all depends on how you look at it but I place a lot of value on life experiences. That’s the one thing you can take with you when life is done. I’m currently investigating other means of income to fund my travels. Some people are able to maintain a fairly high income while on the road. It’s just a matter of being creative and finding the right fit for ones interest.

My preferred method of travel abroad is by foot and public transportation. I really enjoy walking/hiking so I generally like to integrate a lot of it into my travels. In North America I’ve logged thousands of miles road tripping mostly because public transportation is quite limited as compared with the rest of the world.

All said, as much as I enjoy traveling I do get tired and like to have a base. It's nice to return to a place that's familiar and to hang out with friends that I've known awhile. Ideally, I would like to arrange my life to where I travel 6 months a year and chill out at a home base for the other 6 months. Something like a 3 months on 3 months off kind of thing. Ok, So that's the goal. Maybe I'll even meet someone along the way that aspires to do the same.....

As You Think - You Are

If my idea of a fun on a Friday night is to sip a latte, drink a beer, and write then maybe, just maybe, I can do something with this writing thing. I’ve been a freewheeling man living on the wing it plan for awhile now. It’s served me well and I can’t complain but an inner desire to live up to my full creative potential has been bugging me like a thorn in the big toe. I am haunted by the dude within who keeps saying, “Hey man, when are you going to do something creative?” I respond internally, yeah, yeah, I need to do something creative and proceed to dive head first into a left brain meat and potatoes way of thinking.

Last weekend I picked up an audio book copy of Joel Osteen’s, “Best Life Now”, for one dollar at a garage sale. The same price as a lottery ticket. I like Joel. He’s a motivational speaker disguised as a Pastor, and/or, a motivational speaker with a Christian perspective. It's perfect for me because I’m a Christian who isn’t too crazy about religion. Anyway, I popped his CD into my car player and let me tell you, he’s a hypnotist. Yes Sir, and a good one at it. “Before you can change, you’ve got to change your way of thinking”. “You are your thoughts” etc. etc. All of this is in a perfect hypnotic slow voice with a soft gentle Texas accent. I had to pull over for a minute to read the package. I did not see a warning label about listening while driving so I continued on. “What you believe………….” Etc… Man, Joel could sell and Eskimo snow and what he is selling is good stuff.

What you think is what you become. Yes, So true. Thoughts can direct and influence our lives incredibly. I remember watching Sylvester Stallone being interviewed about the movie Rocky. He was turned down approximately fifty times before he was given a chance and the rest is history. J.K Rowling, the writer of all of the Harry Potter books, was passed over numerous times and now she’s the richest person in Scotland. When Steve Jobs presented the idea of a personal computer to IBM their response was, “Who needs a personal computer!” Stallone's reason why so many people don’t make it in creative fields is that it’s so hard on the ego. No matter how good you are at what you do everyone is going to have an opinion and not all opinions are going to be good. When a person first starts to put their creative work on display it’s incredibly easy to get discouraged and easy to fall back and think, “I just don’t have it”. While living in Aspen I frequently dealt with creative types at the top of their game. I noticed several things about them. They all seemed to possess some type of certainty in their thinking and a lack of self doubt. Those who harbored any self doubt surrounded themselves with people who consistently reassured them. Most operated in an atmosphere of endless possibility enhanced by an, “I can do better mentality”.

I guess you can say Joel Osteen is prophet of the, “You can do better attitude”, prefaced with a little help from the powers that be. Anyway, I must follow this lead and not let it fade under the influences brought on by the Demons of Self Doubt.

For The Record - Part 2

So, Did I really sell a $20,000 record for $500 ????? I must admit the thought of it really bugged me but in reality what kind of a fool would pay $20,000.00 for a 78 rpm record. Especially one entitled, "She May Be Yours But She Come To Me Sometime", with the flipside being, "We All Gotta Go Sometime". I can imagine a married man would have a hard time explaining a purchase like that to his wife.....

Joe Hill Louis was born in Raines, Tennesee in 1921. He ran away from home at the age of 14 and learned to play the harmonica or harp as it's called by blues musicians. In time he picked up more instruments and became a one man blues band sensation playing the streets of Memphis. It was there that he met the legendary founder of Sun Records, Sam Phillips, and was signed to the lable. In 1953 he recorded the record in which I'm referring to. During his career he went on to work with many musicians and under different names such as "The Be Bop Boy". As with a lot of blues icons their history is foggy in spots. Joe was on his way up until one day during 1957 he cut his hand, contracted tetnus, and died. He was 35.

Ok, Back to the $20,000 question. I had researched the record before and aside of a $200 value placed on it by a guide book author I had been unable to find much info on it. Well, that was over two years ago and things turn up. I hit the internet a bit further and started looking at closed auctions. I had to dig a bit but was kind of relieved by what I found. In 2008 one surfaced on Ebay and sold for a little less than $2,000. Earlier this year another one showed up at a high end auction and sold for $2,200. Now that's a little easier to deal with. In reality I can drop a zero and say I sold a $2,000 item for $500. Not quite as bad....

As for the dealer with the $20,000 price tag ????? In my opinion he's either crazy or doesn't really want to sell. Dealers can be like that. Some of them love thier stuff too much to ever part with it. The truth of the matter is that the vast overwhelming majority of records are not really worth anything but every now then a good one shows up. I just happened to have been a lucky owner of a good one for a little while.

If you ever run across some old records, mainly old blues or soul, drop me a line.

For The Record

A couple of years ago I owned a copy of the first record ever put out by the Sun Recording lable. A Joe Hill Louis 78 rpm in Mint condition. Not knowing much about the rarity of the record I thought a $500 offer from a British collector was a good deal and hastily took it. Especially since I picked it up for nothing when I was a kid. The book gave it a value of $200 so I thought I was doing pretty well. However, no sooner had I sold and shipped that I got a bad feeling about the deal. I’ve been haunted ever since. Today I found out that a dealer has one for sale at an asking price of, get this, $20,000 !!!!!!!!!!!! Well, dealers can ask whatever they want but that doesn’t mean anyone will pay. Regardles, I obviously sold too cheap and foolishly did so.

When I learned of this I then began to think of other bad deals I have made. Like the time I invested my savings into the stock market during the late 90’s and watched it disolve into a pittance by the end of 2001. I was told, “Ride it out like a buckaroo”, “Don’t worry, it can’t go any lower” and “ You haven’t lost until you’ve sold”. Through experience I’ve found these statements often times to be false. I then went on to think of more depressing scenarios of financial woes. I'm sure everyone can relate to one degree or another. The good thing is that I’ve learned a thing or two.

If someone is quick to offer you a lot of money for something don’t take it unless your absolutely sure of what your selling and when you sell, forget about it. When everyone is getting into the market get out. When everyone is getting out of the market get out. I’ve also learned….Happy hour beer in can isn’t so bad and that a cheese enchilada dinner at a Tex Mex restaurant in Houston is usually a very good value.

On a more positive note I can see that through various financial experiences I’ve actually gained a little wisdom. I think back to a few trips I made to Vegas while working for a limo company. When in Vegas I usually allow myself to lose $20 and get a lot of entertainment out of it. My method is to sit at a nickel video poker machine along a busy aisle and play a nickle at a time. While gambling a waitress usually comes around offering free drinks. I order a Heinekin and tip a dollar so the waitress will come back. Since I’m sitting in a busy aisle the people watching is generally good. I win a bit and lose a bit but invariably I lose the $20, albeit slowly. I then walk around and observe. You can learn a lot by simply observing and I have a really good tip. When in Vegas bet it all on one hand of black jack. You always win the first hand.

Oh yeah, I’ll probably never see another copy of a Joe Hill Louis 78 rpm Sun record so I’m sure I won’t make that mistake again !…

Duke/Peacock Records - Houston, Texas

This past weekend I visited the building that housed the studios for the largest black recording label of the 1950's. Duke/Peacock Records located in Houston, Texas. Little Richard, Johnny Ace, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Willie Mae "Big Mama' Thornton. Just to name a few. Elvis can thank "Big Mama" for recording the original version of "Hound Dog" here.