Trailer sweet trailer

I mentioned earlier something about "my single-wide" or something to that effect.  Well here it is in all it's glory.  

I now know what I'm going to be like as a 75 year-old.  

I live in a trailer and I drive a golf cart around my community.

Yup, that's them!  Mighty fine, don't ya think?  

This place has actually been really nice to us.  They're comping the trailers and golf carts, gave free access to a really nice fitness center and even picked up meals for us today.  They've got free Wifi, but it's not a real strong signal and you're limited to an hour at a time.  Plus during peak times you might not be able to get online right away.  Small deal compared to everything else they've done for us.  Did I mention they did our laundry?  That in itself is huge (see last year's Watertown, SD entry for baseline info) and I, for one, truly appreciate it.  I also appreciated the refrigerator being stocked with Chobani (endorsement opportunities available, I love that stuff!  Just ask the pirate) yogurt, to say nothing of the tortilla chips and queso.  This place has cable tv with two flat screens and a king size bed too.  I'm not ready to put a down payment down or anything like that, quite frankly I don't think there a single or double wide in my future.

Ev. Ar.

But this has been nice.  Check out my living room/kitchen/dining room  

Today was a rare off day and I took full advantage of it.  Actually I got caught up with this.  One this morning and this entry tonight.  So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow.  We start with a home visit, a four year-old with Stage 4 cancer.  We need to try and bring some light into their day.  And then we meet up with my guy Mike from last year.  Mike set up the next two days of events, so we should be in good shape there. 

Pink Heals!

Peace 

Day 13 (Blanche Dubois is our Guardian Angel)

First a little housekeeping... I forgot to mention (I can't believe I forgot it) yesterday I had my first super mega-global, Pacific-northwest based, coffee-based beverage in 10 days!  It was like manna from heaven.  The best part is... there's another super mega-global, Pacific-northwest based, coffee-based beverage vendor about 300 yards from our hotel tonight!  Two days in a row!  WOOHOO!!!

OK, here's today's Blanche Dubois moment... we talked last night about filling up the trucks at a fuel stop right next to our hotel.  We decided against it because it was too tight a fit, especially for the bus and the trailer.  So we headed west on I-90 pulling in to a truck stop 8 miles west of Billings.  When we got there, I saw a woman with her three little dogs following behind her and figured she was either a trucker or was riding with her husband.  She was taking pictures of the rigs and saying how cool they were.  Well after I finished fueling up the bus and powdering my nose, etc. Dave told me she was the owner of the truck stop and she was a cancer survivor to boot.  She wouldn't let us pay for the fuel.  $500.00 worth.  That's huge.  The kindness of strangers.

UPDATE- I'm currently sitting outside the local Pacific-northwest based coffee-based beverage vendor (I'm still available for endorsement opportunities btw) looking at the mountains, enjoying the sunshine and sipping on a lovely laaaattaaay (read as Forrest Gump, it makes a difference, really it does) and if (unless of course you're from the afore mentioned super mega-global, Pacific-northwest based, coffee-based beverage company, in which case I would NEVER make light of your amazing products) it wasn't for the whole 863 feet of snow per winter, combined with an average winter temperature of roughly absolute zero, I could get used to this. It really is beautiful out here. 

See?

This picture doesn't do the mountains justice, they really are amazing.

As I said earlier, today started out with us leaving Billings (or Boise, as John likes to call it) and arriving in Butte (or Boise, as John likes to call it).  We started out parking in front of the firehouse, the Chief very graciously provided us with pork chop sandwiches for lunch, and we met some really great people there. 

From the firehouse, we split up with Leslie and Tonya (the two engines, driven by John and Grant) went to do a home visit while Karen and Ann Marie (driven by Leonard {sans chaps} and me, with Dave riding shotgun) went to the local mall for a static display.  Met a lot of nice people there too, and between the two stops we sold a decent amount of t-shirts and hats which is always a good thing.  As I've mentioned before, that's what keeps the trucks on the road.

Tonight I'm in the hotel for the rest of the evening.  Time to do some laundry.  Apparently no-one from Watertown, SD called ahead for us... or they don't have a "wolf" working for them here. 

Tomorrow we leave for Idaho Falls, ID (or Boise, as John likes to call it) we have a travel day tomorrow but there are 14 boxes of t-shirts waiting for us there, so we'll be busy once we get there.

Pink Heals!

Peace

Day 8 (still in South Dakota)

My second week on tour started with a 2 hour drive up to Aberdeen.  Not quite butt numbing, but it teetered on the brink.  The scenery was nice.  It ranged from corn to cattle with the occasional (VERY occasional) small (REALLY small.  Like, population 52) town sprinkled in.  But, I had some traveling companions, so I was fine.

Hey, don't judge me, they're delicious.  Plus they have a candy shell so they melt in your mouth, not in your hand (endorsement opportunities available, again, I'm just sayin).  

We got in to Aderdeen (famous for... OK, I was going to go all snarky here, but there's actually a lot of famous people from here, including the guy that wrote "The Wizard of Oz', a former U.S. Senator and a baseball Hall of Famer.  Who knew?) and pulled into the airport.  We got in a little early, so our escorts weren't there yet.

I climbed into the tour bus A.) to talk to Mike and Dave and B.) to sign a helmet.  

Stephen Hensley, a retired Captain from the Hampton (Va.) Fire Department, was supposed to go on tour with us last year.  He passed away suddenly in April of 2011.  In addition to his FD service he was a Vietnam vet, an Army Ranger that received numerous commendations.  I never met him, but as regulars around here know, I have some experience with sudden loss, and I had been thinking of what I wanted to write for a couple days.  Of course I didn't want to write a novel, just something brief and to the point for his family.

Rest easy Cap.  And may Peace be with You.

We moved on (via parade) to our first stop and joined in with two local fire departments, Aberdeen city and Aberdeen rural as well as the local CareFlight crew, for a "look at the trucks" kind of thing.  

I'd just like to back up a second here and note that I've never gone faster in a parade than these people up here go.  I mean like "geez wait for me" fast.  Like, if NASCAR had a "parade while on crack" fast.

Anyway.  Just like the last couple days, pretty much all the people we met up here were just awesome.  I think though, the high point today was a tshirt I saw.  It really kinda prioritizes what I assume women go through when they're fighting cancer...

Kinda sums it up, no?

Off to Pierre tomorrow (pronounced Peer)(no, really, I'm not joking)(seriously... Peer)(don't ask me why, I don't know) which is the state capitol.  As of now, we're only busy from noon to 4 tomorrow.  Of course we were supposed to be done before 7:00 tonight and we didn't get back til after 9:00.  That's ok though, like I said before, we'd rather be busy.  

Plus I've got clean laundry, so...

Pink Heals!

Peace

Day 7 (half way there for me and for the tour)

I came on tour a week ago tomorrow.  I have been here for seven days and I have seven left.  Dave is already calling me a quitter and I'm already wondering if I can fit another few days out on the road the first week of October...

We all had breakfast this morning at our hotel, with Willette and her family.  What great people they are.  The people we meet on tour are truly one of the best parts of this job.  We left Sioux Falls this morning and drove north to Watertown, a little more than an hour and a half away. 

No trucks ran out of fuel!!!

I've never been to South Dakota (state motto "we have more flies per capita than anywhere else") before, so I didn't really know what to expect as far as scenery.  But it was kind of nice.  Very rural, but heading up I-29 was nice.

We got in to Watertown and were met at our hotel by Tori, a 7 year survivior and a pretty sweet, very dynamic woman who is absolutely passionate about taking care of the women in her community. 

She worked us like dogs.

And that is a very good thing.

When we're on the road like this, we all want to be busy.  We all want to do home visits, hospital visits, work events or whatever.  We belong to the communities and people that bring us in. 

Let me take a few minutes to explain just how amazing the people up here are with an example...

As I said, I've been on the road now for seven days.  Seven very busy days.  I haven't had time to do laundry yet.  Now, mind you, I didn't have to go commando just yet (TMI for some, but hey, I want you people to understand what we do) but I was within days of that.  I asked the lady if they had laundry facilities and she said they did.  One of the other drivers, actually ALL of the other drivers, had laundry needs of varying degrees too.  The hotel has one washer and one dryer.  We have to be out and on the road in 30 minutes. 

Do you smell what I'm stepping in here?

I came outside and asked Tori and the FD's Battalion Chief if there was a laundromat close by and the Chief said there was one on the other side of town.  He then said to bag up our laundry and he'd take it to the firehouse and make sure it got done.

We did, he did and it did.

How amazing is that?  Cause, I'm not gonna lie, I wouldn't have done that.  I might have offered up the Wolf's services to do their laundry, but there's no way I would've done that.

Like I said though, we worked for it.  We did two parades, a hospital visit, two home visits and then this afternoon we set up near the Redlin Art Center and some local dignitaries spoke, including Tori

And Dave

And we sold t-shirts (that's how we keep the trucks on the road) and talked to people about how important it is to keep the money in the community where it's raised and all the other thing we do.  And as I walked around the trucks at one of the events, with people that wanted to sign, I saw this for the first time.  I think it's my favorite so far...

We leave in the morning for Aberdeen for twelve hours worth of events.  I'm not sure what exactly, but it'll be tough for them to beat what we've seen in Baltic and Watertown.

Pink Heals!

Peace

Day 6 (I may have to start liking people again)

What a great day.  

Even though we were on the road at 5:00 AM today (and of course, I was awake before 4:00 because, why would I sleep?) we had many highlights today,

Let's start with driving through Clear Lake, IA.  If that town doesn't ring a bell, you're either A.) too young to remember or B.) not a fan of rock music or C.) you never paid any attention to TV game shows that focus on trivia ("I'll take dead rock stars of the 50's for $500 please Alex).  Clear Lake, IA is the town Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper crashed near.  Ever hear of "the day the music died"?  Or the song "American Pie" by Don McLean?  OK, if you still don't know, fire up your Google machine and do a search. 



We stopped for coffee in southwestern Minnesota around 7:00 AM...

And as we approached Sioux Falls, actually, as we approached our destination IN Sioux Falls, This happened...

Yup.  One of the engines ran out of fuel.  If you've never run a diesel motor out of fuel, I don't recommend it.  It's very time consuming to get it back up and running.  Especially when you're new in town...

But after a little bit, Dave sent John and Grant on to the event and he and I waited with the truck til the Fire Department mechanics came and helped us out.  Along with Jodi's Dad.  Jodi stopped to see why we had pink fire trucks and Dave started talking to her about what we do.  She told us her Dad was a retired diesel mechanic and she then called him and told him to come and help us.

We finally got to join the rest of the guys at our first event at the Sioux Falls FD.  Nice people, not a huge crowd though, unless they all came and left before we got there.  The FD fed us, sloppy joes and chips (no comment)  and we were able (it was fine) to sit and chat with the crew (no really, it was fine) for a little bit.  While this was going on the mechanics tried to fix a short in the wiring of our trailer.

We headed north to Baltic, SD after lunch.  Arriving in town, we went to the local school and the grade school kids came out and looked at the pink fire trucks for about 30 minutes.  The next event, also set for the school, didn't start until 5:30 so we were left with some down time.  There's not much to do in a town of around 1,000 people.  However, the reason we were in town, a wonderful force of nature named Willette, took care of everything.  

Willette, a three time cancer survivor and the 77 year-old aunt of a dear friend of Dave's, introduced herself to a couple of guys by telling them she was up til 12:30 drinking Scotch.  This woman organized the event and, bless her heart, drew probably 600 people to it.  In a town of 1,000 people that's enormous!

Of course it wasn't a huge crowd, but it was steady all evening long.  And the folks up here are ridiculously nice.  

Especially Donna Lee and Betty Jean.  I met them in Sioux Falls, but they said they were originally from Baltic and would be there also.  They teased me that I wouldn't remember their names, so when I saw them in Baltic, I made a point of calling them each by name.  They got a huge kick out of that.  A little later, I saw them sitting in their car and I came over to scold them for not saying good-bye before they left.  Donna said "oh we're not leaving yet, just taking a break".  So when the time came for them to leave, they came up to tell me goodbye, to thank me for remembering their names and to thank us for coming to Baltic.  Dave offered to be their "boy toy" and after considering it, they told him no.  Donna did however have no qualms about resting her hand on my butt for this photo...

Finally, as we were driving convoy style back to Sioux Falls for the night, Leonard (last in the convoy and driving Karen) came on the radio and told us to watch the woman approaching us on the back of the motorcycle.  As the bike came alongside me, I immediately recognized them as a husband and wife I'd spoken to in Baltic.  Theresa was a 12 year cancer survivor and she and her husband were both as nice as could be and seemed to enjoy the evening and seeing the fire trucks immensely.  

That was proven by the piece of paper Theresa held in her hand as they passed us, southbound on I-29.

It said, simply, handwritten in big block letters...

THANK
YOU

I almost started crying on the spot.

Tomorrow we're off to Watertown, SD.

Pink Heals!

Peace