Kings of The Road
We are two friends who went on a road trip around the United States 20 years ago to serve churches. We kept a journal as we traveled and are reading through the journal and remembering our adventures. Listen and laugh with us as we go back in time and inspire others to go on an adventure.
Kings of The Road
Embracing the Unplanned: Stories from the Road
What if the true magic of travel lies not in famous landmarks but in the forgotten corners of the world? Join us as we recount our latest escapades, from Andrew's quirky Bavarian Olympics in Munich to Scott's quest for a loose meat sandwich in northeastern Iowa. We promise a journey filled with unexpected joys, where business trips morph into comedic adventures, and the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Discover how a band playing American hits in Germany and a lobster roll gone wrong in Boston transform routine work trips into memorable tales.
Our adventure doesn't end with setbacks, though. Stranded in Florida amid life's unpredictability, we embrace simplicity and find joy in bike rides and pool time. As we contemplate reconnecting with the Monroes in Central or South America, we share our insights and lessons learned along the way. Tune in for a blend of resilience, humor, and the unexpected moments that prove even the most unplanned journeys can lead to unforgettable stories.
Welcome to the best 30 minutes of your week. Yep, here it goes. We're started, we're ready. We are going to journey to well in Florida and discover can we go on, can we continue? You are at the Kings of the Road podcast. We are here with you. My name is Scott Hawkins. That's Andrew Gere podcast. We are here with you. My name is scott hawkins, that's andrew gear, and we are looking forward to um coming up with a plan on what to do after an accident in florida. So, uh, we have a break because we both had some traveling to do. Um, you win the travel game, as it is called well, depends on definitions.
Speaker 2:I did travel to places that seem cooler well and are cooler. Like well are cooler but yes, but not like vacationing, you know.
Speaker 1:But you got to go and experience them where, like my work, lord sent me northeastern iowa, that's right, I hear it's lovely in october yeah rapid city or something turns. We are close orange and yeah yeah, I was like, oh gosh, flying it out of that city. So that's where my work sent me. Where does your work send you?
Speaker 2:andrew. Well, okay, it's um, it's an interesting thing because you see what I mean. Well, but here's the thing about business travel that people don't often understand unless they do it themselves is you hear about these great places and it's like, wow, you got to go there. And you're like, yeah, but I was in an office building in that place.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So was that an applause or is that just oh?
Speaker 1:are you? Oh, I thought Really oh wow, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It sounded like either applause or water was coming to a boil. I couldn't decide. Maybe you're just so excited in your head. I didn't hear the theme music in my ears. Also, I didn't hear the theme music in my ears.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't hit the live button oh no, okay, oh, can we fix that in? Post. We'll fix it in post. I'm pretty sure I can fix it in post. Oops, okay.
Speaker 2:All right, everybody. Sorry, the magic fix it in post.
Speaker 1:These are things that we say so I went to.
Speaker 2:I went to munich, germany, which is a little different than northeast, I suppose. Yeah, um, I didn't get to see much of it because, as I said, you know, I, I sat in a big metal tube for many, many, many hours. I got out of that tube and, uh, you know, went into an office, did some things for a few days, got back in a big metal tube and you also, but you like, went to some Oktoberfest thing that they planned for you.
Speaker 1:So don't just totally no, no, no, it was cool, I mean, we were, we were, oh no, that's fine yeah.
Speaker 2:It wasn't like actual Oktoberfest in Munich, but we did like a company thing where it was. It was hilarious to me because it was this meant to be.
Speaker 2:We did like this Bavarian Olympics thing where we competed with you know, we broke up into teams and we did these different activities that were, you know, traditional. We came in second place, so so, pretty good, like we had to build sort of this bridge thing out of sticks. We had to fling a boot at a target. We had to put, um, oh, what was it? Something, something in between our legs and then fling it into a bucket. So, uh, yeah, like, walk a few feet. So that was fun. And then they had, you know, the the traditional sort of like beer mug holding contest, which I did not participate in. I know my limits, I wasn't going to win that. But then there was a band in this little hut that we were all sitting in, you know, and obviously all the food is, every meal, everything is just like schnitzel and potatoes.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's it.
Speaker 2:That's all they eat apparently, and some cured meats. But there's a band playing. I'm like, oh, this is cool, it's like traditional, you know bavarian music or whatever. And then they just started playing like american, like top 40 from like the 70s, 80s, 90s, ands and I'm like, what's that? Were they good at least, though? Oh, they were great. Yeah, they were great. So it was good. And then, you know, one of the nights we drove through kind of downtown Munich on the way to dinner, so from a bus I got to see some cool stuff. So that was fun. And then last week I was in Boston, which is just a phenomenal city, but it did take me back. I told you, scott, I had flashbacks of the motor home being towed, yeah, and I got to hear some of that thick new England accent again.
Speaker 1:I had?
Speaker 2:I had a lobster roll, but you know what it?
Speaker 1:wrecked me.
Speaker 2:Oh no, oh no, it wasn't like like I had a gigantic mountain of lobster for lunch. I'm like, oh, I'm going to eat all of it, because this is what's in front of me and I'm in New England. I'm going to eat lobster. So I go out to dinner that night and I'm in the midst of, like, the executive team of my company and some very important customers. So there's, you know, 30 of us in this room, or whatever, and your belly says hey we have, we have that lobster.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have, like you know, the first sort of dish and then the salad, and then I look at the guy next to me and I'm like I have to leave and I just got up and I left. I just left. Oh, you didn't come back. No, I didn't come back. No, I didn't come back I went I walked straight to the hotel and went to sleep. Yeah, no it.
Speaker 2:I just I thought I was gonna be sick and so yeah, and so I just I had some tums, because that's all I had, and then I just got into bed and I just laid there all night going oh boy, am I gonna be able to make it to the big all-day meeting the next day.
Speaker 1:So oh, bad decision, yeah, and then, like in the morning, luckily I felt a little better.
Speaker 2:So then in the morning everybody was like at a distance, like how are you feeling?
Speaker 1:yeah, you I don't want to be near you, yeah, so luckily, luckily I, I think it was, I think it was a labster maybe I think it was a lot, but they do say that you tend to blame the previous meal when really it's been like 24 hours you should blame. That's what I've heard. But you always tend to say, oh, is that last night? Because that's like what you remember throwing up and being like I'll never have, like last well bj's. And yeah, I have recently thrown up b BJ's pizza. I just don't enjoy it at all. Oh, that's a bummer. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. I still enjoy a pizookie, so don't feel that bad about it. Yeah, okay, those are phenomenal.
Speaker 2:Well, whatever it was, I don't think, luckily, I didn't get sick in that sense, but I was I I don't think, luckily, I didn't get sick in that sense, but I don't think it'll be. It'll be a while it'll be. I mean, you know, we talked about when, when you and I were in maine just a few episodes back, not a huge fan of lobster but here I am, I'm like it's just not your thing, it's just not.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's just not my thing. We should just own that I think, think from now on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm just like you're the scallop guy. I'll pass yeah. And I was upset because I think I was going to have scallops at that dinner but I had to walk out before I got them.
Speaker 1:So thanks a lot. I've heard that a lot of people think lobster, which is great, but that you should really think scallop as well.
Speaker 2:So I'm proud of you for the scallops, well, I always.
Speaker 1:Again we've covered this.
Speaker 1:I always order the scallops go back and listen to whatever episode that was I I would, should have been true to myself a food, like tourist, because whenever we go on these trips, those different places, I always try to discover, like what's the thing from that area? Like, yeah, I heard I could not find it, but there's supposedly a loose meat sandwich from Iowa. And I was like, okay, I'll try to have a loose meat sandwich, but I think it's just like a sloppy Joe. But I couldn't find one. So I was like, okay, this is not you know. So it was a bummer.
Speaker 2:But so what else? What else about northeast Iowa? Tell us the highlights for anybody traveling to that part of the country voluntarily. Highlights.
Speaker 1:There's not a ton of highlights. It's a good old suburb. It feels like a Midwest suburb. Yeah, nice people and a lot of time, kind of like you were saying about church and going into churches and listening to people speak, being a lot of people being around them. So yeah, it was good. It was good, it was nice. But again, it's no one's bucket list to go to Northeastern Iowa.
Speaker 2:Yes, finally I made it.
Speaker 1:Aha, and I would say that's accurate. You don't need to think that way. It's not far from I did not do the drive, but it's not far from the University of Iowa, which is, I've heard, a great little college town and someone did do this drive the future birthplace of Captain Kirk from Star Trek. I guess he's born in a town, so that town owns it, and I put a little plaque the future birthplace of Captain Kirk.
Speaker 2:That's quite funny. That's quite funny. You know what I?
Speaker 1:thought that was good.
Speaker 2:A little, a little idea, just formulated in my head. On social media there are, there's that noise again.
Speaker 1:What is that?
Speaker 2:noise that? Oh oh yeah, maybe it's just picking up when you do something with the my mouth or my cough trap boy, yeah, I don't feel great.
Speaker 1:You can listen. I'm sorry, sorry, you know, sorry, I'll have to. Um, maybe lay off the drops while we're on no, no, no.
Speaker 2:Please take care of yourself. So I'm thinking. My thought was there's all these travel influencers that you see everywhere, but they're always going to places that are exciting. Ooh, what if there was a new kind of influencer that went to the places that are not exciting and real people go to? Yeah, like yeah, hey. We and real people go to yeah, like, yeah, hey we're gonna go to northeast iowa exactly in october.
Speaker 1:You wouldn't? You wouldn't?
Speaker 2:yes, I would and, and you know you, I don't know if you still wear like flowy linen clothes and you walk around and twirl and take cute pictures of yourself like is this what we do?
Speaker 2:I feel, like you and I would be great ambassadors for instagram I just I just saw something like that from a comedian who was at like a pumpkin patch, pretending to be like the guy who owns the pumpkin patch, like, oh, they're not gonna buy any pumpkins oh, they just picked it. Oh, the foot popped up, Yep not going to happen, not today, I think we should start. That might be our next endeavor. Scott Could be. Somebody had a show called Places Unknown right. Was that Anthony Bourdain, or was that somebody? No, anyway.
Speaker 1:Remember those girls in high school. Their dad was on a show show like the dangerous places in the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was like yeah, the safest places in the world, the most. The most intentionally untraveled places in the world.
Speaker 1:What's there? You can bowl a ball and go all the way to the ocean. Pretty cool. How far is the ocean?
Speaker 2:200 miles. It's that flat. 200 000 miles, yeah, 200 000, yeah. Where we just like travel to towns where there's really nothing of significance to talk about, but we're just there, people would love it and maybe like anticipate our traveling.
Speaker 1:Yes, they're coming.
Speaker 2:The two white guys are on their way I think we do it and like the big thing is like well, we went to the gas station and they had moon pies those are good sandwiches, and loose meat sandwiches. Is it worth coming out of your way for it?
Speaker 1:oh no is it not at all?
Speaker 2:but, no, but, but it's here we hey, check this pizza hut out. It sort of reminds me of what pizza hut was like in 1988.
Speaker 1:Oh those, are great, all right.
Speaker 2:Onto the next town, on to two, two, two. We could get like a cool Cadillac or something Drive around in.
Speaker 1:Oh, cadillac, cadillac, motorhome, we'll have those. That would be awesome. So this is where I would typically turn it over to you and say, hey, where are we in the journal? But, as maybe you remember from the last episode or as I don't know if we said it, but Andrew got lazy I'm not disputing that.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that's what happened or if really the wheels came off the bus on the trip and that event was so important that you just listened to. I guess, to be more accurate, the pooper tank came off the pooper tank.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the wheels stayed on. Luckily the pooper tank did come off the bus.
Speaker 1:So we don't have the journal. We have a couple of highlights, like where we go. This happened, that happened. Then he wrote down events. But as far as daily ditching you've been giving us, which has been phenomenal- it's done, it's over.
Speaker 2:Folks, we are mourning the loss of more than just our pooper tank. We are mourning the loss of my 22-year-old written wit.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, a little dark. Sometimes a little crabby, yeah, which stays accurate to 43 year old andrew. So I am who I am yeah, so you are.
Speaker 2:So from here, where the journey is, is sadly coming to a close on the road trip. However, that is not the end of our journey, because, as we just decided we're going to leave it all behind and travel to places.
Speaker 1:Nobody would really want to travel to sell the house already up on Zillow Go.
Speaker 2:Look Perfect, but yes we do have some notes, like Scott said, so we're going to kind of chunk it up and it's basically what do you remember? From here on out, yeah, it's, it's true it's.
Speaker 1:We could open it every time with that theme song, and I do think that there was something about the fact that your writing stopped and the trip just turned Because we did not have a return home date. We did not have a return home date. We got home before Christmas, but I don't think that was our plan to be home before Christmas. The only thing that I'm remembering is we had to be home before Allison's wedding, which I think was February.
Speaker 2:Okay, I thought probably before Christmas, but maybe not.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think we ended up. Sorry, go ahead. We ended up being home a little bit before Christmas, like a couple of days we were close already.
Speaker 2:The 11th.
Speaker 1:I don't think. Oh, it was the 11th.
Speaker 2:We got home on the 11th of December.
Speaker 1:I thought it was more like the 18th or 20th.
Speaker 2:Yeah now, but we might have gotten closer to it, or yeah, maybe we would have flown home and gone back or something, I don't know. I don't know. We didn't really have much of a plan, did we no? But it did kind of mark a turn, and we'll explain why.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, go ahead Because there was. Yeah, well, go ahead Because there was yeah.
Speaker 2:So here's the deal, folks, I did not intend to just do like a Joe Biden thing right there. Here's the deal.
Speaker 1:Here's the deal, folks. Hey, I'm serious right now.
Speaker 2:Shouldn't do that. This isn't a political podcast.
Speaker 1:You're pretty good, I don't know. I don't know. The impression's not great, especially by the fold. Shouldn't do that. This isn't a political podcast. You're pretty good at that. I had a Donald Trump I would do. You know me. Impressions Not great, right.
Speaker 2:Might be good.
Speaker 1:That could be better maybe. So we got back to the murder home, we drove back to Janet and Janet's house, Uncle Steve's, and we are kind of like, well, what do we do now? That's where we are. So now go with your thoughts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know, I'm sure there's a lot of Scott calling his dad, me calling my dad. What do we do? What are our options? You know we had insurance, so we started. I mean, we probably called the insurance and we started calling around to.
Speaker 1:RV. I actually remember I remember calling their insurance and they had Geico. The people who had us yeah, I was the one who called it. I just thought of the calling in our relationship interesting, and they were so easy to work with. They're like, oh great, okay, and they're trying calling. I think we had state farm. It was significantly worse. I'm like man, oh, we should all get geico. Like they were just like on top of it with all their questions and they do everything, whereas our search is like, yeah, we'll call you back in. Like I don't know two weeks or something. They're like okay, we'll have someone call you back in 24 hours. Sorry, do you need anything right now? Wow, geico, thank you, little lizard caveman. What else? Yeah, they have a couple of other spokesperson. They're great, thank you. We future.
Speaker 2:Proudly sponsors. Kings of the road podcast potential sponsors of guide. So yes, yeah, we'll, uh, we'll have our people reach out to them. So so we started calling around to all these shops, and this was one of those times where, you know, in our naive, um, uh, optimism, we're like, okay, we just have to find a shop that can fix our tank like that.
Speaker 2:That's all we need, right, because in our minds what we thought was well, we'll get it fixed. At least we have a place to stay. We'll go back to yeah and jan Aunt Janet's house and we'll get it fixed. It'll take a couple of days, we'll be on our way and the road trip will continue. Yes, but as we called, we got sort of laughed at and saying there is a two-year wait list to get an RV fixed, because I don't know if you know this, but as scott just looked up and told me before we hit record, yeah, we were, florida was just coming out of sort of a weather phenomena yeah, phenomenon hurricane season like five hurricanes ripped in the state tore up.
Speaker 1:You know, trailers tore up all the things in florida, including motorhomes. So we're not getting our motorhome fixed in a week.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we were like oh no, what does this mean for us? Because we can't use the bathroom, we can't use the shower, we can't like. Our kitchen and bathroom are gone.
Speaker 2:And we can't like. Yes, our kitchen and bathroom are gone and we can't get our car. Now we're just in a really huge car, yes, that we can sleep in comfortably, very comfortably, very, but but so so they kind of changed the tune for us, so it did. So we kind of had to deal with that realization that like this changes things significantly. We can't continue on the way that we've continued. We cannot do Walmart parking lot anymore, right.
Speaker 1:We can't do church parking lot, Walmart parking lot. We were so self-sufficient and then we became a car.
Speaker 2:I don't even. Could we have even done a campground? Could we have? I don't even think we had a way to directly connect. No, because when you flush the toilet you can see the ground.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I'm just saying we would have had to use a bathroom at the campground. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I thought that's what she meant. Oh yeah, that's true, that's true, that's true, but absolutely it was.
Speaker 1:we were in a horrible gas mileage vehicle at this point. That's what we got into, yeah, and so it was a what do we do now? Question, because it's a big like we had our plan Walmart's churches. It's worked, it's been great. The only problem we've ever had was up in Maine where it stopped for a moment.
Speaker 2:Everything else like she's been doing awesome Until bam, all of a sudden, sudden, it's all over.
Speaker 1:Right, it's all, it's all it's all over, and so that's where we're like well, what do we do? I think, right, I think we already had it, we'll get there. I think we already had a relationship with the tallahassee church through your mom, so we were heading up there and that was already scheduled. Other than that, we were really like what do we do? Where do we go?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean, first thing you do is you just you know you settle in to you what you've got, which in our case was a beautiful community we go back near the beach, back to your favorite old ladies.
Speaker 2:We had to go back to my my senior citizen girlfriend, lover and and our our euchre companions. And so one of the things we did, um in our sorrow, in our just drowning and wallowing in our sorrow from our losses. Well, you know, uncle Steve, you guys want to hop in a pontoon boat and go for a cruise, I guess. So I guess we could do that. I guess we could do that.
Speaker 1:This will bring our moods up. Do you want to use the little canoe that you can go canoeing down the river and just enjoy the water? Yeah, that seems like a great plan. Oh, by the way, there are sometimes alligators in that water and two Californians hearing that there are alligators in the water, we started and we canoed a little bit but we thought this is stupid. Now, looking back, I think alligators don't care. Stupid. Now, looking back, I think alligators don't care.
Speaker 2:But how confident are you that they don't care? Because I don't know how long that canoe trip lasted, but I'm pretty sure from the moment we set off from shore in that little fiberglass half circle thing that we were like. You can't really see them this water is murky.
Speaker 1:They're here, for sure.
Speaker 2:They're looking at us like all they have to do is slightly nudge. We're not like expert canoeist. It's not like we're the most stable or steady people on the river there's nobody else in the river no one would have, uh, mistaken us for expert canoeists.
Speaker 1:No, I I think that they just truly don't care. I think that they're like, we're not going to attack that thing. In our minds we had all the videos, like the movies, of alligators. We didn't have real alligators like eh, I don't want to chase after that thing. You know what I mean? We could probably be swimming in there and if we don't tie states around our neck, we're gonna be fine. That's my guess.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm not about to find out if your guess is right or not anybody else want to go on a canoe trip with scott, and this is probably the conversation we're having down the river, though this is like how, how sure are we?
Speaker 1:we're're probably okay, right, yeah, right, but do we need to be doing this? No, I guess we don't have to be doing this right now. We could go back.
Speaker 2:Are we enjoying ourselves at all? Are we enjoying ourselves?
Speaker 1:Or do we just feel? Like we are literally walking into the lion's den.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's definitely a gator.
Speaker 1:Whatever that is, that's a gator. I see bubbles, bubbles that's.
Speaker 2:That's our death coming right at us.
Speaker 1:I don't want to die in florida what's my favorite, most favorite line of you don't have to run faster than a bear. You have to run faster than your buddy.
Speaker 2:Don't have to swim faster than andrew I'm a pretty speedy swimmer, I think you are. Yeah, I'm just kind of a bony creature, like I don't know if I'm the most appetizing.
Speaker 1:I think they would definitely choose me for appetizing this, but I think it's going to go. Benders can't be choosers, so it's just going to go for what it gets Death roll Death roll. You're up underneath there. I would try to help you.
Speaker 2:No, you wouldn't. You wouldn't, says the guy who put a chip that has been in his mouth in front of me because he put the dangerous, far away from himself.
Speaker 1:I think it's exactly the same? I don't see any difference between you are making unfair comparisons there.
Speaker 2:Nope, I think this checks back by putting dangers far away from yourself directly in front of me.
Speaker 1:This translates to alligator attacks as well I, I think I would be in there, I think I'd be there going, and then like in my head, you're, you're up under some bank. You know how they make those little holes and wake up, which to me that's like the most terrifying thing in the world. Like you've heard about that right, like people wake up sometimes they make these like they don't eat you right away, they drown you and then they put you in this little place. People have woken up in this little place, yeah, so they make these like under the bank. There's like water Under the bank. There's water they swim up into, but there's a little platform that they lay on. They put people up there, oh my gosh. And then you wake up and you're like, oh no, you have to swim out from alligator helm, get up under the bank, run away to do it. That would be like that would be. I don't think there's enough therapy in the world to get you over that. You're just permanently traumatized.
Speaker 2:That's the most horrible thing.
Speaker 1:You're just, oh my.
Speaker 2:God, I'm going to get about it right now.
Speaker 1:I need to talk to that with somebody.
Speaker 2:Let's let's talk to that, oh my gosh, I kind of want to look it up and I also don't ever want to know that. Oh my goodness, could you imagine?
Speaker 1:So we're, so we're in Florida, so we are enjoying the things that we should enjoy but the trip has changed and we're trying to figure out. What does it mean? We are foolishly looking around for someone that fits our motor home and everyone's laughing at us because it's not going to happen, right? We are wondering then well, what do we do? We discover that your mom hello linda dare is an owner of many timeshares, right? Um oh, not like that no, I.
Speaker 2:you have a network, yeah, no, I don't.
Speaker 1:But she could get discounted hotel rates for us. That's what, yep, that's right. And so then we said, okay, if we have a plan, then she can help us make reservations through the network of timeshares. And so we had that happening and yeah, and that kind of became our plan Like, okay, we know this Tallahassee church which we meet some of our very fame favorite people.
Speaker 2:Oh yes.
Speaker 1:That's a family we should try to find.
Speaker 2:I think they are in South America or or central america you know them I. I get a newsletter um from them, still so I will reach out to them, yeah yeah, the monroes, they're great talk about them next time.
Speaker 1:They're amazing. And so then we have that planned and we had, um, this trip right, and so they're like well, we have to get home. We're in florida, I mean, almost as far away from home as possible. No pooper, no shower. Here we are, yeah, yeah so well.
Speaker 2:So we went on a bike ride and we swam in the pool some more so, but that's where we're at, that's where we're at sometimes, folks, the takeaway, the big, the big lesson of this all is sometimes you plan things out and yep, life gives you lemons. Or, in our case, life gives you a swift, uh smash in the rear.
Speaker 1:I was, I was trying to work that out of my head of how I could sit.
Speaker 2:You get in a car accident and your plans change and you have to pivot, and where do we go from here? So we'll tell you where we went from here, because the adventure is not over, friends.
Speaker 1:Could you summarize what you just said by saying that life gives you lemons and you have to make lemonade?
Speaker 2:Lemonade Sure. Thank you for guiding me all the way to the end talk to you later.
Speaker 1:Bye, okay.