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
The Last Days of Driving.
If you’ve ever been curious about what happens when you mix humor with travel, this episode is your ticket to finding out. Plus, get ready for a sneak peek into the intern opportunity that could have you joining the Kings of the Road team!
As boredom hit an all-time high on Texas highways, a watch flew out the window in a moment of slap-happy hilarity, capturing the essence of friendship and travel mischief. Scott and Andrew reminisce about the differences between motels and hotels, dive into 90s hip-hop nostalgia, and even pitch the hilariously imaginary "Luda crisps" cereal. El Paso's secret charm, mayoral exchanges with Juarez, and some unconventional travel ideas add to the tapestry of their cross-country shenanigans. If you think you know road trips, you haven’t encountered one quite like this.
The bittersweet decision to return home early sets the stage for a tantalizing look into Season Two, filled with unexpected twists and intriguing new topics. Scott and Andrew thank their listeners for a thrilling season and promise that the next chapter will continue to surprise and entertain. Buckle up for the ride, as the Kings of the Road are just getting started!
look, it's you. You found us. The kings of the road podcast. We're here together. We are going to found us the kings of the road podcast. We're here together. We are going to come to very, very, very close to the end of our journey together in season one of the kings of the podcast. My name is scott hawkins, that is, andrew gare. We are continuing our journey through america serving churches, sleep in a walmart parking lots, follow like, subscribe, um, all of the following things to us watch our reels. These are the best yeah, reels are.
Speaker 2:Reels are fun. We we need to. We should do more of those more real, we should. We're hiring hey, if you're out there and you've got skills in social media, we are hiring a social media specialist.
Speaker 1:Yes, um to be it is an unpaid position. No, you know what they call those Internships.
Speaker 2:We're looking for an internship, a social media intern.
Speaker 1:Exactly, it's called internships. We will write you a glowing reference letter, created by ChatGBT, that we will sign and we will say this person is the best that I have ever seen. Why not?
Speaker 2:put on your resume that you were the social media. You can come up with whatever title you want we'll give you whatever title you want. Yeah, this is a great thing, you, you name it and it's yours.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you that, and that'll be a great thing on your resume.
Speaker 2:Founder creator founding, founding uh partner media, uh marketing specialist, yeah, uh I mean, our numbers are burning, they're just numbers are out of control. Good so, like our listenership is uh, we are we're on that hockey. They talk about the hockey stick curve right yeah, yeah, yeah they do and so we are on that hockey sticker. We're still on like the face of the stick, but like well, you know we're on the handle it'll curve up drastically at some point exactly.
Speaker 1:You gotta start at the end. No, you do, and you could be on the ground floor of this thing and I can't believe we're just promoting this opportunity 50 episodes. This is this is going to change somebody's life. Someone's ears right now are just like on fire. They're going. Wow, thank you for speaking my language.
Speaker 2:I love all things social media and I want to be a founder I have so much time on my hands and all this extra cash that I don't know what to do with what, so I don't need that. I don't know, I would love to just be a part of this incredible my favorite podcast, america's favorite podcast.
Speaker 1:America's favorite traveling two guys on a road podcast. In 2004, with the ladies wonder home podcast, ranked number one in that category.
Speaker 2:Ranked number one undisputed by a long shot champion.
Speaker 1:Okay, so San Antonio, riverwalk, alamo, those things. Then you hit the part of Texas where the map turns brown, brown, brown town. You are basically what is brown town?
Speaker 2:I mean whatever you want it to be, there was a great show that I I watched. There's like 14 seasons of it. It's called alaskan bush people no, I'm recommending seasons of that. Yeah, there are 14 seasons alaska bush people heard of this.
Speaker 2:It's uh, I don't know. It's on like discovery channel or something like that, but love it. It's. This family, that kind of lives in alaska and you just watch them and they're very wild and they call themselves the wolf pack, but their last name is brown, so they create brown town oh, which is their little off the grid, off the grid town in chichikov island, alaska you really know a lot about this. I watched 14 seasons of this show you watched them all?
Speaker 1:yes, I love it. I love it. I have not seen one episode of this show, but um brown town, we're brown town we're driving through brown town and for all of those who listeners were on the east coast those of us on the west coast there's a lot of desert and a lot of non-blooming plants. Uh, desert foil foliage is uh very like low to the ground and um, prickly, and basically it starts in the middle of texas and it's consistent until you hit the pacific ocean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it feels the same the whole way so there was a church a church guy who I knew in Birmingham and he actually meant to go to the church. There was two churches and there's one on the right, the Presbyterian Church, and then we're the left, and the first time I went to church he accidentally turned left, thinking we're the Presbyterian Church. So he knew the Presbyterians and he shows up and he's like, uh, but then he liked us, so he stayed for a couple of years and so it was a nice yeah, it was a nice, uh, unexpected turn. But he was somebody who actually crossed over the border illegally down by where Emily's, from the El Centro area, and he was telling me the story about it all and then he, he said something that I had never thought about, he's like, until he got to new Orleans.
Speaker 1:He's like this is not America, because he just thought of it as like North Mexico, it's all dirt, it's all just cactus. And he's like what the America he sees on TV is like woods and green and like New York, law and order, right. And I was like, oh, that's funny. So that's why he just went to Birmingham. He's like, ah, finally, it's America, it's not just North Mexico, oh man.
Speaker 1:I had never thought of that, but I thought that was pretty good have you ever noticed?
Speaker 2:this is so weird. But when you're traveling from the la area east into arizona.
Speaker 1:Yep, you know what I'm gonna say yes, hit me, you tell me, let's see if it's the same thing it is shocking because I think this is what you're going to say and it's shockingly true that until you hit the border of Arizona, there are no cactus. Yes, yes, it's the weirdest thing, and it's almost. It's like the Arizonians are either planting, like derouting, the cactuses in California, or else are just filling up the border of Arizona because you're like looking boom.
Speaker 2:All they thought of is show up Weird. I know it is so weird. Yeah, it's no cactus, no cactus, no cactus. Welcome to Arizona. Oh, look a cactus.
Speaker 1:What Exactly what this is. The reason I knew this is because this is one of those things that, when you're sitting in an rv for many, many years and been friends for so long, we've basically covered most topics, I think oh, so you think we have talked about this before, I suppose.
Speaker 2:I suppose this is possible it's a little little neuron in my brain that went oh, he's going with a no tactics thought right now I have a whole section in my brain devoted to conversations with scott yes, well, it's all.
Speaker 1:It's a spider web that goes throughout, and most of them circle back to what wormholes?
Speaker 2:yeah, I, I just thought of something that was kind of funny my, my youngest, who just turned eight. She was, we were eating dinner the other day and she's like, oh, I'm so full. She goes, but I've got this little VIP room in my stomach that's reserved just for dessert and that has room in it, and we're like what? But?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I've got a little VIP room of Scott and Andrew conversations. A lot of that is wormholes. A lot of it's wormholes, which I guess is kind of connected to other parts of my brain via wormholes.
Speaker 1:Anyway, let's get back on track. I actually wanted to just do a pause and say well done for VIP. Part of my stomach that's awesome, that was good, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was hilarious. That made us both pause and laugh and she's like yeah, what she's like. I've known that for years.
Speaker 1:It's a perfect definition of what it is right. That's exactly, and we all know that. Can I eat more cucumbers? Oh no, but that pie, it's going down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the club is packed, but there's a special room in the back just reserved for all the good stuff, what about the kind of childhood your child has had?
Speaker 1:How many clubs has? She been to.
Speaker 2:You say that as if you've never taken your kids to the club Come on this is fair the club. Down the street from our house, we have this big nondescript very square building called. Zalos. If you ever exit Glassell off the 91, take a look at Zalos, and if you get too tired to drive home, there's an Embassy Suites just up the street.
Speaker 1:I love Embassy. Suites. That's my favorite hotel by far.
Speaker 2:No sorry.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:No, for sure. Because it's like two rooms in one or the atrium.
Speaker 1:No, oh, the happy hour. Happy hour and the free breakfast with omelets. You start off the morning free breakfast. They have an omelet bar guy. They're making omelets in the atrium yeah like seems like cheating, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:what? What better life is this than five minutes happy hour and free breakfast in the morning and then you have two rooms? I also and this is a little bit of the silver spoon I grew up with my mouth, I suppose I legitimately didn't know that there were other hotels except embassy suites until some later point in my life, because my dad traveled so much and he always would for work would say like embassy suites. We had so many points built up so we could just stay because it was like that's good, like what?
Speaker 1:what is this one room? No breakfast. Where's the other room? Where am I supposed to get my breakfast? Walk to the waffle house, oh, scramble dice. Chunt, yes, please. Um, yeah, no, this is great. I, the ip section of your stomach is like that's the exact right definition.
Speaker 2:I, I can't think of trying to think back to a time that I stayed at the embassy suites. It's been a long time.
Speaker 1:It's sad you should go to that I'm going to take that as a uh, just stay challenge.
Speaker 2:Next time I go somewhere for work and everybody's like we're staying at the Fairmont Oregon, I'm like that's cool, I'm going to stay next to the freeway at the embassy suites and then I'll see you after breakfast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your omelet, have your little biscuit Walk up full. They're like what'd you guys do for breakfast? I had some, yeah.
Speaker 2:Who's going to get the thumbs up on their expense report this month? Huh, exactly. Hey way to be frugal Andrew Ting Like and I got two rooms for that price.
Speaker 1:Exactly A little front room. I had a room to type in With a window that looks out to like inside Sort of weird.
Speaker 2:Exactly Now you're talking hotels. This is the way hotels are supposed to be.
Speaker 1:So we show up in El Paso, speaking of hotels, and we go into El Paso and we check in and it's nighttime it's dark. So we had left San Antonio during the day we haul. Nighttime it's dark, so we had left san antonio during the day. We hauled over the desert. We're driving, it's night. We show up, we find this little hotel that I'm sure linda gare shout out when they are, uh, found for us. And we start checking in and the guy this is such a great memory from this, from the road trip the guy looked at us and he's like hey, you ever been to el paso before?
Speaker 1:and you and I are both like no we haven't, and he's like 27th largest city in america. We're like, oh really, I'm not so sure, I'm not sure how the number correct there. He's just best kept exactly yeah best kept secret in america also. We're like really wow, thanks, buddy, like he was meanwhile in the background.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that comes across the microphone, but that is my attempt at gunshots in the distance whoa, whoa, what was?
Speaker 1:excuse me, sir, what's that? Backfires, we're pretty sure the backfires, and we're like, oh well, thanks, he loves, he is, he loves, he is El Paso. This wasn't something that we had to bring up, he just naturally bubbled up love of El Paso, right.
Speaker 2:I wonder if he started with what brings you to this wonderful town of El Paso and we said we are traveling around the country and that is why he?
Speaker 1:that seems like a likely reason, but maybe he just loved it and told everybody regardless he has a hotel, like he just built a hotel, so he's always ready to tell you yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't think it was a hotel, if that makes sense. Yeah, I think it's. I think it was more of a motel. If that makes sense. Yeah, I think it's more of a motel. I don't remember it being nice, I remember it being like a motor lodge.
Speaker 1:You missed the moment though. Oh shoot, what was the moment? Motel, Motel.
Speaker 2:Holiday Embassy.
Speaker 1:Suites. Say what? Yeah, dude, I lobbed that to you too. Sorry, I thought you were going to hit it. Shout out to our friend steph fry. I think of that. I think I've heard when we say that I think you guys did that, like your sunshine opening or something could have?
Speaker 2:well, probably not. I don't think that would have been appropriate for the christian camp to sing just those words.
Speaker 1:It was just those words.
Speaker 2:It wasn't the whole thing oh, oh, right, okay, I don't know anytime. I think about like 90s hip-hop and there's like hotel. I'm like emphasis on the hoe they were into the word hoe in the 90s am I right?
Speaker 1:they were, yeah, yeah, what's that more?
Speaker 2:ludicrous song that was oh, he's so fun, oh, it's something about going to the hotel, hotel, everybody like, everybody Like, never mind.
Speaker 1:But Ludacris, like because he busts into this part out, he busts into Usher, doesn't he bust into? Like Justin Bieber too, the baby is that Ludacris? I just saw Luda.
Speaker 2:Listen, this is Luda play. Or is playing at the Great Park in Irvine coming up, which is the most gangsta of all places you could possibly play at the Great Park in Irvine, california. So I'm like babe Luda's playing at Five Points Arena. I don't know. This is great news and she's like you need to go, andrew, and this is your chance to finally tell them about your cereal idea and I'm like my cereal idea. I had totally forgotten I was going to pitch Luda crisps. Oh, that is good Like, maybe not as good as an omelet, but like what?
Speaker 1:a way to start your day with some Luda crisps, the embassy sweets. Oh man, in one of those tubes where you twist the thing and it comes into your bowl and it breaks like 10 of them every time you twist it, but it's worth it, oh man charms are always sitting there, ludicrisps are you going crisps?
Speaker 2:um, no, I. There's a zero percent chance. You know what maybe we should? That would be kind of fun. I'm gonna look into it. Yeah, I might go see how much tickets are.
Speaker 1:If there are a couple of kids round us up. Yeah, oh yeah, motel. Yeah, it's probably not even ludicrous.
Speaker 2:Um, that's probably so. Anyway, this guy yeah, he's telling us all about the best kept secret in America El Paso.
Speaker 1:We wake up in the morning and we look around the best-temped secret in America? We're like, well, he was lying. This is not the best-temped secret in America. We can just quickly get out of this town because there is no use for this anymore. And we slept and we laughed.
Speaker 2:You can see Juarez, mexico, from El Paso. That's nice you can hear Juarez. Mexico, or the gunshots coming from Juarez, mexico. Yes, I think was it him who told us about the arrangement that the mayor of Juarez and El Paso have, where they basically meet on the bridge every so often and they round up the criminals, hand each other to the people. And exchange them. They're like oh, we found these guys from juarez here you go and they're like oh we found these, what, yeah?
Speaker 2:and they just they're like oh okay, here's what, yep, all right, yep, yep, like that's just, that's just how it goes oh boy, in the in the sister cities of juarez and el paso. El paso and the 10 freeway goes right along the border?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does, and actually, to be fair, it is. And I did this drive not that long ago I mean eight years when I moved back. The mountains are kind of pretty off in the distance, Because I was thinking about this as I was driving through and I was like, okay, that's kind of pretty out there. There's some pretty rugged mountains and you're driving and there that is the area where there's like no speed limits too. It's just like 85, because there is nothing out there. So it's just like go as fast as you can, we're okay with that so this was the place.
Speaker 2:So there was a lot of boredom and I don't know exactly where this, this. I'm pretty sure this thing that I'm about to say took place in el paso. So there was a lot of boredom and I don't know exactly where this this. I'm pretty sure this thing that I'm about to say took place in El Paso, slightly outside of it, I think it was after we left. Okay, and I remember you're driving, yeah, and we're just like gosh it is so boring driving through Texas and you looked at your watch and it stopped like it had stopped working, and you like tapped it or whatever, and you like took it off your wrist and then you just threw it out the window, and I don't know why, but just the way in which you did it, I probably laughed for 100 miles because it was just so funny.
Speaker 2:Zero recollection of that. That's great, though I think it was like we were just so slap happy of just driving dead straight for the day before from San Antonio to El Paso. I mean, we could see El Paso from San Antonio, but it took us eight hours to get there Right West. That's basically what going west on the 10 is I?
Speaker 1:also think. I don't think. Yeah, we said we don't have a 10 in Tallahassee probably, and just did that the rest of the way, yeah, and I don't think we talked about the fact that one of the episodes has probably been on the last one. We should have that, because the 10 just zipped through mississippi and alabama, the bottom of them. It was one of those states where you and I didn't talk to each other. That's right, and I was like in the back, you in the front, or maybe it was the opposite, and I think we realized like at some point, like oh, if we just don't speak, kind of like when you were in the rv for 24 hours, yes, you, just if we don't talk the rest, then we'll be able to say we didn't speak a whole state.
Speaker 2:So go with me here. This may not be the real story, but let's just say this is the real story, okay.
Speaker 1:I took a nap.
Speaker 2:The previous part. Yeah, I took a nap as we were heading from Tallahassee through Florida. Sure, you did, of course you did, I was asleep. Yes, yes through the entirety of Mississippi, nice. But maybe I woke up right at the end of Mississippi. Okay, Maybe I was about to say something and you just signal to me don't say a word no, but then I would talk.
Speaker 1:So I'd say, don't speak. You know Netterson reference. But you would have just yeah, no doubt it's a good one. No, I could also if. But you would have just yeah, no doubt it's a good one. No, I could also. If you were sitting there, then I just put my finger on your lips no, no, no, no, no, yeah, the classic moment Don't speak and our spirits, which were kindled intertwined understood without words. We could communicate without words. At that point we were probably sounds like a bad novel.
Speaker 2:I'm like I get what you're saying, but I didn't say that out loud. That was in my brain.
Speaker 1:We're in Mississippi so what we did was we left El Paso, we got to Phoenix, which is a long drive of nothing from Phoenix. Then we decided we could either stay with my cousins or just get home. And yeah, we I don't think we really had made up our mind yet we were still like, well, what are we gonna do? And we got to phoenix and we had dinner with my cousins, which felt like enough of a break, I think, for both, both of us. Yeah, yeah, we're like, let's just keep going. Yeah, let's just get home.
Speaker 2:At this point we're six hours out we're like we can just do it, let's just, let's just do it.
Speaker 2:But before but before we leave Phoenix, just just some more about the interstate 10 and the desert. I, the interstate 10 and the desert. I recall I think there's a. I was looking through the pictures. I thought there's a picture of you, but maybe it was of me just sitting in the driver's seat but with my arms folded on my chest, like not even holding the steering wheel. You, if you put your vehicle in cruise control yes, you didn't have to be in the driver's seat anymore you could go make a sandwich I think we talked about. Should we just try?
Speaker 1:it or switch that would have been fun. We should have done that.
Speaker 2:We might not have, there would have been, we would have been fine. Actually, that's what I mean. We would have been fine. Well, we did talk about in south dakota.
Speaker 1:We talked about just tying something to the steering wheel was that in south dakota okay? Yeah, but we could have just absolutely switched and that would have been a really again these things. Another thing that we talked about doing that we didn't do was just driving through one state in our underpants because we were just like we could, just we could still make that happen. That's actually. It has happened multiple times for me already, but just kidding, no but, I do, I agree with you.
Speaker 1:Um, so, in, in slightly adjacent news, there's been a horse that has entered my life. Now we, we have a horse around here, slightly adjacent.
Speaker 2:Well, because, hold on, I'm because hold on, I'm going to circle it. Make this one connect.
Speaker 1:I got my pastor hat on, I'm going to circle it in, and so I've been learning horsey things. Okay, one of the horsey things I've been learning is that you do not let a horse, when they're going back to their home, to their stable, you do not let them run. They have to walk back to their home, to their stable. You do not let them run. They have to walk back to the stable, or else they're called barn sour, that they'll run home Because they just want to be home, because they're lazy, they want to be home so bad, so they'll start to just take off and they won't listen to you and so you have to.
Speaker 1:On your way home they can run to the arena. Of course we have Running Bear. He's a little bit older and he has his little path to the arena. There's some hills and recently he's been on the path trying to turn around, like, ah, I'm good I did not go, because at the arena he knows he has to run and do things there and he's like back there, I just stand around, I don't do anything. It's like on the way to the gym right For us.
Speaker 2:We're like.
Speaker 1:I could just not go. Oh look, a Starbucks. Oh look. So you can't let they're a smart horse. I guess they're. They're not very smart, but in some ways they are. You can't let them run home because they'll just take off. This is what we were doing. We're at Phoenix and we're like we just got. We just let's just keep going. It's not like once you get the taste of being that close to home, like one night in Phoenix felt bad. Yeah, don't you think? Yeah, I circled it up.
Speaker 2:I circled it up, you got there. That was pretty good, that was pretty solid Okay.
Speaker 1:I like it. I like what you did there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just yeah. Okay, I like it, I like what you did there. Yeah, I just yeah. It was just we. I think we both were just like we need to. We need to get home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're, we're, yeah, we're good. Now we're good and I believe I I feel a little sad now that we're talking about these last couple of moments. I believe I drove us into Torrance and dropped you off. I then drove to my parents' house and the RV was there.
Speaker 2:Wow, I think you're right. And what? A strange thing to say goodbye after all these, after all of these wonderful moments in my life.
Speaker 1:I don't think our parents knew we were coming home that day. I think they thought we were coming home the next day, because we thought that too.
Speaker 2:Oh, we must've gotten home very late.
Speaker 1:It was very late. It was, yeah, it was very late. Yeah, again, we had dinner in Phoenix, yep, and then we just rolled into town and I said, okay, I guess I'll see you tomorrow where you can get your stuff out of the motorhome.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right. Yeah, I think I just like went home and went to sleep and then, yeah, we must have saw each other the next day.
Speaker 1:We're not going to unpack it all at that moment. Right, right, yeah, oh, my goodness Speaking of unpacking it all. Next episode we're going to have is going to be us trying to unpack things that we've learned from the road trip, from our time together, from all of that oh.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to let it go, just letting it go. I'm not gonna let it go, just letting it go. I'm enjoying it. Well done wrapping it up like that you like that?
Speaker 1:I do like that we are nailing this episode. I feel like we've had some tangents come in. We found our stride, scott. We got there episode 56.
Speaker 2:I think this is we got there. We, we got there, episode 56,. I think this is yes, yes, we got there. We have completed the story and nailed it.
Speaker 1:Oh no, just in time. So this episode we're going to have.
Speaker 2:Yes so tell us what's next.
Speaker 1:Next, we're going to have some thoughts. We're going to just spend some time thinking about the things we've learned, the things we reflected on both in the journey of the podcast and in the journey of the road trip, and then we are going to tell you what season two is going to be, why.
Speaker 2:Whoa, whoa, whoa. What Season two. Yes, they've picked us up for a second season. They have the people at the network.
Speaker 1:Yep, the network said we didn't have a second season, we have to prove it because the first season was so insanely successful. And they said we'll give you another chance. Hockey stick shape. Here it comes, yep, yep, we're going to flat, but they see the growth potential, yeah, like a rocket. So we have some plans for season two for you, and you're probably thinking but they only do one road trip. Don't worry, we thinking, but they only did one road trip. Don't worry, we have ideas and you might be a part of the idea listeners. So we are excited to do this together. And, yeah, it is a strange day. It was a strange day to drop you off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Sayonara, it's all things must come to an end, and it's always sort of weird when things come to an end and we just rolled in in the cover of darkness at night and just like that it was done. As you sleep over 11th, sneak into your parents bed and say hey mommy, hey daddy, and just lay between them oh, most definitely I've missed the comfort of your touch yeah, yeah, I probably called you like an hour later and be like can I come sleep on your floor? This is so weird.
Speaker 1:I need to hear your breathing. This is getting weird. I have you just find me in the motorhome the next day, oh boy. I thought we were unpacking later. I just can't.
Speaker 2:This is my home, now, forever.
Speaker 1:I know we did other trips in the motorhome after this Because we kept it around. Yeah, we'll have to talk a little bit about that. Maybe that'll be season two or maybe not, who knows, maybe that'll be, part of it. Who knows, tune in and find out.
Speaker 2:Yes, you will. Who knows what's coming up? Bye listener, who knows what's coming up? Thanks for coming along with us Today, the last, okay, alright, see you later yeah.