4/20/07 We See Where We "Live"

Today we went to Livingston, Texas to see where we "live". We arrived at Escapees Headquarters around 9 am, an hour early for the tour we wanted to take.

We hung around in the parking lot until the appointed time and then joined about a dozen other Escapees to hear all about this RV'ers organization that we belong to.

First let me explain what Escapee's is all about. (The following is taken from the Escapees web site.)

Joe and Kay Peterson had been full-timing for eight years before they started the Escapees RV Club on July 4, 1978. It was started through Kay’s column in Woodall’s Trailer Travel magazine. She asked the question that if a club was started to help people enjoy RVing, would anyone be interested in joining? She received a couple dozen responses and began to think big: One day there might be one or two hundred people in the club! Today there are over 34,000 member-families. (There are probably more than this but this was the latest number I could get off the web site.)

SKP was originally used as an abbreviation of Escapees. (Say S-K-P fast and it sounds like Escapees.) It has become a commonly used nickname. Escapees (SKPs) are Special Kinds of People who are always ready to help each other, but S-K-P can more accurately be used to designate the three distinct concepts on which the club is built.

S - Stands for Support
One important benefit of Escapees is the support members get from each other as they travel. Because some Escapees travel long distances from their home base and families, and because they may be on the road for many months at a time, it is important to be part of an extended family of travelers. Support also includes the many benefits and optional services that the Escapees Club provides.

K - Stands for Knowledge
Members often say that the money-saving tips they get from Escapees magazine alone more than pay their annual dues. Learning is also the keynote of the semiannual Escapades that take place each spring and fall. Going to an Escapade is like attending a concentrated five-day college course on RVing.

P - Stands for Parking
One thing that makes the Escapees RV Club different from other RV clubs is that it offers members places to park. In addition to home-base benefits for those who join an SKP Co-Op or Rainbow Park, all Escapees members may use short-term parking at Escapees parks. This includes Rainbow's End campground, located at the international headquarters in Livingston, Texas. Members also have overnight parking opportunities with other Escapees members across the country.

Escapees also has a state of the art mail forwarding service. We have all of our mail now sent to our own personal address here at the Headquarters. We now officially "live" on Rainbow Drive. Has a nice ring to it doesn't it?

As stated earlier, we joined about a dozen others for the tour. I had a card giving the names of our tour guides but darn if I can find it now. Take my word for it, they knew all the answers to the questions and were most informative.

Our tour guides.

After a talk about how Escapees started it was time to go to the mail center. This was just amazing!

Each green folder is someones "home".

This office processes between 20 and 25 THOUSAND pieces of mail every day! When we are ready for a mail delivery we'll call or email the office and tell them where we are and when to send it. If we are to be stationery for a period of time then we'll set up an automatic delivery of every two weeks.

This young lady has her hand on our mailbox.

The tour was very interesting and we're glad we took it.

You may have noticed that sometimes our 5th wheel is referred to as our "house on wheels". Here's something that truly reflects that term.

After finishing up at Escapee's Headquarters we went into the city of Livingston to get our truck and rig registered and to get driver's licenses. This was a wasted trip as I didn't have my original Social Security Card with me. You can't be processed for a license without it and you can't get a driver's license without FIRST registering a vehicle. What does a 16 year old do? So we'll have to come back again and do this. It's not like we don't have the time!

Back at the hotel a call was put into the body shop to try to get a time line for picking up the rig. So far they have one side taped. We have big and swirling graphics on the each side of the 5th wheel and they have to be painstakingly taped so as not to get sanded or painted. Time consuming to say the least. Of course they are closed for the weekend so now we are looking at Monday for finishing up the taping, Tuesday for sanding and Wednesday for painting. Hopefully we can pick it up Wednesday or Thursday at the latest we are told.

We are so tired of looking at these four walls! We have to get out of here. We decided to go to Houston for the weekend. We'll get a hotel room, at least it will be different four walls to look at, and we'll see what Houston has to offer.

Around 9pm I remembered that our friend Jackie had called us a week or so before to let me know she had heard on the radio that Jimmy Buffett was going to be in town. Hmmmm....I wonder what EBAY has to offer in the way of tickets at this late date.

I was surprised to find several auctions that had great seats. I watched one pair that was to auction off at just a little after 11pm. I lost that one by $12.50. The next auction that I was interested in wasn't going off until one in the morning. Great seats, 39 rows from the stage on the floor. These tickets were originally sold for $126.00 each and the starting bid for the pair was $100.00. To pass the time I played Scrabble and Spider Solitaire trying desperately to stay awake. I waited until the last 30 seconds to put in the bid and I was very glad to find out that no one was bidding against me. I won the auction!