¶ Road Trip Journal Discoveries
We are so glad to be back together again with you and Andrew and myself , and sitting talking about trips , going places , what God has in store for us as we set out on an adventure . So we are going to leave today from well , no , from Boston , I think , today for a while . I'm so welcome to the next episode .
We are on Boston , absolutely we are in Boston . It's day 32 .
It's a significant day also because Andrew just revealed to me that he has run out of the stuff that he's typed , and so now we are straight from the OG Journal . There it is .
Yeah , If you're watching on YouTube which we never have ever posted to YouTube before . But , it would be crazy if you were . So . If in the next couple of days we decide to figure that out , then you could see that I'm holding up the original journal , the original , which I keep in a one gallon freezer baggie just to keep it safe .
I don't know .
Like I just have this fear that I'm going to get it wet , and so I keep it in a baggie . I have a journal .
It's very precious . It's very precious , which I think is . Is it that Let me see ? Hold on Second oh .
I think it's for good podcasting when somebody completely walks away . Oh he's so . Oh , you have the cousin to it .
I think this is the gas price journal .
I was wondering , I , because I thought I had that and it's not in mine . So because I do remember that my my mom , I think bought us like it was a two pack of journals .
So mine's got like this abstract or holding them up to the camera .
Yeah , Yours is a , yours is a lighthouse at sunset and mine is sort of a shrimp and boat , but like oil painting , yeah .
So we obviously . We obviously had a great plan that we didn't follow through on , which is a bummer because , oh man , I know I didn't even realize we did this , but the first page of the journal that I have in my office is Emily how , saying it was fantastic meeting you guys and wandering Walmart . Have a wonderful trip , take care .
Oh , that is such a good idea .
What a great idea . And her phone number . Oh , my goodness , I we should call it .
I don't know right now , that would be funny Emily .
How are you ? You wrote in our journal you shouldn't set that out . I'll probably have to edit that . Maybe I'll cut that . Everyone's like what .
Oh boy . Oh boy .
We also have guests , emily , everyone . When this blows up , emily , how is going to be like ?
Whoa , there's so many messages . Was that somebody we met at Walmart ? It must have been In Utah or something it must have been .
Then we have gas prices Cool All the way . And what surprises . We didn't fill up as many times as you think we would have . And we have town names that we liked , best town names . We also did this for a very short time because there are a lot about New York or Massachusetts , oh , interesting . So See , do you want them ? Of course I want them .
Okay , everyone . Best town names discovered on the trip . Remember , we are 22 and 23 years old at this time . So these were the ones we enjoyed . Who's sick , new York ? Who's sick ? Then , of course , ta-na-wanda . Yeah , I think this is Stoneham , stoneham , massachusetts . These are not the way you pronounce them A-S-S-A-W-O-M-A-N , a-s-s-a-w-o-m-a-n .
That can't be right . I want to know how that name I'm sure it's an Indian name , but I'd like to think that it was something else irritated with familiar social districts which I think we were very confused about because there's all sorts of different sets but middle sex is like a different thing Brain tree Massachusetts . Then of course , dumb fries Virginia .
Dumb fries Virginia . Inner course Pennsylvania , which is on any list Mango , mango , hick Virginia .
Wait , did you like hiccup and say that twice ? Or is it really mango mango hick ?
No , I'm sorry , yeah , mango hick . It could be margo hick , but I'm guessing it's a mango hick . And then the Florida town that is in my hand writing the rest are yours . This is probably one night and then we later went oh right , let's write down this list Chattahoochee , Florida , yeah , Chattahoochee . Chattahoochee .
Those are fun . I don't care .
They make you Chattahoochee .
There's a street name here in Orange . You know it quite well . We used to live off of the street and every time I see it , I just think it makes me chuckle . Yeah , I'm like who would name a street Meats ? And every time I see it , I think various Meats and Cheeses .
Well , and it's also not spelled like two streets Meats , right , that would kind of make sense M-E-E-T-S , but it's like Meats , meats , m-e-a-t-s . I hope there was a butcher maybe on that street at one point , or a deli right Back in the day Could be , but there probably wasn't . Meats , meats , so good names .
All the other streets had to do with citrus and they're like well , this is where you get your Meats , so we're going to call it Meats Street . This is as far as citrus goes .
Meats now I do love . When you see that Ruby Pearl Diamond , you're like what happened ? You had a theme going and then you just jumped ship .
Yeah , and I like wow , they were really adamant about Asahawaga .
So we weren't going to drown that hill . We bought the property from them , so this is something that just happened .
Yes , Okay , I understand .
Yeah , okay . So , rapidsernal , you have your shift . Monical theme . I have a lighthouse , yep , and I need to edit out Emily House phone number , so we'll just remember to do that . So when early in the episode when you heard just a quick blank space , it's because I took out a couple of numbers .
So maybe we don't .
Maybe we don't edit out .
I don't know , maybe we should .
Anyways , I'll let you decide . I do think we should call her , though we met you .
Hey , do you remember ? Oh I , what if she did ? She's like , I think about you every day .
I thought , I thought for that day and I thought I wonder if their trip was good .
And now she could know yeah , so shall we get going here . So it is an interesting day . We kind of talked about it in the last episode that we connected with the Seafarers mission , so let's get into it . Yeah , yeah , day 32 .
I think about this place regularly and I think some of the . Yeah , I'm curious what we wrote down , because I have some memories too , so let's go .
Yeah , so I'm just wishing everybody since I'm reading directly from my handwriting could be a little bit rougher than usual today . I make no promises or guarantees of quality . Here we go .
¶ Seafarers Mission
Today we woke up early to try and get into Boston early enough to get to the New England Seafarers mission by 9 am . We ran into a few problems like not being able to find the train station . You seem to have that problem a lot .
Yeah , don't we , we are not , no , no .
But we got there around 9.30 . Since I promised to tell you what the NESM was about yesterday , here it is . They have a place set up where the workers on the cruise ships and commercial ships can come to use the internet , call home , wire money and buy little supplies to get them through their time at sea .
These people are from all over the world and they are away from their families for 10 months at a time . They do this because the money is enough to buy a house in their country after a 10-month term . Conditions are very poor and the treatment they receive from employers is terrible . They are disposable . One screw up and they are gone .
So the New England Seafarers mission is there for those guys . They help make sure the Seafarers are being treated right and that they are getting their needs met . No-transcript .
Yeah , it's got . It was incredible . It was a really neat like place that we I hadn't considered . But all the cruise ship employees , the oil tankers , the bid shipping containers , the crews , like where , where do they come from ? Well , four countries , how they treated usually not very well and so they did , advocating for them .
But also just things like wiring money home . It was before phones were possible to email , so computers were there , so they had to use computer to email .
They had all these like foods from different parts of the world that they would miss their like home food and so remember , they had , like you know , different types of what's a cup of noodles , but , like in different countries , like different things , oh yeah , water or tri , and it's like such a cool idea to just give these people some love .
And do you remember the ? The story that I tell and think about is they told us a story that a group of people working on an oil tanker came in and they were talking to the seafarers mission and the oil tanker people . The workers said there is a large hole in the front of our boat . Do you remember the story ?
no , I don't think so there's a large hole in the front of our boat , but our boat is so old that the company would rather the boat sink and collect the insurance money then fits the hole . Oh my gosh , and we , we as the crew don't think this is a great plan , right ? Oh my gosh , can't say anything to the Coast Guard or anybody is .
If we do , we will be blackball , like you said . Never work again , so like our families won't have what they need because we won't work . But also being in the middle of the ocean with a like ship that you know is not safe is not a great idea either .
So they told us a seafarers mission , and the seafarers mission then reported it to the Coast Guard and the Coast Guard did just a random inspection and found a hole and then they said , okay , this , the ship can't leave port until you fix this problem .
And so it was even like things like that , right , where you're advocating for somebody who doesn't have a voice because I thought that was a great term disposable and so that that story to me was just always wow , what a , what a crazy thing to go .
Yep , we would rather lose 10 lives and , yeah , maybe pay their family some money for being lost at sea , but that will then , you know , with the insurance money from the ship anyway . So better for us .
Whoa go corporate go corporate America is Blake , yeah , dark yeah but I mean , I don't think we want to know how many times that's just the way right , not just in shipping but in like bottom line baby yeah , you peel that back and you get into some dark , dark stuff . I'm just hard dark stuff and some dark , dark things .
Capitalism has brought about a lot of good , but also , like , there's the dark side . So , yeah , it was a really , it was a really cool place to serve , I mean , I remember yeah , it was eye-opening I've never seen . I'm sorry I cut you off here but I remember serving I think we stocking shelves and working like a computer counter .
Yeah , I want to say , we did like a cash register for a while and sold things and just worked in their store and yeah , that's , that's wild too right , you know , it's just like you're willing just here work at cash , do anything yeah so that was just .
That was a revive .
Yeah , yeah , and it takes . It takes that I actually have a niece right now who's serving on a ship , and I won't give details in case it's not okay . Sensitive information .
I don't know , but like Emily , the house phone number yeah , I'm not gonna do that yeah probably shouldn't have mentioned the seafarers name that they ratted out that shipping company . I don't think . I mean , this has been 25 years now , so I doubt that that's the case yeah , but any , anyhow , the .
I don't know if there's a parallel , but just thinking of her being on that ship in different ports and how they go to different ports and how the experience is very different in these , these countries , and there it's a mission that she works with where they actually bring literature , books of all kinds to these nations and areas where they they otherwise wouldn't
be able to get them . Very cool thing . So , anyhow , yeah , cool , cool thing . So I wrote it's a very no . Actually . Let me back up a little bit here . It's got . I worked on the first floor from 930 to 4 , yeah , so I do get into a little bit where we of what we did . So we worked on the first floor from 930 to 4 pm .
The first floor is where internet and phone services are , as well as bulk food items like ramen , noodles and water . Basically , we ran the cash register 10 cents a minute internet , so cheap internet phone calls , $12 for a case of 12 noodle packs , etc .
So I think the idea here was you know that people could not only buy things , but they could get it cheaply , right ?
um , yeah , well , it doesn't have a weird time to think about the fact that nowadays they all have a phone . Yeah right , so they would be able to stay in touch . They didn't need a wireless spot , but they wouldn't need the computer . But then we needed the computer to write the email to your family yeah , yeah .
So it's a very interesting experience . People literally from all over the world came through there Hungary , mexico , germany , india , south Africa . The other thing offered to the seafarers was Bibles of in many different languages . Sundays there is a service held on the fourth deck by pastor Steve .
We got to work with a fellow by the name of Michael , who was a very eccentric person , to put it mildly . He was the type who laughs at his own jokes , where the laughs starts at a silent to a much louder version of the same manner . Very odd guy . Okay , I don't remember this guy , I don't know , but that's fun .
So , yeah , that that's about all I wrote about the seafarers mission .
We should look at us , one here in Long Beach and such a big port like they're just everywhere , I'm sure but that whole idea of like life at sea , what a crazy world to live in , you know , just to work these boats . And dangerous jobs . I'm sure , I'm sure they're dangerous jobs .
I'm just looking it up now yeah so there , new England seafarers mission . Oh yeah , pastor Steve , still Okay . Maritime Ministry since 1880 . Wow , providing hope and advocacy for seafarers from around the world . Wow , dang , 1880 . That's awesome . Yeah , if you're listening , go check it out . Read what they do .
It is necfarersorg or just Google New England Seafarers Mission . You'll find it Super easy to find .
So there is a seafarers center of Long Beach as well , and then there's the Mission to Seafarers Los Angeles . So , yeah , cool yeah .
They have a 192 ship visits scheduled for this year 192 . Wow .
I also think a big takeaway for me from this was just realizing the number of opportunities there are to serve people , because that I would never have thought of a person who works on a cruise ship as somebody who has all of these needs .
And once you pause and start thinking about it , like , yeah , they don't have food they're used to , they don't have access to , in those days , email easily , they want to get money home , so that all of these things are like , once you pause and consider it , but we just don't . I guess is what it comes down to .
We just kind of like we are so zoned in on our own way of thinking or our own life and our own problems and things that we deal with . It's like , yeah , that whole group of people need someone to be an advocate forum .
That group of people need somebody who is trying to get as silly , silly in air quotes as it is like the food they like that stuff matters . Yeah , that's important , that makes your trip a little bit better and gives you dignity and worth and value . So , just a place to go .
There are so many ways to serve and so wherever you're called , whatever group of people you're called , to go that direction but know that there's ways to serve them . And so that , to me , was one of those times where , like , whoa , this exists , yeah , cool .
Yeah , I wonder how we've found that . I mean , I know we've talked about we would go and look up stuff in the yellow pages or print something out from yellowpagescom or whatever . But yeah , usually the search term is church , right , right . So how did it come up ? That's a great point .
I wonder if someone said in front of us somehow or whatever , yeah , that's a great point . I don't know .
I have no- . Maybe we just typed in mission , maybe that's it . We probably looked at church and mission and charity and stuff like that .
Well , I know we had a really hard time in Boston , and that's one of the things I remember is that finding churches who were willing to partner with us was difficult . And so , yeah , maybe after doing churches and being shut out enough , I typed in mission and I'm like , okay , well , maybe a mission organization wants our help .
They're always looking for somebody to stop by and do something .
Yeah , yeah . So hey , here's a quick takeaway just do a search for missions in your area . You might be surprised what you find , and they desperately need people to help .
I know my wife has done a couple things with a group that I think provides clothing to women for job interviews to kind of get them back on their feet after difficult times , and there's all kinds of different things .
Obviously we hear of soup kitchens and things like that , but there's stuff all around us that can open our world up into what other people are dealing with and we can help with that .
And just needs a little bit of help and some time , and your time is so important . So that was a very cool thing to stumble upon and really eye opening in so many ways .
Yeah , I feel like we're one step away from opening up the phone lines to receive your donations now .
Hey , if you have some money to donate , donate to New England Seafarers Mission there you go . I'm sure there's a donate button there . There you go we . Well , it was a great thing . And the value ? Again , just back to the value of people it's so easy to overlook people because we're so focused on our own stuff .
So I think to realize the people who you're walking by , they have a story , they have something that they need , and it's not always , as it's not always seen , and so to be able to step into that gap is a very cool thing , and so that was definitely one of those moments where I feel like we were both like oh , this is cool .
Yeah , yeah , well , so good day for us , and now we head back to our RV . So after our day of work , we rode the train back out of the city to Quincy , massachusetts , where we had parked Our house . Batteries just weren't cutting it anymore , so we decided to have them checked out .
Now , for those of you who don't know RV lingo , the house is sort of referred to as the part that you live in versus the ban front right .
So you've got your normal car battery to run your motor but you've also got separate batteries that do get charged from the motor , right , but they are bigger batteries meant to power your lights and things like that when you're not plugged into power and like all of those things .
Yeah , yeah .
And your refrigerator usually runs off of propane but that can switch back and forth between electricity and propane . So anyway , our house batteries like we would drive all day and then the lights would kind of die early . So we're like , oh , these might be going bad . So we took them out to an auto zone and we had one checked and it was bad .
So we decided to buy two more six volt batteries instead of one huge 12 volts . So that's another thing . You can actually buy six volt batteries and wire them together Right , kind of one giant battery .
I'm surprised they had space for that , but that's cool .
Yeah , they are red . Yeah . Yeah , I must have been a box or something that we put them in . They were supposed to be charged , but guess what ? They were dead . So we needed to plug in . So , instead of Walmart again , we figured this would be a good time to stay at a campground .
¶ New England Road Trip Memories
Oh , this is a this is a this is a start of a big day , but not a big day , that's interesting . It's the smallest day .
It's a day . It's a day that we have to decide whether that's a cliffhanger for next episode or do we keep it going .
Yeah , so what day is this ? What did I say ?
Today is October 29th , oh yes , yes , october 30th ends up being an important day for Andrew Gehr . Oh , man , the .
I also remember and I don't know if this is written down in this part or we were going out I think it was this day leaving the Boston Seafarers mission and you and I are not train riders and we just sat on the train kind of at the beginning and slowly filled up and eventually it was pretty full .
But you and I were just zoned out , you know , we were just like , because we're just like cruising . It's been 20 , 30 , 40 minutes , we are totally not aware of what's going on , and I believe it's a woman to the side of one of us .
The train is pretty full and in a huff she kind of stands up and makes room for a obviously very pregnant woman who is standing right in front of us and lets her sit down and you and I both become aware whether it be because of her , like the person who stood up like looking at us or saying something is Boston , who knows . And we're just like .
We felt like the biggest jerks in the world because we were totally unaware , just zoned out , like train , train , train , and then we were and she just stood up and went oh , we should have been those guys and we were not . Oh .
I feel like , or I seem to remember I was holding a box with a dozen donuts .
So maybe it wasn't this time .
No , I think it was . I was sitting there with a box of donuts and I think it got super awkward because it was like I should stand up . But if I do , I don't know what would happen with the donuts and , like Duncan , don't just they're ?
everywhere in Boston . Yeah right , impossible to miss what we I try these things Does there ever . And then we just let it roll . Oh yeah , oh that was .
I vividly remember that , yes , shame .
Shame , shame . That point is too late .
Yeah , you have to do it right away . Oh you're , you're just getting here . Please take my seat Now .
it's like oh no , no , it's , I'm my seat .
Yeah , I'm guilty . It's like I don't want your seat , you jerk . Yeah , yeah , that's bad . Thanks for bringing that back up .
I know it's one of those moments , though .
So this is this is the first time that we stayed in a campground , this is the first time that we paid .
well aside from just the other night , where we did pay .
Yeah , you're right , the only time I think we ever end up staying again . Yeah true , yeah , so you would think this would be easy . Oh , we'll just get a campground right . So listen to this . We decided to stay at a campground , so we found one that hadn't yet closed for the season . Because , guess what ?
This is not a thing that we've ever dealt with but campgrounds actually closed for the season in New England because nobody wants to camp when it's snowy outside . Nope , they don't , but we were too young to stay there .
Oh , it was one of those old ones . They don't want riff-raff .
They don't want the riff-raff , the party animals .
They don't want us banging our pots and smoking our pipes .
Yeah , like an old person I said I can't believe it . It was an adult-only campground , apparently they weren't adults in their eyes . They don't let anyone younger than 25 in . It's hard being discriminated against .
We eventually found another campground about an hour north of our location in a small fishing town called Gloucester spelled Gloucester , but it's pronounced Gloucester . That gave us electricity , level ground and a place to dump . What more could we want for $28 a night , hey ?
that's a bargain . That is a bargain . I really thought we stayed in Salem , but we didn't . We stayed in Gloucester , gloucester .
I think Gloucester , or Gloucester is close to Salem , and I do think we talk about that in another day . I think we'd go there or something . Yeah , I'm glad , like I said , it was an hour north . But I have a little figurine somewhere that I'm pretty sure we bought there . Really , it's like a little wooden-carved fisherman guy . I love it . I love it .
I still have it displayed somewhere though I'm looking around . No , I don't see it .
I'm not here . My kids took it , those kids . I think it's on a shelf downstairs .
But yeah , it was like a cool New England fishing town . It was cool , yeah , like a very cool New England place to be , especially after dealing with Boston for a couple of days .
Driving Boston bumping Pepsi truck mirrors yeah , not in people . Look , we're having pregnant ladies and other ladies , upset at us , we're not built for this East Coast life . What do you mean ? It snows , oh no . What do you mean ? You're closed for the season . Close for the season . What do you mean ?
You don't take 22-year-old in your 25-year-old above campground ?
Yeah , I'm like who's going to complain ?
We just showed up , more like they say how old are you ? We go , 25 . Prove it . How did that even come up ? It had to have come up in some way , because they probably saw the youth in your voice . Well , let's be honest , I was doing the call-in . They probably saw the youth in my voice , hey , but Scott , you were new .
I mean one thing about you when you were 16 . I've been the same . I know it's been the same Right , people would come to pick up their children from your house who were there to be with you .
because they were your friends . They're like oh , hello .
Mr Hawkins Is my son . Here I'm .
Scott , I'm the friend . Yeah , I don't know how it came up , but that's a great point . We had to find our blaster place and charge those batteries .
Yes , we did , and we did , and they were great ever since .
I do remember there being a low-level anxiety about the batteries because it didn't drive enough and we were surprised how quickly they'd die after we drove all day . We're like that was like eight hours , 10 hours of driving . How come with the lights ? Yeah , that was surprising .
Indeed , but we got it solved . We solved the problem . When faced with a challenge , you faced the challenge . That doesn't sound , that's not quite right , but it's really a stupid thing to say it's something Well anyway that was a good day , a really good day .
We got to serve , genuinely serve , all day long , experience something brand new that we had never even considered in our lives before .
Absolutely Very , very cool . This is one of those times where the purpose of us doing this to encourage people and to get people to go out and do adventurous things .
This is one of the times where we never would have known this , we never would have experienced , we never would have seen the side of the world if it wasn't for us just trying and going and saying yes . So this is a very , very practical way of the purpose for what we're doing and why we did this trip .
Absolutely , I don't want to say oh , I'm different because of that day , but definitely Windows of Knowledge opened to me because of that day .
Yeah .
Yeah true .
I mean , there definitely are certain experiences you have and it's like I will never be the same after that .
Yeah , yeah I agree , I wouldn't necessarily say this was one of them , but yeah , I was just like oh wow , I hadn't considered that before my world just got a little bit bigger , Right , but as we started the podcast with , there is yeah , my world is bigger , like that there is , in general , this trip is a pivot point for us , and so this is one of those
markings along the way of this overall thing that we did where , for instance , before road trip , after road trip , time that defined a major part of who we are today . The road trip definitely defined who we are today and defined how we do things , even things we probably don't even consider .
But because we did that 20 years ago and this was just one , a major moment in that , a major oh look , a new way to serve a new people that I hadn't considered but need to be considered , so , yeah , it was really good .
Yeah , agreed , scott Agreed . So things , things , and guess what ? What we did not sleep on a futon .
Nope , we didn't sleep on a futon , we just got our motorhome back . Yeah , always well in the world , again , always well , so everything's good
¶ Teens of the Road Announcement
. So , and tomorrow , something exciting happens and it is a day that you should really mark on your calendar . Annually , you should put this down October 30th , I should October 30th . Yep , that you shall remember , like when Emily first heard my voice .
This is a day , so on the next episode of Teens of the Road , you will discover what it is we're talking about .
Yeah , See you guys . That did change my life forever Still . Yes , it did .
See you on the flip side . Oh man , that's Wednesday . Oh yeah , oh yeah .
All right , scott Boo , you take care . Now I will , you take care .
We'll see . We'll see what happens . Got a little funky dance , I'm having a happy time .
Enjoy drinking your beverage out of your scooter mug . Boo , I will . It's just water again . That's all right . Scootery water , that's a great button . And with that , goodbye everyone , goodbye , goodbye , bye .