February 17, 2004 - Nacogdoches, TX
Well, today we got the hinge on the cupboard door under the sink fixed, a new water pump, a new window in the door, two new solenoids for the front air bags, a bunch of grout replaced in the bathroom, and maybe some other stuff I can't see. Lots of progress on the "fix-it" list of 35 items I had when we pulled in here. Mostly little stuff, and if we weren't under warrantee it's mostly stuff I'd take care of myself. But it's kinda cool to chat with other owners in the lounge while somebody else is doing the work. That and get caught up on a bunch of reading. And speaking of getting caught up, this is it. After I post these pictures of our time in Livingston, that's it. No more waiting updates to be done. First time in probably recorded history I've been all caught up with this site. Of course, with no cell service, no WiFi hotspots that are handy, I won't be able to update the site for a while. sigh. Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention. One big reason we wanted to go to Rainbow's End, the headquarters for the Escapee RV club was to test out their WiFi system to see if it was worth spending any time/money on. Was it ever! In about 30 minutes I was able to upload all those last updates. Bought the little dingus that sits on the cabinet top between the two speakers plugged into a USB port, fussed around with the software a bit, bought two days worth of time for $3 and thought we were smart. We were on the fringes of the range for the main router, so there were times when I wanted to go online and couldn't, but that's an easy problem to solve. With Flying-J truck stops all having WiFi now, and many campgrounds as well, we felt it was worth the $40 for the gadget. Of course, the ideal situation is to have the DirectWay dish that will link us to the satellite anytime we want to put it up. There is now a roof mount that is manual and is pretty good from what I've heard from people who are using the system. In one stretch of spaces in the Rainbow's End park, there were 7 of them. None with the roof mount as it's pretty new, but it was comforting to know there are so many happy customers. We're planning on going to the FMCA rally in Albuquerque this March, and if they're selling them there we'll probably bite the bullet and do it. That way the updates will be less stressful, we'll be able to make reservations online with ease, etc., etc. Yeah, I'm probably trying to justify a gadget I want, but isn't that what life is all about? Yeah, right. If you, like me, ever wondered why the Escapees RV Club headquarters is called Rainbow's End, I finally found out. When Joe and Kay Peterson started the club in the late 70's they had a mess of kids, and among them was Cathie. She grew up and knocked around fulltime for a while, and then when the club got to be more than Kay and Joe could comfortably handle by themselves, they asked Cathie and her husband Bud to step in. Cathie agreed, but only if she could pick the spot. Since she'd been a southern California girl, she wanted nothing to do with big cities, but wanted to be around pine trees. She picked the little town of Livingston TX for the location and the friendliness of the people of Texas (which seems to be true from our perspective as well). Over the years she'd been through a variety of RV's and they'd been named Rainbow I, Rainbow II, etc. Since she was going to be giving up the wandering lifestyle, she figured that this location would be Rainbow's End. Turned out she's still RV'ing a bit, but the name stuck anyway.
There's about 100 acres to the Livingston property (this place where thousands like us have an address). Many "lots" that are owned by members, and a bunch of "sites" for those of us passing through, and then the building complex that houses the admin offices and the mail facility. Tour days are Tuesdays and Thursdays. Cindy is the receptionist, and her grin makes us feel welcome. Then inside it's easy to see it's valentine time. On the counter by Cindy you see that little house? It's the Habitat For Humanity "bank." You can buy a brick, or a window, or door, or shingle, and the donation will go toward the Escapees HFH house.
And here is one room of folders containing mail for some of the over 10,000 people who use the Escapees mail forwarding service. There were three such rooms. And behind the glass by Barb are the people who answer the phone when we call the 800 number and ask for our mail to be sent to us.
The woman standing up is the computer system guru, and the woman with her back to us is responsible for taking our e-mail requests for mail forwarding. The people sorting mail are responsible for figuring out which "mailbox" the incorrectly addressed mail goes into.
We're in the second of the three rooms full of folders, and there's our "home"! We're #15090. I was a bit nervous about pushing the folders around to make ours stand out for the picture so I didn't. But there we are anyway. And under the trays holding the folders are some of the packages that don't fit in the folder.
The yellow buckets have packages in them that have been unloaded from the truck, and are being sorted. This huge machine sorts the envelops, and it really does it fast. Really fast! Even the town of Livingston doesn't have one of these fancy $350,000 machines. Of course, the post office in Livingston doesn't have as many customers as the Escapees does. Escapees even has its own ZIP code because of the number of customers.
The envelopes come flying into this box and then are sent through one of the three chutes and into these bins. And when it's not jamming, the letters go through the process almost quicker than you can watch them.
The employees like this young lady running that machine all seem to act like they're real happy to be here and enjoy what they're doing. When we asked about turnover, we were told that except for the most basic entry level positions, most people here have been around for quite a while. And that's Cathie Carr, the CEO of Escapees with Barb. Cathie is about 4 inches taller than Kay, her mom, but is just as animated and active as Kay. We have a shot of Kay and Barb like this that we took at the Escapade in San Bernardino, CA, a few years ago.
Kay originally sent a newsletter to a bunch of friends, and as the club grew the newsletter grew into this (this lady was giving us tourists some history of the Club). Sure different than the wonderful magazine Escapees puts out today, eh?
And that's it! All caught up! No pictures in the camera, none in the computer waiting to be played with, and no more stories to tell. Until tomorrow, of course!