Flxible

October 12, 2023 – Day 14

After a few hours of sleep we woke up tired and groggy. Caffeinated liquids were the first business of the day. They didn’t help. We decided that we’d visit the RV museum, come back, probably catch up on the blog, maybe nap.

After a bit of doing nothing we realized we should go to the museum. The winds were picking up and it would be getting even worse as the day rolled on. Driving the Jeep on what these Texans call roads could be a handful.

The Jack Sizemore’s RV Museum (& Storage) was easy to find especially since we had been there yesterday. As it turns out, it’s also the home of the Amarillo Racing Museum. There were all sorts of oval track cars there. Up on the wall were soap box derby cars that Jack bought from an estate sale when the collector died.

There were a lot of RVs showing a mishmash of RV history. It wasn’t comprehensive. It felt like someone sold Jack an old piece of “history” which he then stored and eventually restored it. Ok, there are some exceptions to that, for sure, and we’ll try and cover them.

But first, one had a built in blender!

We honestly don’t know which one had the blender.

There was an early FMC, not a GMC, an FMC. And curiously, neither of got an outside picture of the FMC. That’s especially curious since Paul thought it was the only one worth camping in. But Susan was caught trying to drive it away. Follow the link above, you’ll see one and you’ll learn that FMC’s could burn you poo! Jack’s signs didn’t tell us that.

Next up was the first Itasca ever built, serial number 1. Inside was pure 70s decor. We felt like the Brady Bunch were going to stop by and say “Hi.”

Did you notice the tiny RV in the background? It is a doghouse!

They even had Wally Byam’s travel trailer. He was the founder of Airstream.

Paul particularly liked the interior of this trailer.

The crown jewel of the collection was the Gornike’s bus from the movie RV. This was the actual bus used by the fictitious Gornike family in the movie which starred Robin William’s. It was a 1948 Flxible passenger bus that was modified to become an RV for the movie. The “proper” term for these conversions is skoolie. Some of you may know that at one time we had toyed with buying an already converted skoolie. There are big pros and some really big cons to doing this.

Not all skoolies look like the Gornike bus, quite often they look like rolling graffiti-covered junk yards. This one was a true work of art though.

You’ve probably noticed by now this is a “touch” museum. You can climb in, sit in, open cabinets etc in the exhibits. This is a wonderful refreshing change from roped off exhibits you can only see from a distance. On the other hand? Well, the place smelled of dust. Not mold, or mildew, just decay. Most of the interiors were pretty grimy. Given that entry to the museum was free we can see why they don’t have the staff for cleaning. Of course we made a donation.

Next up we were off to the grocery store. When you travel you still need to eat. Therefore you are in grocery stores you’ve never heard of wandering the aisles searching for things that if you were home you would know exactly where they are. (susan here: Also, there’s “oh look what’s THAT!?) We’ve noticed that they’re all similar in that dairy is on one side and produce the other with meat in the back. But that middle part, well that’s where it gets exciting. What you’re looking for could be anywhere. This store had bread in the middle in an aisle that had canned fruits and vegetables. Huh?

The checkout line was weirder. It all looked to be self-serve but something was off. The carts were going in on the left side and there was no conveyor on the right. Only a high counter where you interacted with the cashier and paid for your goods. Turns out that the cashier removed the items from the cart, scanned them and then the bagger bagged them. Interestingly the cashier grouped items so that your tomatoes didn’t wind up with cans. Oddly, they didn’t have a cart to put the full bags in so they just piled up. We have no idea what they do if they run out of space. We got to chatting with the cashier and bagger. The bagger had seen our NH plates in the parking lot. The cashier had seen us the night before at the diner! Small town. When the groceries were bagged and paid for that bagger drove them out to our car. We’d seen the lady in front of us be treated the same way but we figured she had a need for that. Apparently this is what they do at this grocery store. Nice touch!

Then it was back to the camper for an afternoon of blogging. And wind, oh the wind! Even with the slides in we were shaking. We never did take that nap.

Susan spent some time looking for a place to stay and after much effort finally found a Harvest Host for the eclipse. It was Permian Basin Petroleum Museum in Midland, TX, not Odessa, TX as we first thought we’d end up. Tired from the past 24 hours of “excitement” dinner was had and we settled in for the evening.

Daily: 0

Total: 2,025

Moving Miles/Day: 289

Overall Miles/Day: 145