Roads From the Ashes

by Megan Edwards

  People lives at the top of the Time-Life Building in midtown Manhattan, an area notoriously short on parking spaces. In order to keep our appointment, we parked the Phoenix One in Pleasantville and rode a commuter train into the city. My sister lives in Pleasantville, and we left the Phoenix filling her driveway. As we left, we mentioned that we’d searched everywhere, but so far we hadn’t been able to discover a place to empty our holding tanks. “Don’t worry,” said Libby. “I’ll make some phone calls.”

  When we returned from our pilgrimage to the Time-Life Building, Libby had exercised her considerable talent for uncovering esoteric information. She had discovered an establishment that most residents of greater New York will never have the need to know about, much less visit. She had learned the whereabouts of the Hawthorne Receiving Manhole, a public doorway to the sewers of Westchester County. “And you can use it for free,” she said triumphantly.

  Life in a motorhome in New York City is a study in contrast. Within two hours, we’d traveled from glamor to squalor, from People magazine’s lofty aeries overlooking Radio City Music Hall to a public sewer.

  “I can’t figure out why this thing is called a manhole,” commented Mark as he wrestled once again with a recalcitrant hose. “No man in his right mind would go down there.”

  The editors of People decided that RoadTrip America was their kind of story. They’d like to photograph us in a rural setting, they said, a backdrop suggesting autumn on the open road. It was the end of November, and the leaves were falling as fast as the temperatures.

  “I don’t know if there’s any left,” said Libby when we told her we needed fall color, “But there’s only one good way to find out.” We piled into her car, and two hours later, we’d found three trees that weren’t yet bare and a roadside apple stand. They all looked good to us, and we figured we’d spend a couple of hours with the photographer.

  We couldn’t have been more inaccurate in our prediction, and I now look at the photographs in People with new eyes. We spent two full days with Peter and his assistant. He shot fifty rolls of film. By the time Peter’s shutter closed for the last time, Marvin was ready to bite him, and Mark would have cheered if he had. My face was frozen into a smile, and my nose was numb. Nonetheless, we all look smashing in the picture that appeared the first week of December, 1996.

  The story in People caused our “traffic” to rise sharply and continued to fill our e-mail box with messages for months. It also illustrated perfectly what I had predicted about RoadTrip America’s shelf life as a publicity hook. The piece about us appeared in a section called “Bytes.” People discontinued “Bytes” less than a year later. Web sites had become mundane. They were no longer stories in their own right.

  By the time RoadTrip America’s media blitz drew to an end, we were back in California. We finished up with a studio interview in San Francisco with C|Net, and then we headed to Pasadena, because lo and behold, it was nearly time for the Rose Parade. Mark had been tapped to be “Barn Chief” again, and once more, the Phoenix One would enjoy an exclusive Rose Bowl address for New Year’s.

  “We’ll Go To Arizona”

  I’d never understood how an operation could be successful if the patient died, but I did after we completed a post mortem on RoadTrip America’s publicity tour. The tour had been an unqualified media success. We’d enjoyed “hits” all over the country, and we’d capped it off with a good showing in New York. RoadTrip America’s audience had expanded with each piece of coverage and, even better, had retained much of its growth. We had thousands of regular readers and countless more casual visitors every day.

  In spite of it all, we still couldn’t put a good price on banner ads, and we hadn’t hired public relations royalty and driven a five thousand-mile circuit to sell them at throw-away rates. By the time the Rose Parade had marched away down the boulevard, we knew it was time to change tacks, even though neither one of us was struck with a single notion of what to do next.

  In January, 1997, the only thing Mark and I knew for sure was that we were going to continue publishing RoadTrip America, even if we didn’t know where it would take us or how we would pay for it. More than just a Web site, RoadTrip America was a community, our community, a place we’d built and furnished and invited the world to visit. And the world had come. We had readers in Hungary, Croatia, Japan, Brunei Darussalam. We’d made friends from Oyster Bay, New York to Issaquah, Washington. The Web worked. RoadTrip America worked. Somehow we’d keep our wheels rolling. We had to. Somewhere along the highway, RoadTrip America had become inextricably intertwined with who we were and why we were on earth.

  On January 23, 1997, we had $284 in our checking account, a full tank of gas, and a refrigerator full of food.

  “What should we do?” I asked Mark for perhaps the thousandth time. I didn’t expect an answer, but this time I got one.

  “We’ll go to Arizona,” he said. Well, what the heck? There was nothing to be gained by sitting around and moping.

  “We’ve been invited to tour the 911 dispatch center in Scottsdale,” said Mark, “And we have a standing invitation to stay at Southwestern Academy, a boarding school near Sedona.”

  “I’d like to stop in Quartzsite,” I added. “It’s supposed to have the world’s largest RV encampment and swap meets that never end. It’d make a great story.”

  The two weeks we spent in Arizona were mysterious and wonderful. They were mysterious because I know we had $284 to our name when we left, and somehow we never ran out of money. I can’t explain it now, but we had enough to take two friends to dinner at an expensive restaurant. Somehow we had enough to give $100 to one of those friends, not because she asked, but because she appeared to need it. That accounts for at least $230 right there, and I know it’s utterly impossible that we lived on $54 for fourteen days, especially since we were driving, and it takes more than that to fill our gas tanks. I can’t explain it in any terms but these. It was miraculous. We passed out meager loaves, and when we gathered the scraps, we had more than when we started.

  The stories we posted on RoadTrip America during those two surprising weeks remain among our most popular. We interviewed two women who had built an Earthship, an energy-efficient home built out of old tires, and a married couple who were putting the final touches on a house made out of straw bales. We arrived in Quartzsite the day a hundred antique steam engines were up and running, and we wrote a story about Diane Hall, whose doctor father had cared for Rudolph Hess when he was a prisoner of war in England during World War II. We stayed at Southwestern Academy for nearly a week, meeting students who hailed from around the globe and enjoying the school chef’s excellent cooking. We taught classes on how to make Web pages, and I posted the students’ handiwork on RoadTrip America. Marvin swam in a pond and made friends with the seven resident dogs.

  And then, right out of the Arizona blue, something unexpected happened. The power of e-mail and the World Wide Web united to bring us a six-month contract with a major public relations firm in New York City.

  This Truck Fueled By Nicotine

  It happened like this. One day while we were staying at Southwestern Academy, we received an e-mail message from a publicist we’d met in Connecticut. He included the text of an ad he’d come across in the New York Times. Someone with a Manhattan fax number was looking for two people to drive a motorhome on a coast-to-coast publicity tour.

  My immediate thought was that such a tour was likely to be sponsored by (a) a tobacco company or (b) a beer manufacturer, and i couldn’t see myself driving around in a Marlboro truck or a Budweiser van. Since I didn’t know for sure, I pursued the lead and soon discovered that the fax number belonged to a major public relations firm, a competitor of the one that had handled our tour. A little more sleuthing uncovered some names, and before too many days had passed, we were in serious conversations with a publicity team launching a twenty-city media tour to showcase products designed to h
elp people quit smoking: Nicorette gum and NicoDerm CQ patches. The tour’s other sponsor was the American Cancer Society, and the vehicle was a 34- foot Airstream Class “A” motorhome dubbed the NicoVan.

  On February 7, after negotiation by e-mail, fax and telephone, we signed a contract with the public relations firm. Although at first we had planned to fly to New York City for a face-to-face meeting, RoadTrip America’s presence on the Web offered enough in the way of introduction that we concluded our conversations without a personal interview.

  It was fortunate we didn’t have to take the time for a cross-country plane trip. The NicoVan was set to hit the road in San Francisco in less than two weeks, and we had work to do in the meantime. We had to drive to northern California, find a place to store the Phoenix One, and metamorphose ourselves into spokespersons for smoking cessation, which isn’t quite anti-tobacco, but in the politically charged atmosphere of the day, we needed to be able to explain the difference.

  By February 19, the Phoenix had been rusticated at a storage facility for racing boats in San Jose. Before Mark drove her there and returned by commuter train, we’d pulled her next to the NicoVan, which was parked at the Sunnyvale firm that was applying its graphics. We’d had about three hours to move our belongings from one vehicle to the other. We had to move fast, and in the rush, neither of us gave a thought to Marvin. He was sitting in the front seat of the Phoenix as we worked, his usual spot when we were stationary. It wasn’t until we were almost finished that I noticed Marvin sitting in the front seat of the NicoVan. When the center of gravity had shifted to the new vehicle, so had the dog.

  By the time Mark had rushed off in the Phoenix to get to the storage yard before it closed, I was standing in a heap of bedding, clothes, kitchen utensils, tools, computers, printers and assorted office equipment. It was a surprisingly large array for people who claimed to practice minimalism, I thought, but I set about stashing it all in the NicoVan’s cabinets and cupboards.

  When Mark returned hours later from an exciting adventure in public transportation that had included an unintentional detour through a restricted military installation, I was pleased that I’d been able to find homes for most of our belongings. I had also come to the realization that while the Phoenix One lacked amenities that the NicoVan had in abundance, like window treatments and throw pillows and mirrored cabinets, it had been uniquely wonderful in having an office. “I did fine with kitchen stuff and clothes,” I said to Mark when he finally returned. “But I have no idea where to put the fax machine.”

  Together with the computers and printers, the fax machine rode under the galley table for three days. On the fourth day, I discovered by accident that the mattress of the queen-sized bed in the back room rested on a hinged plywood platform. Lifted, it exposed a shallow storage cabinet as big as the bed. That unlikely space immediately became our office. When we needed to work, we took the equipment out from under the bed and set it up on the galley table, the kitchen counter, and, when both Mark and I needed to work at the same time, a separate folding table. It worked, but it underscored the fact that recreational vehicles are aptly named. They’re great for playing cards and watching television, but without major remodeling, they’re difficult places to get anything done.

  Of course, our work for the NicoVan project took place largely outdoors. When we reached an event location, anything from a supermarket parking lot to a county fair, we’d unfurl an awning and set up four tables upon which we’d display free literature about the dangers of smoking, how to stop, and how to use Nicorette gum and NicoDermCQ.patches. We’d be joined by pharmacists, sales representatives, and American Cancer Society volunteers. If our publicists were successful, we’d attract television crews and newspaper reporters, and no matter what, we’d attract a stream of people who smoked, or people who wished someone they knew would quit.

  Our first big event was Chinese New Year’s in San Francisco. We parked on Grant Avenue, where a million people muster every year for a festival and a parade featuring a hundred-foot dragon and non-stop firecrackers. Since the event lasted for two days, we had the pleasure and privilege of sleeping in the Nico- Van in the heart of Chinatown on Chinese New Year’s Eve.

  We slept for exactly one hour. At the stroke of midnight, a cherry bomb exploded directly beneath us. We all screamed, even Marvin, and that was the end of slumber time. The bomb had exploded right next to the gas tank, and we weren’t taking any more chances. We added “security guard” to our list of NicoVan responsibilities, and we dubbed our debut “Baptism by Firecracker.”

  Most venues were tamer than Grant Avenue on New Year’s, of course, and within a month, Mark and I were seasoned veterans at conducting events. From San Francisco, we headed south to Los Angeles, and then began a long trek east by way of Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, and Atlanta. The pace was familiar, and we knew where all the truck washes were. Our own publicity tour had been the perfect apprenticeship.

  A discovery we’d made while living aboard the Phoenix One was that an open door was the only kind worth having. It didn’t make sense, we reasoned, to drive an intentionally intriguing vehicle without being willing to answer questions and give tours. If someone knocked on our door or stopped us in a parking lot, we always invited them inside. We always took the time to chat. In two years, we’d entertained visitors of every color, background, size and income bracket. Children, church goers, Girl Scouts, factory workers, university students, garage mechanics, hamburger chefs, golfers, pilots, cowboys, parking lot attendants, traffic cops, homeless people and beauty queens had all climbed up the steps and come inside to visit. What had seemed as though it would be a gross invasion of privacy had exactly the opposite effect. Somehow, the less we defended our turf, and the more we made strangers our welcomed guests, the less we felt invaded, and the more we felt at home no matter where we roamed.

  The same policy worked well with the NicoVan. People didn’t want tours, but they did want information. We talked to toll takers and gas station attendants, waitresses and traffic cops. Truckers would call us by CB radio as we rolled down the highway, and we’d pull over and give them information at the next truck stop. I’d never smoked, but I quickly came to respect the power of tobacco addiction, and how important it was to support the efforts of anyone determined to conquer it. Mark had smoked briefly when he’d served as a firefighter for the Forest Service, and his own experience with quitting added understanding and credibility to his natural talent for counseling.

  Traveling in the Phoenix One, we had often struck up conversations that centered around following dreams. “If you can do this, than I can follow my own dreams of travel,” said a woman we met high in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. “You give me strength.” A year later, she sent us a postcard from Africa. She’d made the strength her own.

  I soon realized that giving up an addiction is like pursuing a dream. To be successful, it helps to gain strength from those who’ve covered analogous ground. Our metaphor was different in the NicoVan, but our message was the same. You can get where you want to go. Take the first step. Ask for help when you need it. Believe. It’s the recipe for gaining your heart’s desire, whatever in the world that might be. It was the same recipe that had kept us on the road for over four years.

  And what was happening with RoadTrip America all this time? Our online community was alive and well. We redesigned the site, and we posted new features weekly. RoadTrip America flourished as the NicoVan progressed, and we continued publishing a print newsletter called RoadTrip Report, the descendant of the Phoenix One Journal. The newsletter’s mailing list had grown to over a thousand and included subscribers from around the world.

  Out of the Twister, Into the Fire

  Life aboard the NicoVan became routine, but it was never boring. The publicity firm in New York worked constantly to secure press coverage, and we put our freshly honed media skills to work fielding radio interviews by telephone and se
tting up the NicoVan’s display in the parking lots of television studios.

  In Deerborn on the second of July, we were running a standard gig in front of a supermarket. Mark was talking to a man in a business suit, but otherwise the parking lot was deserted. A thunderstorm was threatening, and, except for the three of us, everyone had taken cover inside cars and buildings.

  Suddenly, a siren blared with a loud, undulating scream.

  “What’s that?” asked the man to whom Mark was speaking.

  “It’s a tornado warning,” said Mark, an avid weather watcher who knows such things even though he’s never lived in twister land. “But don’t you know? You live here.”

  “I’ve never heard that thing in my life,” said the man, eyes wide. Come to think of it, I’d never heard of tornadoes hitting Detroit, either. Didn’t funnel clouds stick to Kansas and Oklahoma? Just then, the store manager burst through the doors, screaming at a bag boy who had just emerged.

  “Get inside!” he bellowed. The man in the suit scurried to his car. Mark and I watched in amazement as half a dozen shopping carts began circling the parking lot on their own. Without saying a word to each other, we packed up our displays in record time. The sky had turned a strange khaki color, and the siren was still screaming as we pulled out of the parking lot.

  The sky was lighter to the east, and, lacking any other information about which way to go, we decided it was as good a direction to head as any. The streets were deserted except for one pickup truck with New York license plates that was directly in front of us and moving at a snail’s pace. Just as I was ready to jump out and tell the driver to sight see elsewhere, the truck turned and we picked up speed.

  But so did the wind. It grew horrifyingly fierce, engulfing us in a vortex of whirling debris, leaves and branches at first, and then street signs, shingles, trash cans, slats from bus stop benches. An unspoken question hung between us. Should we park the van and run, or should we keep driving?