We set out for our first planned visit to a national park in 2016 with a quick trip to Jackson Center, Ohio, home of the Airstream factory. Referred to, affectionately, as “the mothership,” it is THE destination for many Airstream owners who want to get warranty and other work done on their rigs by the very people who manufactured them in the first place. More on that experience in the next post.

We set out from Dallas around 9:15 a.m. and promptly found ourselves in a traffic jam, thanks to the Texas-Oklahoma University “Red River Rivalry” game at the Cotton Bowl. Jon was wearing an orange polo shirt, and we noticed that people with Texas insignia kept honking and waving at us in traffic. We thought they were acknowledging our Airstream, but in fact they thought Jon was a Texas fan because he was wearing the school color.

Let’s make one thing clear: Jon is neither a Texas nor an OU fan. When he selected our travel wear, he put himself in an orange polo shirt and Cliff in a yellow polo shirt because he thought the yellow and orange were “autumnal.”

So. Gay.

After a long 11-hour drive, we finally pulled into the Buffalo KOA, about an hour outside of Nashville. Cliff anticipated we might be eating late, so he made his homemade pasta fagioli in advance and got it quickly to table after we set up for the night.

Every trip is a learning experience, and we learned three things worth sharing:

1. Never leave a pack of beef jerky in a truck with four chihuahuas.
2. Never assume that the car you pull behind at the gas pump will actually move away from the pump after the gas is pumped.
3. Always make every effort to get settled in on a Saturday night to fully appreciate Alec Baldwin’s spot-on characterization of Donald Trump.

You’re welcome.