On the Road

We travel over 200 days out of the year covering shows, and make sure we have a good time along the way. Whenever possible we take the back roads, and try to find new places to camp, allowing ourselves extra time if possible. We stay at KOA Campgrounds, and try State Parks when we can. But the best times are when we visit friends, or are on location for a story or project we are working on. Whenever we do an event at Gladstone, Headquarters of the USET Foundation and home of the USET Festival of Champions and our annual USET Talent Search, we are always welcome guests at the home and farm of Cathy and Frank Morelli. We are the perfect house guests, because we bring our own house! Here is Cathy saying good morning as she is off to ride her first horse of the day.

Ever since the early days in the 1970’s I have owned an RV of some kind. In the old days, it was often my home. Living on the race track in Pompano Beach, parked on a horse farm, or set up for a long show weekend, it has always been a part of my lifestyle.

With the hurricane seasons, we have discovered, an RV is one of the greatest evacuation tools you can have. Having an RV is like having a second home. You need two of everything, a coffee pot, TV, hair blower, and clothes for all kinds of weather.

Add to that our equipment, display and outside chairs and carpets, we only need a short amount of time to pack up and head out, usually a day or so before the big evacuation crunch hits the highway.

In June JJ, boarded up most of our Florida house, except our office, where Tracey Scharf manages the daily duties of running our business and our lives, and took to the road. But it's not just the truck, our Ford F550 Crew Cab deisel which pulls our home on the road: We have a mini caravan with me following JJ in our new PT Cruiser convertible.

This has worked out to be a safer way of travelling, as we communicate with walke talkies, and share the company of our two other family members, Gizmo and Trooper. We don't usually push it, so we can enjoy some places along the way. And I get to listen to Jazz, while JJ can tunre into "The Johnboy and Billy Show" and sneak a cigarette.

And when we get to our night time destination, we search for a walking trail to take the kinks out of our bodies.