Category Archives: 2021 My Life’s Story

My illustrated life’s story starting at age 25 to present.

Back in Chicago – Working on a New Plan

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July, 1975

Back to Chicago to work out some kinks in our NEW life’s plan. I once again got a job as a head designer working for a classy architect’s office in St. Charles, IL. We got an apartment, now for the third time, in Four Lakes Village, which we decorated with furniture that we moved out of the pickup truck camper. We were on the ground floor, because we now had a new member of our family, our German Shepard-Doberman dog who we named Nevada, and he needed to be let out on a regular basis. Rainy hung colored sheets on the large windows to give us some privacy. She tied them back, I guess to give the apartment the look of some class? It was pretty empty, but very spacious!

We worked and plotted, dreamed and schemed and saved until by Christmas it was once again time to leave. This time we traded in our pickup truck camper on a Jeep CJ-7 and a used 17-foot travel trailer. We were sure that now we had exactly the right travel vehicle that would make it all the way down to Tierra del Fuego or bust. We drove, with big grins on our faces to Brownsville, Texas in just a few days, but before we could make it into Mexico a huge storm came up and blew our trailer over on its side, and wiped that smirk right off our faces. The repairs set us back a few days. And by January we had entered Mexico with our dream setup. We had the intention of driving south forever, but after spending several months in Mexico, we found ourselves in Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala.

We spent several months in Mexico. With our new rig we were usually pretty popular too.

Truly one of the most picturesque places in the world. A crystal-clear blue lake surrounded by 3 volcanoes. Some pretty primitive villages dotted the lake, and were filled with colorfully dressed and friendly indigos. We immediately fell in love, especially when we found out that we could rent 3 houses right on the water’s edge, complete with a family of servants for just $35 per month. So, we happily stayed there for a year and a half. To read a day in the life short story that I wrote about our Guatemala lake adventure click on this link.

https://peterflorczak.com/stories/five-songs-of-true-happiness/guatemala/

After enjoying our exotic living arrangement, we began to feel that all of our “stuff”, including the jeep and trailer, and all of the contents, were holding us back from the true adventure that we had been dreaming of. So, we put up signs all over town, “Gringo Se Vende Todo.” Gringos sell it all. We were almost immediately mobbed by Guatemaltecos who indeed wanted it all, and so in a few short weeks we were each left with only a small day pack filled with our most precious item—travelers checks.

The bus was crowded, but cheap!

We three then walked off down the street, and caught a bus to the next country — Honduras.

We Gotta Get Outa Here

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San Diego, CA
July, 1975

Returning to Chicago, it was easy for me to get a high-paying job at a prestigious architect’s office. And that is just what I did. We also got an apartment at Four Lakes Village. A very classy resort style complex complete with swmming pool and even a small ski slope. it was close to my work. Life was indeed luxurious after living in the back of our baby blue camper.

We also had a “PLAN.”

  1. Earn enough money to get back on the road. Check!
  2. Buy a motor home, as our VW bus was getting a little small for our big ideas. Check!
  3. Start a business that we could run out of the motorhome while living on the road. Check!
The Primary Source: Environmental Inventors first gig for Burroughs Computer Corporations Headquarters

Our business was called “The Primary Source: Environmental Inventors.” A pretty fancy name for a company that painted graphics on walls and ceilings or anything else. Within 3 months we were outa there and back on the road. Oh, we didn’t actually purchase the motorhome. My salary was good, but not that good, but we did manage to quickly qualify for a high interest loan.

The Curse

Finally, we were back on the road! It didn’t, however, take us too long before we could give our new mobile home a proper nickname. We called it “The Curse.” From the moment we bought it, it cursed our lives. First, it only got 6 miles to the gallon, so our money began to slip through our fingers quickly. Then, even though we bought it brand new, it immediately started falling apart.

In a month the party was over, and it was Rainy’s turn to work at our next stopping point – Reno, Nevada. She, with her interior design degree, became a Grecian Goddess at one of the casinos, and I was to drum up business for the Primary Source. Between the two of us we were just successful enough to “get outa there” and head to San Diego. Again, it was my time to work. I got a job aa a reinforced steel designer, and Rainy was to try and get us some painting gigs and we were just successful enough to know that we had made a mistake, and it was time to come up with a new “PLAN.”

The “curse is gone. Meet our new pickup truck camper

We sold the curse, got a dog, and bought an old pickup truck with a camper. For 3 months we travelled through California, Oregon, and Washington. By that following July we were — can you believe it, because I can’t — running low on funds! Once again, it was time to head back to Chicago and begin working on a “NEW PLAN.”

Rainy with Yosemite’s Half Dome in the distance thinking of a NEW PLAN

It’s Not Always About the Destination

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Back to Chicago
06-01-1974

John, Mary, Rainy and I travelled for a few months together. A whole new world of traveling and living opened up to us. Our first adventure was down a mud puddle of a road that was supposed to take us the beach where there was a hacienda named La Pesca. John had met a Mexican friend in Brownsville who said his family had a huge hacienda right on the beach, just 100 miles into Mexico. The road was little more than a track. It took us 3 days, a bumper, 2 tail lights and a lot of blue paint to go just 10 miles. When we got there, not only was there no “hacienda” which John repeatedly referred to el big-o house-o when asking for help in directions. He knew not one word of Spanish, but I believe he was trying to mimic it with the sense that the additional “-o” would make it seem more like Spanish. None of the Spanish speaking people ever corrected him. They were too polite.

Us at a the Hotel Tampico right after our first adventure

The road stopped short of the beach, and was separated by a large, what appeared to be, a crocodile infested lagoon. All of our work, no plantation, no sipping pina coladas on our private veranda, and no beach! Still, I had to admit that we were having a great time. The adventure of just seeing a 50-passenger bus hung up as it tried to cross a riverbed, was impressive. The front end was resting on one bank while the patio end was resting on the other bank. The rear wheels were suspended about 2 feet about the rushing water. It gave me a good laugh until it became our turn to cross. We got only a few feet in to water until we became solidly stuck. None of this fazed John. He just got a sly smirk, pulled out the shovels, jacks and other tools, and we all got to work. From this disaster I learned that it is not always about the destination. Sometimes it was just about the path.

That path continued to lead us to even more great adventures. I have no idea what John saw in us. He was an experienced outdoorsman, while we were just about a citified as you could get. He taught us to love the outdoors and to have fun with its challenges. We raced around in the woods on his motorcycle, canoed across the lagoon, and used it, none too successfully, to surf in the oceans waves. We built the biggest bonfire on the beach that I have ever seen. It burned for 3 days!

That’s me fooling around on the ancient Mayan ruins.

After a few weeks it was time to leave and I was much more relaxed about any disasters that might befall us. We travelled down the coastal beach through Tampico and Veracruz until we hit the Yucatan peninsula. Back then there was no one guarding the Mayan ruins except maybe an occasional campesino who was all too willing to let us spend the days and sometimes the nights among the ancient buildings. We played in and on them like they were our own private theme park. What fun we all had! Tulum was the definitive highlight. Miles of beautiful beach with no one on it, all of the coconuts and lobster that you could eat while surrounded by ancient Mayan ruins.

Sometimes we would spend the whole day atop the temples just eating, drinking, reading and staring out at the jungle below.

By June we were running low on funds, but we knew that this was what we wanted our lives to be like so we hatched a plan and went back to Chicago to get it going.

Slowing Way Down

Posted by PeterFlorczak on

11-29-1973
Florida to Mexico

Mitchell Kanashkevich, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa3N2T4DKTo ) one of my favorite travel/adventure photographers, says that for every action there is a “Window of Time.” He has been living his dream for the past 20 years. That got me thinking. There are indeed things that I have done in my twenties and thirties and even forties that I could not accomplish, without great difficulty, today.

Traveling fast

This travel thing has taught me many things. First and foremost, it has taught me to “slow way the fuck down!” and enjoy the process. “It’s happening now – so take the time to enjoy it”. Take, for example, the couple pictured on the motorcycle racing across the sand in Padre Island National Seashore just outside of Corpus Christi TX.  To us at first glance, they appeared to have it all. A motorcycle – We only had bicycles.  A motorhome – We only had our older VW Van. But we had one thing that they didn’t – time.  Oh, they could have had it. They certainly had a lot more money than we did, but they had chosen to take a one-week vacation, and in that one week they planned to see the whole US of A. She even had a simple embroidery of the map of the US, upon which, she was trying, with bright red yarn, to stitch their route, and she couldn’t even keep up. That’s how fast they were traveling. From them we learned what we didn’t want to do on our trip. The one month in the Florida Keys had already taught us to savor our time and go slow.

This next couple we met was from Washington State. John and Mary, when we met them, were traveling in an old Boy Scout school bus. It had a large wooden patio on the roof, an even larger wrought iron porch bolted to the back of the bus, and a big black stovepipe sticking out one of the side windows. It was December, and it was a little chilly, but still we were amazed to see as they drove along,  black smoke pouring out of the top of it.

John trying to bury something before we went to Mexico

When they pulled into their camping spot in Padre Island, all eyes were fixed on them and their aged blue rig with the still visible but fading lettering on the side. “Boy Scouts of America.”  Mary, who looked like a typical kindergarten teacher was driving.  John, long dark hair blowing in the beach wind, was hanging out the opened front bi-fold door with his big black Labrador right at his side. He was grinning like he just won the lottery. They were the most unusual couple we had ever seen. Everyone crowded around for a closer look.

They were so popular that we only got to talk to them briefly. It wasn’t until we drove south, down to the town of Brownsville TX, which was right on the Mexican border, that we saw them again. We were planning to spend Christmas in Mexico. As we drove though the town, we noticed that there was a very long green garden hose that snaked its way across a four-lane highway to a big blue bus parked in an abandoned gas station. There was water pouring out from under the bus, running down the drive and out onto the street.

A Christmas tree in the School bus

“It’s John and Mary,” we shouted simultaneously to each other. We pulled our bright and shiny VW next to them and knocked on the door. Well we camped next to them in that abandoned gas station for the next week before we all happily made our way to Mexico to celebrate Christmas. We spent many many happy months with John and Mary who taught us that we were indeed still moving way too fast.