Pix. HELP!

Move to the Prairies! Common sense is alive and well out here. Cold winters, but friendly warmth.

A homeless guy living down by one of our 3 major rivers rescued a teenager from falling into the water. The mayor offered him anything he wanted. A warm coat. 2 weeks later, the same guy did it again - dove in and rescued a woman. Same thing - an other warm coat and a hot meal and bath.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/09/04/mb-river-search-winnipeg.html

 

Frankly, I would do that, Normy, but I can't take the cold anymore. I'm sick of winters here in Wisconsin. The rest of the seasons here are beautiful so there's the trade off. There are no perfect places. And...WI is a pretty realistic state. Well....as states go, anyway.
Besides, I still have my idea cooking on the wagon forum plan. I'm seriously involved in the plan thought process. I wish I lived closer to others that may be interested in starting this thing up. It would involve me moving to the central location and living on site but that would please me. As this thing got going it would be a tremendously cohesive and fruitful venture for all of us here that love wagons and collect here as a family. The Country and, eventually, the world would be aware of us and recognize us as the go to station wagon people. Both physically and online. I am excited about this venture but I am ALSO getting older and could use some help from other enthusiasts that have some free time and/or are retired like me. This is a dream that could be easily made into a reality and would marry up with Stef's site here perfectly. I hope I can pull it off before I fly the sky in my final wagon ride.

 

Mike, I am an experienced technical writer - manufacturing procedure documentation and training manuals, actually. Combine that with my tech support knowledge, I'm pretty good at writing "how-to" tutorials.
If you've got questions, I've got answers.

 

Missouri/Iowa don't get that cold. Good music too. Gorgeous gals, I hear. You'd be foxing around in shortsleeves most of the year.

Cold weather is hard on people, but so is too much heat.

You're gonna need to prep the plan in private, and do a heck of a show 'n tell to a handpicked bunch of people to give it a good start.

My thoughts about a trans-national car organization (not international), just cross-US states, is that you'll need some hobby endorsers like SEMA, and a few major Club organizations, for credibility and help with issues.

They aren't usually funded, other than by their own donors or members, so some kind of revenue needs to be generated for support systems (people, website, bookkeeping, tracking user progress, etc.) You might find that the parts vendors or reproduction firms might chip in, in some way, but users are frugal and often have a bunch of money pits they'd rather invest in. Somehow the sponsors will have to kick in or some heck of trading discount plan to cover expenses. It can be done, but it'll take some serious shmoozing. I wonder how many Jay Lenos there are who'd offer a 'Earn Your Plug' scenario.

Sounds ingenious SF, and I'd be happy to be a 'Devil's Advocate'.

 

Funny you should mention MO. I was thinking of southern MO. Land/buildings are very cheap, real estate taxes are unbelievably cheap, the weather is nice and it's fairly central.

 

Steve...I've always liked you here on the forum and I appreciate your offer and your abilities. I'm an old marketing/advertising guy and have done a fair amount of writing as well as other things too. However, I may, indeed, take you up on your offer if you wouldn't mind. This idea of mine is not a flukey dream. This forum started by Stef is a perfect start and ongoing place for my plan. I'm sure Stef would be agreeable to be a significat part of it and I'm hoping other members here would be excited enough to give some of their time.