Florida Trip Part 8: A&M Services, Moose Lodge #1412, and Home |
| Gordon White | Monday, 22 February, 2010 | ||||||
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We first met Mark and Sharon Mallard, Owners of A&M Services, at the 2008 Mid-Atlantic Truck Camper Rally. We had never visited their dealership in Kittrell, North Carolina, and were looking forward to finally seeing A&M on our way home. In the days leading up to our visit, North Carolina had enjoyed a deluge of snow and rain making everything into a snowy muddy mess. In fact, we almost didn’t make it to A&M because the call was for either ice or rain the day before. What a winter we’re having here on the East Coast.
Pictured: Ben Mallard, Mark Mallard, Christy Jenkins, Wayne Stevenson, Roy Compton, Sharon Mallard, and Johnny the dog. We arrived at A&M around noon and were greeted by Christy Jenkins, Office Manager, and Ben Mallard, Mark and Sharon’s son. We had a short list of things that needed to be addressed on our rig and Ben immediately got to work helping us out. Our television antenna got tightened, our turnbuckes got adjusted, and our propane got filled. Thank you, Ben.
Soon after Ben got started on our camper, Mark pulled in. It was impossible to not talk about the crazy weather they had been getting and I was concerned about taking outside pictures of their dealership after all the snow and rain. It would be like someone taking a picture of you when you first wake up and putting the photos on the web for years to come. We took a few photos, but we’ll have to return and take more when the weather has been a bit less cruel. That evening Mark and Sharon took us to Moose Lodge #1412 for dinner. Angela and I had never been to a Moose Lodge and enjoyed learning about the organization and the many benefits the Moose Fraternity offers for its members and local communities. After dinner, Angela and I hit the road and drove about an hour north to Davis’s Travel Center in Warfield, Virginia. They have an RV dump and a free place to sleep overnight among the tractor trailers. When we arrived, the place was about half-full of idling tractor trailers parked for the evening. We pulled into a back-in space at the rear of the lot with the front of our truck all the way forward. We wanted to avoid having a tractor trailer not see us and try to pull into our site. That could really ruin your day. As we slept, the parking lot filled up with more and more tractor trailers. One pulled in quite brilliantly right next to us. It’s incredible how good these tractor trailer drivers are at getting their trucks into tight places. Despite the noise all around us, we slept well and were ready to go early the next morning. The dump was literally buried in snow under an insulating cover but worked well. The diesel was reasonably priced. All in all, it was a great stop for us. As we pulled onto I-85 North, we set our sites on home. It would be another six-hour drive before we pulled in. We talked about everything we had experienced and learned the whole way home. It’s amazing how much you can experience during a few weeks on the road. Arriving at home would be bitter sweet, as always. Less than twenty-four hours after we arrived at home it snowed eighteen inches. A few days later it snowed another eighteen inches. Just two weeks earlier we were in Key West soaking up the sun in shorts and t-shirts. Like I said last time, the snowbirds really have it right. Drive south. For more information about A&M Services, visit their website at www.campersplus.com. |
