Left Coast Cowboys

 
I know I’m showing my age, but in my childhood, a roadtrip wasn’t a roadtrip without at least one stop at a Stuckey’s. In the days before urban sprawl and the ubiquity of McDonald’s and fast food, it was possible to drive long stretches of America’s highways and see nothing but landscape. Until you came to a Stuckey’s. Ah, the blue tin roofed Stuckey’s. I assume long distance truckers were their bread and butter. There were always dozens of them idling in the large parking lots every Stuckey’s seemed to have for those purposes. (For us kids, the truckers were part of Stuckey’s exotic appeal.) There would be a good old fashioned diner-style restaurant where my Dad, who did all the driving, could get a good cup of coffee and a piece of pie. I’m sure the attraction for my mother were the Stuckey’s bathrooms which were always spotlessly clean, well-lit and child-safe. For my brother and me, it was the gift shop. Loads of knick-knacks pertaining to the location, the essentials a traveler might need, the famous Stuckey’s Pecan Log (from Mrs. Ethel Stuckey’s original 1937 recipe) and the soft cotton striped blankets that were another trademark. (If you were an American kid in the early seventies or before and you ever went on a roadtrip, raise your hand if your parents always had a few Stuckey’s blankets in the back of the car.)

My friend Rob, an avid collector of Americana, tells me these travel decals are now worth a small fortune. These are for sale at www.vintagewarehouse.com

Stuckey’s also had those wonderful water-slide travel decals that featured hand-drawn artwork of various state attractions. I don’t think Stuckey’s sold those. They were probably given away free at the attached Texaco stations. My brother and I had shoe-boxes full of them. We stuck them to everything (except the car, which Dad wouldn’t allow.) We eventually grew up and threw them all away. My collector friend, Rob, who has thousands of them preserved in glassine sleeves now tells me those things are worth a fortune. Who knew? But I digress.

The last time I’d done a proper road trip — as in from Maine to California — was in the mid-Eighties. So when I decided two years ago to take my niece on a cross-country road trip for her college graduation, I assumed Stuckey’s would play its usual role. Little did I know there had been a quantum cultural shift on America’s roadsides sometime in the late Eighties. The venerable Stuckey’s chain had sold out to a corporation. The once proud 300-strong Stuckey’s empire had dwindled to less than 70 sites, most of these in great disrepair. Finally, one of the Stuckeys had repurchased the chain and determined to make the Stuckey name again a force to be reckoned with on America’s highways. Unfortunately, his plan was a “store-within-a-store” concept that reduced Stuckey’s to pecan log stands inside existing 7-Elevens and mini-marts. (Read the whole sad story on the Stuckey’s website.) A Stuckey’s without the huge trucker parking lots with showers and amenities for the long-distance haulers? A Stuckey’s without that diner where all the waitresses called you “Hon”? Even worse, a Stuckey’s without the full gift shop and the striped blankets? A sad travesty of another vanished American tradition!

However, at the outset of our trip, I was blissfully unaware that the Stuckey’s I knew and cherished was no more. Before we’d hit Delaware I was already scouting. But I soon had bigger challenges than stocking up on Pecan Logs and striped blankets.

Stuckey's, we hardly knew ye. Roadtrips will never be the same without the REAL Stuckey's.

Of first concern was reconciling the dramatically different traveling styles of a child of the Sixties and today’s 24-year-old. I like to research where I’m going — even to the point of reading novels about the region I’m traveling through and making an appropriate playlist. (Traveling to Graceland, that’s easy. Elvis. Going down Highway 61? Crank up Robert Johnson and the Blues.) I make a plan, then diverge from that plan instantly if I see a roadside attraction, an interesting historical marker or just a better horizon. I experience everything, then I blog about it. Later. My niece, of course, has grown up much more electronically plugged in, but less interested in research. Just as Warren Beatty famously said of Madonna, “Nothing is real to her unless it’s being filmed”, to Aleana an experience isn’t an experience unless she’s texting about it. At the risk of having a crotchety “Kids Today!” moment, let me say that I have nothing against texting. Or blogging, obviously. But I hold firm to the belief that you must HAVE the experience first. You see it, taste it, smell it, revel in it. THEN you text about it. If you are glued to your phone and plugged into your iPod while Monument Valley whizzes by or the Grand Canyon unfolds below you, well, you didn’t actually experience it, did you? And existentially speaking, can you really text about it?

But we had one transcendent moment where our roadtripping styles meshed perfectly. Somewhere south of Delaware, I said, “We’ve got to find a Stuckey’s.” Without a pause, Aleana said, “Absolutely!” and located one on the GPS unit. In perfect accord, we walked in happily through the large parking lot full of long-haul truckers, we filled up on good coffee and pie at the diner, and we hit the gift shop and loaded our arms with Pecan Logs and striped blankets.

Our Stuckey's blankets homey up a KOA Kozy Kabin somewhere in Cajun Country.

Little did we know that, from Boston to California, that would be the only real Stuckey’s we’d find. We searched the Find-a-Stuckey’s feature on the website every night. We checked the GPS unit whenever we hit a stretch of open highway. No more Stuckey’s except for one or two “store-with-in-a-store” mini-Stuckey’s we stumbled over. They didn’t count.

We had indeed visited The Last Real Stuckey’s in America. Wreathed in nostalgia, we covered ourselves with our Stuckey’s blankets every night in motels and campgrounds. The Pecan Logs finally melted on the back seat somewhere in Oklahoma. The memories linger.

Here we are one day from the end of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month.) Over 10,000 of us around the world committed to blogging every day on the day (no writing five posts on the weekends and storing them) for the month of November. And it looks like, barring getting hit by a truck or breaking all my typing fingers, I’ve made it. I think there are some prizes involved, but I didn’t pay much attention to that. I wanted to see if I could do it, if it would up my readership and if it was sustainable. Check, check and maybe check on all counts.

My problem with blogging is, silly me, I’ve always thought I can’t really post unless I have something to say. Something other than what I had for breakfast or my projected TV viewing schedule was. I could spew out the longest post if I had a subject, but sometimes, I think, I let a potential good post slip by because I wasn’t sure it was different or important enough to post about. Can’t worry about that when you HAVE to post every day. I think the exercise pushed me through that barrier. I found myself on a schedule and in a rhythm that kept posting fun and more consistent.

Amazingly the results were immediate. Readership went up by 105% (according to Google Analytics) and those readers started returning every day. Snooping in on my readers was one of the best parts of this exercise, made possible by my great Secret Squirrel Spyware I wrote about here. TraceMyIP definitely lets me see my imaginary friends!

Which brings me to Ryan Lochte. When I started this blog, I knew I wouldn’t always stay on topic. The point was to document our Green Acres transition from City Kids to Farmers and Vintners. I realized I’d veer off track into politics, musings and various topics, but mostly the posts would be about Sonoma, composting, grape stomping and other exciting rural things. So you’d think most of my readership would be searching for farm and wine related topics. Well, some.

Turns out the largest traffic driver is Google which sends people from all over the world to my site (I’ve got readers from Bulgaria, lots from Finland, Croatia and several from South Africa.) But the biggest all time Google search that sends the most people here?

“Ryan Lochte Naked”

You remember Ryan Lochte? He was the greatest American swimmer this year who wasn’t Michael Phelps. I saw one of his time trials and blogged about it when we attended the Olympics. He wasn’t naked. I’m not sure where that word came in. But go ahead, Google “Ryan Lochte Naked”. About the third choice down: Left Coast Cowboys.

Never let it be said I don’t cater to my readers’ needs. So here, after my own extensive Google search is the most naked picture I could find of Ryan Lochte.

Thanks Google Images and The Insider for the Beefcake.

Or how about this?

If you can get your minds out of the gutter, you might want to try some of the other searches that get you here. Some are directly related to posts I’ve done. Like my compendium of Christmas Cocktail Songs, World’s Best Unknown Christmas Songs, my countdown of the Top Ten Cowboy Songs of All Time or my suggestion that Obama get a Smooth Fox Terrier for the White House.

People reach these pages through searches such as: “famous cowboys songs yippee”, “what’s the best christmas song you ever heard” or even the genre-bending “cowboy christmas cocktail party”. Sometimes the searches are straight-forward and I can guess what post is being referenced. Sometimes they defy logic. How about these recent searches that brought people here: “nerdy romper”, “Autodidact shop stewards” and “problems finding a good Black church in San Francisco”. Or the searches that break my heart: “Why I don’t want a Smooth Fox Terrier”. That search should CERTAINLY not be getting you here.

So as NaBloPoMo ends, I hope I’ll be keeping this up. And I’ll certainly have my Romper Room Magic Mirror tuned up so I can spy on the strange and circuitous routes my readers take, usually via Google, to get here.

Remember, on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog.

Especially in the early stages, blogging can be like crack. You know you should get out and get a life, but there is always that one new plug-in to install and test that will FINALLY make you the new Dooce. For me, the blogging drugs of choice are stat counters and traffic analyzers. Last month, I thought I’d died and gone to Digital Heaven when I installed TraceMyIP. Remember this was the electronic version of the old Romper Room Magic Mirror that let me see (with the help of Google Maps, avatars and live tracking) an almost stalker-level of information about my blog visitors.

But TraceMyIP has just been trumped — at least in the flash department. A few days ago, I received two emails from Woopra saying I’d been approved to beta test their web tracking and analysis program. Don’t know where they got my name from. I’d never heard of them before. But from Googling around, apparently invitations to beta test Woopra are about as sought after and hard to come by as backstage passes to a Rolling Stones concert. Sign me up.

After installing Woopra and running it for a few days, I’m still waiting to get my jaw off the keyboard. This program is AMAZING. It brings flash and dazzle to the normally pedestrian world of stat counters and analysis. Instead of boring bar charts, there’s a snazzy colorful interface with icons and flags to identify visitors countries and lots of bling. There’s even a live scrolling ticker that gives you updates of visits, time on site and compares them to your average traffic levels. For that I’ll forgive them for naming this thing as if it were a joint development of Oprah and Woopie Goldberg.

This is not your mother's statistics program!

But the real difference is the Live Tracking feature that lets you look over your viewers’ shoulders right as they are browsing. Even better, you can send them a real-time chat request. Can you imagine the implications? Can you see how that will FREAK OUT your readers? It’s as if someone was reading Hustler in the privacy of his bathroom and you could send the centerfold to knock on the door. (Although I’m not sure my chat request would be as welcome as my analogy.)

Besides the Internet stalking fun, the depth of information and the ease of viewing it in Woopra are just amazing. At a glance, you can see where your visitor is surfing from, what browser and computer he’s on, what keywords he typed, how many clicks he made,  and how long he stayed. Even better, if he or she leaves a comment (and you have spam protection on that requires a sign in) that viewer is tagged by name and email. And Woopra remembers them by ID every time they come back. So instead of facing a long list of IP addresses, your viewer list for the day lists “Herbie and Hieronymous and Heloise”. And I didn’t even have to say “Romper, Stomper, Bomper, Boo” to active the Magic Mirror.

Only one small issue. There doesn’t seem to be any logical, easy path to excluding my own IP from this mix. So as I clicked through my own site gathering links and double checking that my posts were displaying correctly on all browsers, my own computer was driving traffic up into the stratosphere. Then I left a Safari window open for an hour with my latest post on it and skewed my stats all to hell.

That sent me back to my solid, homely, reliable boyfriend, TraceMyIP. Yes, my relationship with Woopra is like a yearning for the bad boy when you are already dating the President of the Math Club. Woopra is flashy and dangerous, but it never quite tells me the truth and I can’t really trust it. TraceMyIP wears plaid shirts and has a pocket protector, but I can always count on him.

Until Woopra decides to straighten up and fly right, I’ll just have to sneak out to see him on the side. Knowing that good old TraceMyIP will always be there.

Remember the old Romper Room when Miss Vickie (or whoever your RR lady was at your local affiliate) used to hold up the Magic Mirror and intone: “Romper, Stomper, Bomper, Boo.” Then she proceeded to say that she could see all of us ankle-biters in “TV Land” and would call our names: “I see Jimmy and Mary and little Ryan. . .” Even if I didn’t get a shout-out, it always creeped me out. SHE COULD SEE ME THROUGH MY TV! Romper Room usually ended at my house with me hiding behind the couch.

I lead you through Memory Lane for a purpose. Suddenly I have THAT power. Yes, the Romper Room Magic Mirror has been passed to me!

Because it’s the 21st Century, it comes in the form of a bit of code for my blog called TracemyIP.org and I got it here.

I don’t usually enthuse over plugins, widgets and code. More likely, I’m cursing at them or weeping tears onto my keyboard over them. But this thing is AMAZING.

It gives me a report of every single person who lands on my blog. No, not just a visitor count, but as accurate a profile as I would get if my blog were a high-security airport and my visitors had to go through a full body cavity search to get in.

A lot of counters can tell you who your visitors are by IP address, server and location, as well as by where they came from on the web, what circuitous route they used to get to your blog and how long they hung around. Yeah, TracemyIP.org can do that. But then it goes one Secret Squirrel Super Spy trick better.

I can actually click on a visitor and zoom in, through Google Maps, to see exactly WHERE they are by block and street. Well, I’m actually not so sure how completely accurate this is as one of my San Francisco visitors was shown to be in the middle of four lanes of Geary Boulevard while still on-line. May I put on the record that I want readership, but not badly enough to risk a pile up on San Francisco’s busiest street during morning rush hour.

But wait. Don’t order yet. There’s more. And to someone like me who is still struggling to figure out what an IP is, this is the best feature.

TracemyIP.org shows me little pictures of each of my visitors. Yes, little Jimmy, Mary and Ryan out in TV Land, I can see you through my Magic Mirror.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that these pictures are little avatars, but they are interestingly distinct.

This is one of my San Francisco visitors surfing my blog in the middle of Geary Boulevard. Kinda nerdy and techie looking.

And, hey, my visitor from Arkansas even has a mullet.

 My Florida visitor sports a killer tan and bleached blond hair.

This woman from the Ukraine seems to be a real fan. She’s logged on to my blog four times in the last day. She looks sort of like that annoying woman in the Progressive Insurance ads.

Michigan kind of threw me. I’ve got a good friend there, but he’s a former Navy SeAL. This doesn’t look like him. But he could be logging on from a friend’s computer in an attempt to confound my new super powers.

Likewise I have a typical blonde Swedish-looking friend in Minnesota and this isn’t her. Unless she’s decided to get a make-over with dreadlocks.

 This visitor is just plain scary looking. But at least I can see where he lives — down to street level — on Google maps. Thank goodness he’d have to drive hundreds of miles to get to me.

So how accurate are these avatars?

Here’s what TracemyIP.org says in their FAQs:

Q: I am curious, how are those visitor avatar images assigned to each visitor. Do you know my visitors’ gender and age?

A: Since everyone deserves privacy, we do not go as far as determining the gender and age of your visitors, however, their behavior and demographics are analyzed by our proprietary algorithms (while adding some random factors as well) to approximate the mood and the gender of each visitor. Thus, the incognito avatars are assigned to each IP address. On the other hand, no guarantees are made at any point as for the accuracy of the representation. The visitor identification algorithms are primarily established to help you to differentiate each visitor to simplify the navigation within your logs.

I’m reading that to mean, they’re peeking through the InterWebs and WE CAN SEE YOU! WE CAN SEE WHAT YOU ARE WEARING! MMMMMWWWWAAAAAHAAAAHAAAHAAA.

Just being able to see you in your jammies as you surf my site is only the beginning of my fun with this doo-dad. I’m starting to get a picture of why people come to my blog. And it’s not what I was thinking. You all are fascinated by our Green Acres adventure from City Slickerdom to established vineyard owners, right? Well, not exactly.

A shocking number of you are looking for Christmas Songs. Okay, I did once write an entry called The Greatest Christmas Songs You’ve Never Heard. Many of you are also searching for Country and Cowboy Songs and I wrote a blog for you about The Top Ten Cowboy Songs of All Time. Now that I know what my audience wants, expect a post on the Top Ten Cowboy Christmas Songs. Watch this space.

Not sure I can fulfill all requests. Three people landed on this blog after a google search for “where did cowboys get food and water”. Well, I can tell you where they got wine.

And all those visitors still landing here after googling “Ryan Lochte naked”: yes, I wrote about the Olympics during my Beijing trip in August, but I NEVER posted nude pictures. (Well, Michael Phelps’ Speedos were a 

little “low” when he leaped out of the pool after the qualifying heat we watched.)

And the rest of you, come back and set a spell. But before you surf, you might want to change out of that raggedy underwear.

I CAN TOTALLY SEE YOU! Romper, Stomper, Bomper, BOO!

I’m getting myself geared up for NaBloPoMo or National Blog Posting Month, where you commit to posting once a day, every day for a month. And no cheating and writing 5 advanced posts on Sunday!

This is my flight check week.

It’s not perfect. It’s not done. (It will never be “done”.) But I’m now officially cutting the ribbon on the newest incarnation of my blog. I’ve made what Mao used to call A GREAT LEAP FORWARD. Which involved nearly ruining my eyes and my sanity trying to teach myself Wordpress, HTML, CSS and all that other geeky stuff.

All I can say is “Thank God for Plug-ins”. What a concept: some geek who has forgotten more coding than you will ever know generates all the behind the scenes coding you need to make something happen on your website. You just need to install it, activate it and watch it work. But I digress.

Now that I have a brand spanking new website with my very own domain name, the next step is to start blogging more regularly. And do I have a lot to say. Things are heating up on the composting front (Hee. A little composting humor there.) Our fruit trees and titchy tiny organic garden are bearing fruit. And threatening to take over the world if our melons have anything to say about it. Finally, our most ambitious recent project is completely overhauling our workflow and technology for the grape crush. Which should happen within a month. The exciting thing is that this year, for the first time, we will be making wine with our very own Two Terrier Vineyards grapes. Stay tuned. The excitement is just beginning.