Our American Journey - Day 9

If we hadn’t been going the wrong way on the Interstate highway, we’d have never noticed those billboards. We were supposed to be on I-85 heading out of Charlotte, NC. But after a few miles, I noticed the traffic getting heavier and the sun on the wrong side of the car! It was after we’d gotten ourselves turned around and going the right direction that the first sign caught our attention: “Church Trailer Thief, Hope You’re Enjoying Our Communion Plates!” Not your average billboard, right? We were trying to decide whether this was a joke, a creative publicity campaign, or what when we saw the second billboard: “Church Trailer Thief, We Need Our Stuff Back!” This time we saw that it was sponsored by KineticChurch.com.

Intrigued, we told our friends, Wayne & Amanda Dove, about it when we arrived at their place in Birmingham, Alabama late that afternoon. And finally, we looked it up on the Internet this morning. It appears that some thieves stole a trailer containing 75% of Kinetic Church’s belongings, including communion trays, Bibles, and children’s toys. It’s an interesting story and you can check it out by typing “kineticchurch.com” in your Internet browser’s address bar. Be sure to also watch the YouTube video that goes along with it by clicking on the Video link at the bottom right of the church’s website. What a creative way to capitalize on a negative experience!

Here's some links:

http://www.kineticchurch.com/
http://www.davemilam.com/?p=206
http://www.davemilam.com/?p=221

Amanda also told us about an interesting new business in Birmingham called Super Suppers. Sounds like somebody identified a potential niche market, saw a possible need, and developed a business to meet it. Super Suppers is a place where you can go to prepare any number of meals that you can then take home and stick in the fridge or freezer until you’re ready to pop them in the oven or microwave, ready to serve. You can’t just make anything you want, but Super Suppers provides all the ingredients for a wide variety of meals along with cooking instructions for each type, and up to 10-12 mini kitchens to prepare and cook them in. More expensive than cooking at home, but less costly than eating out, and all without the hassle of having to come up with a meal plan, find recipes, shop for ingredients, or clean up afterwards. Kind of a laundromat approach to meal preparation! The ideal solution for busy men and women who really love to cook, but don’t have the time for the whole enchilada. Maybe there are some entrepreneurs out there looking for a new business idea…?

One final note: We’ve decided that Virginia and Alabama seem to be determined to be two of the best-kept secrets in the United States. We probably didn’t look in any of the right places, but we couldn’t find postcards in those states to send to friends and family to save our lives! After nearly an hour of trying a wide variety of stores we thought would sell them, but didn’t, we gave up the quest and headed for the highway to motor onwards. It’s true that selling postcards probably isn’t on the list of high-income type businesses, but I think there’s an opportunity just waiting for the right person here.

Well, we made it almost all the way through Mississippi today. I’m gonna go out and see if I can find some postcards around here…

That works out to just over 83 cents/litre!

Where can you gas up for this amount in Canada?