About CapOnAMap
***SIGH*** What to say about CapOnAMap? CapOnAMap came into being way back in 2010. I was driving to Indiana for a wedding (Beth you’re one of the reasons for all of this) and I thought it would be fun to “take the scenic route” and see a few sites along the way. Specifically, the odd & unusual sites that have now become the main purpose of my travels. I pulled into a motel, threw down my Rand McNally Road Atlas (GPS was not nearly as good back then) and then threw my cap on top of it. Voilà! CapOnAMap was born!
On this site, you will find photos of the many, many, places I have visited. In order to make my list, they only need to be weird, odd, unusual, interesting, or just strike my fancy that day. I have passed many by after traveling to them because they just didn’t pique my interest “in person” like they did when I first heard/read about them . Maybe I’ll get back to them at some point. Who knows?
I hope you find a bit of entertainment, maybe even a little information.
Let’s Get Personal! (and a bit of autobiographical history)
As far as the “About Me” portion, I could go on and on about me and my life, but very few would be interested! There is little doubt that I am one of the luckiest guys on earth. I have lived a life largely based on my own rules and rarely followed others unless I thought it worthwhile.
First, and most importantly, I am a father and a grandfather!
I am the proud father of two wonderful, smart, beautiful, responsible (didn’t get THAT from me), daughters. The girls are both married to wonderful guys and I have three grandkids (so far?) that are literally one of the main reasons I continue on! I have seen the quote, “Grandkids are a reward for putting up with your children as teenagers.” Not sure who said it, but in my case it’s SOOOooo untrue. I couldn’t have asked to better kids. And now my grandkids are just icing (and lots of it) on my life’s cake!
Work Life Cut Short (likely a good thing!)
Retirement age has now been “officially” achieved, much to my surprise, although I’ve been “disabled” since April 2016 (stroke). My road life pretty much full-time since 2006. Initially, with my job as a corporate “Relief General Manager” for a major motel chain, and since 2016 as a disabled/retired “cranky old b@stard.” LOL
I worked in the Hotel/Motel industry as a “Relief General Manager” from 2006 – 2016. I traveled between various property locations, wherever the General Manager was on vacation, sick, fired, quit, etc. My “territory” generally covered 18 locations along the Central Coast of California, but over the course of my tenure, I managed 30 different locations. For those of you that know me well enough to know that I generalized above and that there were times when I was stationary (like after my stroke), the details just seemed too boring to write!
Early Days California & Illinois
Going back a little, I moved from a TINY town (more on that later) to the Los Angeles area in 1978 after the winter of ’77. I was lucky, though, the winter of ’78 was even worse! I grew up in a town of 400 and moved to L.A. at age 21. Talk about culture shock. My early years in the Los Angeles area were full of ALL the experiences of the late 70s and early 80s, both good and bad! Miraculously, I survived!
As always, THANK YOU for the visit. I welcome and appreciate comments (at the bottom of every page/post) and/or EMAILS. Please feel free to SUBSCRIBE (free or voluntary donation) to this site. If you enjoyed your visit, learned anything, or feel like helping the site out a little, I would love it if you shared our site with friends and family. If you don’t like this site ***GASP*** then you should spam your enemies with it LOL. Hey, any traffic helps! You can also DONATE to keep this dream alive. I always give 50% of all (net) donations and (net) profits from any source to charity as my way of giving thanks and sharing my good fortune.
Thanks again!
Joe