Turbulence 02/01/21

Silver Springs State Park, Ocala, Florida

“I (God) will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth (not just the Jews) will be blessed through you.”  ~ Genesis 12:2-3

Shortly after we left the Park this morning, we drove by a car wash called . . . . are you ready????

Al  E.  Gator’s Car Wash

Isn’t that hysterically clever?!?!?

Blaine had a rough day today, moving our home and Jeep (I’m not permitted to call it a ‘car’ 😊), on a really crowded I-75S expressway together with battling 15-20mph across-the-bow winds.  He’s an excellent driver, but it was so hard to keep us between the white lines, even I could feel us wiggling. It felt more like we were on a small ship in the swells, than driving on a highway.  I felt bad for him, but there was nothing I could do to help except sit and only speak when spoken to.  I focused on computer work instead. Oh.  And because the wind and traffic weren’t enough, we drove through a few spits of rain, too.

But to make it all better, we had donuts for lunch!  Krispy Kreme ones!  Did you know that Krispy Kreme . . .

Oh, what better conversation than one about the BEST doughnuts?!? Or any doughnuts . . .

And where else to garner information about this wonderful, mouth-watering food, then from their own website? 

Or here?

KRISPY KREME OPENED ITS DOORS ON JULY 13, 1937

Vernon Rudolph bought a secret yeast raised doughnut recipe from a New Orleans French chef, rented a building in what is now historic Old Salem in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and began selling its Krispy Kreme doughnuts on July 13, 1937 to local grocery stores. The delicious scents of cooking doughnuts drifted into the streets, and passersby stopped to ask if they could buy hot doughnuts. So he cut a hole in an outside wall and started selling Original Glazed doughnuts directly to customers on the sidewalk.

In 1939, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts opened its first bakery outside the South on Maple Street in Akron. Now, the Akron site is the oldest, continuously operating facility in the nation that is also in its original location.  This is where Blaine and I are from! And let me tell you from personal experience, the hot glazed doughnuts directly off the conveyor belt are simply to die for!  Or at least give up your first born!  😊

40’s + 50’s

IMPROVING THE DOUGHNUT MAKING PROCESS THROUGH INNOVATIONS

By now there was a small chain of stores, mostly family owned. They all used the Kripsy Kreme recipe, but each store made its doughnuts from scratch. For Rudolph and Krispy Kreme, the results were always good, but not consistent enough. So Krispy Kreme built a mix plant and developed a distribution system that delivered the perfect dry doughnuts mix to each Krispy Kreme store. Then Rudolph and his equipment engineers invented and built Krispy Kreme’s own doughnut making equipment. From the 1950s on, they focused on improving and automating the doughnut making process.

60’s + 70’s

OUR STORES ARE FAMILIAR GATHERING PLACES FOR FRIENDS

During the 1960s, Krispy Kreme enjoyed steady growth throughout the southeast United States and began expanding outside of its traditional roots. The design of Krispy Kreme stores became consistent including the hallmark green tile roofs and heritage road signs. Vernon Rudolph, our founder, died in 1973, and growth slowed as the company was reorganized for sale to Beatrice Foods Company in 1976.

80’s + 90’s

THE HOT DOUGHNUT EXPERIENCE… EVERYONE WAS TALKING ABOUT

In 1982, a small group of our early franchisees bought Krispy Kreme back from Beatrice Foods. A renewed focus on the hot doughnut experience became a priority for the company. They began to expand outside the southeast US and opened its first store in New York City in 1996. Soon afterward, in 1999, the first store in California opened and national expansion was well underway. When Krispy Kreme turned 60 years old in 1997, it was officially recognized as the 20th century American icon with a donation of company artifacts to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.

Today

EXPANSION, INNOVATION, EXTENDING THE KRISPY KREME EXPERIENCE

In April 2000, Krispy Kreme held an initial public offering of common stock. It opened the first international store in Canada just outside of Toronto in December 2001. The first stores outside North America opened in Sydney Australia and in London, England in 2003. Since then, Krispy Kreme
has opened over 700 stores in Asia, Mexico, the Middle East, Puerto Rico, and Turkey. Our international expansion is continuing and in addition, we are working on new tasty products and we are very excited about our future. Stay tuned for more innovative things to come.

Not only all that, but if you’re drooling right now, and you think you’d like to own your own franchise so you can eat the delectable treats anytime you want (well, someone has to taste test them!), ownership can be yours for an initial investment fee of $440,000 up to $4.1 million depending on the type of store you want.  But take heart!  You can recoup your investment quickly, as the report I found states that owners rake in the dough (pun intended 😊) with average paychecks of $60-70,000 per week!  Which comes out to $3.4 million annually!  Don’t get too excited until you read the fine print though.  Not just anyone can own a store.  You have to prove a net worth of a minimum of $5 million when you send in your application, plus have owner/operator food service experience. ☹

Guess most of us will just have to enjoy our Krispy Kremes from a box . . .  Sigh . . . .

Back to our task at hand . . . arriving at our destination without getting blown over. . . .

Lake Manatee State Park, Bradenton, Florida

We’re parked in a back-in site, but in order to pick up our satellite channels from Dish, we had to turn our coach around.  Now, we’re facing a big open area with wall-to-wall saw palmettos and a few trees, as opposed to facing the street and other campers. 

I love it!  Blaine says he does, too, but I know him.  He enjoys people watching.  Wonder how long it’ll be before he sets up a chair out back for the afternoon?  😊

Besides our normal set-up routine, Blaine also had to batten down the hatches.  The wind continues to blow, even though we’re 147 miles and 3-hours from where we began this morning.  It’s supposed to accelerate up to 25mph overnight and through tomorrow.