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The Story of A View of America
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A View of America was founded by the Franklin Family in 1998 as The How To Guys .com where they began to showcase the Yakima Valley. Darryl got his inspiration from a lady named Pat Brown that he did tech support for. She was not able to leave her home due to health related problems. Darryl decided to go out in the community to the special events and to every attraction, winery, park, lake, river and fishing stream to show that the Yakima Valley indeed had a great deal to offer. Not long after starting this people started to contact Darryl on a wide variety of requests including other communities that wanted to be added to the site. Darryl decided to add areas closest to the Yakima Valley. The morning of 9-11 Darryl and their son Brian were out Salmon fishing. On the way home the news began unfolding on the radio of the attacks. For the next week Darryl was in disbelief along with the rest of the country. He and Brian were fishing all week and during this time decided to add the whole country to thehowtoguys.com to show that you don't have to leave the safety of the United States to have a great vacation. Darryl and Joan decided to sell everything they owned and buy an RV to travel across the country to add every attraction in America to the site. Darryl and Joan took their daughter, Kathrine, out of public school and began home schooling her. The quest began in June 2002. Darryl took the pictures while Joan and Brian wrote the information on the cities and attractions. Everywhere they went people would ask 'Why are you doing it?' When Darryl and Joan explained their reason, the people could not wait to visit the site. When Darryl's father, who had been fighting cancer for several years, grew worse they decided to put the site on hold for awhile. During the time they stopped to visit Darryl's parents, they were able to purchase the domain aviewofamerica.com. Darryl spent six months adding all of the attractions they had visited to the new site www.aviewofamerica.com and getting it on the search engines. The first part of March, 2003 they went to Florida to work on adding the attractions there. Darryl had thousands of requests to use images that he had taken. The Smithsonian Institute asked to use an image that he had taken of the Teapot Dome in Zillah, WA. He then decided to take twelve of his images and put them into print form to help raise funds to continue the project. With the rising cost of gas, Darryl decided to try contacting the attractions and ask them to send the information to be added by e-mailing them one by one. Darryl spent several months sending out over 25,000 e-mails one at a time. He was stunned to see the lack of response to his attempts to promote America's attractions. Especially when there was no cost to the attractions. Darryl then began calling the attractions all over the country. The attractions all loved the idea and said they would send information to be added to the site. Most of the attractions that Darryl contacted failed to send anything at all. And many of the ones that did sent such poor images they could not be used. At that point Darryl and Joan realized that the only way for the project to work was to go back on the road and take the images of the attractions themselves. Brian had gotten a good job in Florida and decided to stay there. Darryl and Joan began preparations for the long journey ahead, but the trip was cancelled due to Hurricane Charlie. The summer of 2004 was a disaster for the Franklin Family and the project was in jeopardy after four hurricanes hit Florida. Each of the hurricanes did damage to the RV. After almost a year the repairs where finished and the preparations ready for the trip. They will begin going up the Eastern Seaboard then across the northern states. From there, they plan to move around the country avoiding the worst weather. Darryl and Joan estimate this project will take at least five more years traveling non-stop to add every attraction in America. Again, Darryl will be taking the pictures, Joan will be writing, and now Kathrine, 11 years old, will be adding her view of each attraction as well.The Franklin family invites you to follow them as they visit America's attractions and welcome your comments. If you have an attractions that they have missed or you want to be added before they visit your town contact Darryl and Joan they will gladly add your attraction at no cost. If you see them on the road, give them a honk and a wave. They can use your help in this worth while project. Contact Darryl and Joan to see how you can become a friend of A View of America. Remember why Darryl and Joan are doing this. Get out and enjoy America. Don't forget to take a friend or loved to share the good times as you explore this great country we call home. |
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