Note: If you haven't seen the Parker's Ride video, watch it here, then come back to this web page.

Parker's Ride is an awareness- and fund-raiser for Parker’s House, a safe home for a family who has recently suffered a period of homelessness

How does Parker's Ride work?

Parker's Ride is like a scavenger hunt across the state of North Carolina. You have five months to complete as much of it as you can. The goal is to travel to all of the North Carolina locations shown in the video between May 1, 2010 and September 30, 2010. At each of the towns listed in the song, you will get a photo of yourself to prove you were there. Raise money by asking your family and friends to make a pledge per stop - a given amount of money for each town you visit. Let's say your next-door neighbor pledges $1.00 per stop. There are 98 locations in the video, so the more of these towns that you visit, the more money you will raise.

To make it more fun for participants, each location from the song will be worth a certain number of points. The more difficult the location, the higher the point value. Along the way, you will be able to earn bonus points for locations and/or activities not listed in the song, but things I found particularly interesting while I was creating the video. For example, Parker's Ferry is a cable ferry in northeastern North Carolina crossing the Meherrin River (in fact, it's the river crossing that you see in the video). The ferry can only handle 2 cars at a time. You'll get extra points for crossing the river on that ferry. The person with the most points on September 30 will win.

Where did the idea come from?

I got the idea for Parker's Ride in the fall of 2008. I saw a YouTube video of a song based on the Geoffrey Mack tune I've been Everywhere, except that all of the locations in this version of the song were cities in Texas. It was written and performed by Brian Burns and the video (no longer available on Youtube) showed a man and his motorcycle at each of the Texas cities listed in the Brian Burns song.

On the first anniversary of Parker's death, I went to Parker's House to begin getting it ready for the first family who would be moving in. This was a big step - I had no funding and I was worried that I had bitten off more than I could chew. My mind started drifting to fund-raising possibilities. As I began working in the attic, I remember moving a box and for some reason, I thought of that I've Been Everywhere in Texas video, thinking that if I could write a version of that song for North Carolina, it might be a great awareness and fund-raising project for my fledgling non-profit.

The day after Christmas, 2008, I wrote the first draft of the song and began to memorize it (harder than you'd think) while I started looking for a karaoke version that I could use as my backup. My first recording of the song used a karaoke version meant to sound like the backup of the classic Johnny Cash recording of I've Been Everywhere. Not satisfied, I tried the Hank Snow karaoke version and liked it even less. Since I didn't feel I could hire a band to back me up, I wrote my own simple arrangement using an inexpensive music editor (Finale Song Writer). Then, instead of the traditional introduction to the song, I used as an intro the opening of one of my favorite tunes, Bad to the Bone. As my wife and I began riding to the various cities I had put in my North Carolina lyrics, the song matured through numerous town changes before the final one used for my video.