Dan The Road Trip Guy
Join Dan the Road Trip Guy as he explores the adventures, memories, and life lessons of diverse guests from all walks of life. This podcast goes beyond the road to celebrate the journey of life by uncovering stories of passion, resilience, and the pursuit of happiness. Whether you’re a seasoned traveler or simply love a good story, Dan the Road Trip Guy will leave you inspired and ready to embrace your own adventures. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!
I hope you enjoy the episodes. You can find me at https://www.dannyneal.com.
Dan The Road Trip Guy
Robin Sparrow and I talk Cars, Travel, and Life
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Curious about how a car enthusiast transitioned from architecture to managing large-scale projects, and then to a life brimming with travel and sailing? Buckle up as Robin Sparrow, takes us on a ride through his life's journey. From his teenage adventures in a 1972 Volkswagen Squareback to an epic 34-day road trip with his 85-year-old mother in a BMW M3, Robin's stories are a testament to the thrills and wisdom gained along the open road. Hear how he navigated career shifts and embraced an adventurous retirement, filled with national parks, fast cars, and invaluable life lessons.
Join us, as we explore Robin's path from architectural dreams inspired by his grandfather to a successful career in project management, working with top real estate firms. Robin shares fond memories of summers in rural Illinois, his passion for painting, and the joy of continuing his grandfather's artistic legacy. We’ll also venture into his extensive travel experiences and future road trip plans, including a heartfelt wish to have traveled with his late father-in-law. Expect engaging tales, thrilling car stories, and timeless advice on listening, hard work, and treating others well. This episode is packed with insights and inspirations for anyone with a love for cars, travel, and the lessons learned along the way.
Absolutely nothing beats windshield time, a road trip and good conversation in the car. Welcome to another episode of Dan the Road Trip Guy, where we have entertaining conversations about cars and road trips, life lessons and maybe, every now and then, a little advice. I'm your host, dan Neal, road Trip Extraordinaire, and now buckle. Now and then, a little advice. I'm your host, dan Neal, road Trip Extraordinaire. And now buckle up and enjoy the show. I am on a virtual road trip today, my guest actually. He just finished what sounds like an epic road trip out west. I met him on One Lap of America, just like I've met a few other people many years ago. His name is Robin Sparrow and I'm excited to learn a little bit more about him, because we've probably only seen each other a handful of times over the past I don't know 17 years or so so I'm excited to catch up with him on this virtual road trip. Welcome to the show, robin.
Speaker 2:Thanks, dan, I'm glad to be aboard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad you're here. I wish we were in the car together cruising around someplace.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so take a couple minutes a warm-up lap around our favorite racetrack, since you're a racer, and just tell people who you are.
Speaker 2:All right, Well again, thanks, Dan. Again Robin Sparrow, as some people like to refer to me as, two birds, one man. I was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 81. I came on up to Washington DC to go to architecture school and have resided in the Washington DC area ever since. Only kids spoiled rotten. But anyway, I finished architecture school, Like I said, stayed in the area, met my lovely wife, who worked in the same building as I did, and we were engaged very quickly and we've been married 33 years. This October she's a saint.
Speaker 2:I left architecture eventually after 13, 14 years and went into project management, which is where I spent the next over 30 years before I retired four years ago. I've been very blessed in that regard. I'm a car enthusiast, as Dan has mentioned. I did do some racing for four or five years with National Automotive Sport Association. I've traveled extensively. We love to travel. We also have done some sailing. We're actually going to the BVIs in January of next year for a week of sailing with friends. And when I sold the race car this is just a funny little side note when I sold the race car this is just a funny little side note when I sold the race car at retirement, which was a promise I had made to my wife, Suzanne. I then decided that I always wanted to ride a motorcycle, so I went out and bought a motorcycle and of course she was like you were safer in that race car, and she's not lying about that, but anyway, and that's where I am today.
Speaker 1:I do some artwork, a lot of reading and traveling, so that's about me. Yeah, well, thanks for sharing that and we'll dig into a few of those as we travel along here. Okay, into a few of those as we travel along here. Okay, is Dan the road trip guy? Love to hear about cars and road trips. So what was your first car? Way back, way back.
Speaker 2:Way back was a 72 Volkswagen Squareback. All right, yeah, a manual, of course, and that poor little car. Two quick little stories, dan One, before I even got my driver's license, we were getting ready to go on a vacation in it. I was so proud of myself because I washed it and waxed it to make it all pretty for the road trip. And then and then I promptly was backing. It was on the front lawn and I promptly was backing it back onto our driveway and I wrapped the left front fender around the tree. Mom and dad were not too pleased about that, my dad, especially my mother, but my dad initially was like wow, and then he kind of got over it.
Speaker 2:And then the second little thing I can have very fond memories after I got my driver's license, out West of where I had grown up, in West Palm, they, they had what they called the shell pits, where they would dig not very far down and they would take shells to mix with asphalt base. And they, of course they would take shells to mix with asphalt base and of course they wouldn't have to dig very far and all of a sudden they'd be in the water. So there were all these raised roads, if you will and then just water. But oh my goodness, you could go out there in your car they were unchecked and just have a blast throwing yourself around. Checked and just have a blast throwing yourself around. And I and I did that with my buddies all in the backseat and the front seat and knocking our heads on the roof of the car and it beat the poor little tar out of that car. But we had a lot of fun in that car.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, that sounds fun. Nothing like those first car stories, for sure.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Hey, I said in the introduction, you just took an epic road trip with your wife out West, which looked spectacular, with some pictures I saw, but any other epic road trips in your life that just stand out to you?
Speaker 2:There's kind of two, and I would say that both of them were when I traveled across the country and the first time I went by myself, dan, and it was a little over two week trip and that was fun, but I think, really the most epic road trip I did in 2020.
Speaker 2:And I did it with my 85 year old mother, who has since passed on, but we spent 34 days. I went and picked her up in North Florida at a retirement community and we ventured 12,000 miles across the country and back. We went to 15 national parks. That was epic and you can only imagine sticking my mom an 85-year-old woman at the time in a BMW M3 and just getting on with life across the highways and back roads. Sometimes it was a little white knuckle, which I was having fun. She wasn't, but we saw she had never been out west and seen any of these parks and it was just really special to be able to do that with her. I've also had some epic road trips in Europe with Suzanne, but I think the most epic was really 34 days in the car with my mom.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean, that's something most people don't get to do and I tell people today that have family living or whatever, that you need to sit down with them and record the stories, because the minute they die you're going to realize you don't have the stories. So, I would think in 34 days you probably picked up some new stories.
Speaker 2:I certainly did pick up some new stories and you know I tried to keep a diary. I kept a diary, dan, but no, I didn't record many of the stories in the diary that she had. She had told me. But what? Your point is well taken, because at the end of the day, when I got home, what I really wish I had done, dan was taking a tape recorder. Yeah, and when she had started one of her stories, I could have just said, hey, mom, let's, let's, let's wait, and then recorded it, and I think that would have just been fantastic. You could some of her stories, you could, when she was growing up, you could write a book about you know?
Speaker 1:Oh for sure, yeah, so many lost stories there, exactly. Oh, that's great, what a fun trip. 12,000 miles is not a short distance either.
Speaker 2:Well, no, no, she wanted to go to her mother's grave. She's from Chicago, okay, she's just one of seven and she was. Unfortunately, she was the last of seven. Her mother died in childbirth, with giving birth to her. Just for a side note, dan, real quick. What was very weird is I had never been to my grandmother's grave. Oh wow, dan, real quick. What was very weird is I had never been to my grandmother's grave, oh wow. And my mother was born, obviously, on the day her mother died.
Speaker 2:So you were looking at this gravestone, which is march 20th. It was 1936, I believe. Yes, I was born on my mother's birthday, okay. So here I am looking at this gravestone and all of a sudden, this March 20th date was just like front and center. It was kind of weird. You know what I mean. But anyway, yeah, we did that.
Speaker 2:And then we headed north across Badlands, yellowstone. We didn't get to Yosemite. We did get to Yosemite. We didn't get to Glacier Sorry, there were a lot of fires that year, if you remember. We didn't get the glacier Sorry, there were a lot of fires that year, if you remember. And we were supposed to go into San Francisco and South Lake Tahoe, but they were just chock full of smoke and I was like I don't feel like taking my 85-year-old mother into areas where we're never going to get out of the hotel. Yeah, sure, and in fact we did make it to Yosemite and the next day they closed it. Oh wow, they closed the park. But we, we made our way down into Utah, zion Bryce, the Grand Canyon, through Death Valley. It was just, it was just an epic trip. It was, it was incredible.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for sharing that. That's cool. Hey, let's jump, let's shift gears. We'll call it shifting gears. Didn't really know what you did for a living. You mentioned it there early on the architecture and construction. Talk about that for just a little bit, how you got into that and what drove you to be an architect.
Speaker 2:For three years running, just before I went to high school. My family and my mom, as I said, was from the Chicago area. My dad grew up in a very small town south of Chicago, by maybe I don't know 200 miles or so, called DeLand, illinois. It's very close to the Illinois-Indiana state line, illinois, indiana state line. My grandfather was then had moved to Danville, which is a little bit bigger town.
Speaker 2:For the summers, three years running, I was shipped off to my grandfather's and he lived out in a rural community across from a dairy farm. I would work part of the time on the dairy farm, which was just amazing. It made me very aware of A not wanting to be a farmer, but more importantly, it's like what a hard life those people live. I'm like, oh my goodness, it's just second. That was probably six weeks, and then for three weeks I'd go, or two weeks I'd go up to Chicago to my mom's aunt's and they would take me fishing in Canada. My uncle at the time was a big fisherman.
Speaker 2:Back to how I got into architecture, my grandfather was very artistically inclined. In fact at one point he had considered working with Hallmark Cards to do card design and paintings for the front of cards, but yeah, but he did some real small architecture type design for residential work back in Danville and then he also painted work back in Danville, and then he also painted. He was an artist. He worked with acrylics and oils. Now, well, let me back up With the architecture, watching him design these things, and then he would get somebody to help him do some of the constructions.
Speaker 2:These were additions, dan, they weren't new houses. I was really fascinated by this, you know, and I was like, wow, who gets to decide what a house looks like? Who decides what, you know, that building looks like? And so I took a real keen interest to it. And that's when I decided probably a junior in high school that I wanted to be an architect. And I fulfilled that dream. I went to school and got my license and it was a great career. For what little bit I had in it. It did help me promote me into project management. So that's how that all happened.
Speaker 1:Kind of cool that it was your grandfather. Yeah, yeah, spent the rest of your career managing projects.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in managing projects. Yeah, there was maybe a company that people on might be a little older that had heard about MCI. I don't know if you remember that telecommunications company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember MCI.
Speaker 2:I think that was my first email account back in the day for a large architectural firm here in DC that was actually headquartered out of Baltimore. We had been hired, won a contract with them to do a new 800,000 square foot building which was out by Dulles Airport. And back in that day, dan, there was nothing out by Dulles Airport. Now it's surrounded by millions of people and businesses. About three or four months into that, I got a phone call from the person over at MCI and they said hey, listen, we have a position open here at MCI. We'd like for you to apply for it. You're going to have to beat out other people, obviously, but we'd like for you to apply for the position. And that's what I did.
Speaker 2:And I was hired and it literally took me from one side of the table to the other side. I was now working for the actual owner who was paying for the building and the architects, and hiring those architects and contractors. It was a huge step up the corporate ladder, if you want to call it that. And then I just stayed in that. I left MCI and I went to a real estate firm which at the time was called Studley, headquartered out in New York, but they were tenant representatives. So you would go to them and say I'm looking for a building to either build or a building to rent or just space to rent within a building, and then I managed those types of projects and just stayed in that field and realm. If you will, ending up at JLL Jones Lane LaSalle where I finished my career.
Speaker 1:Nice career, congratulations, thanks, yeah, but now, following you on social media, you've switched from building design and you're an artist. Have you always been an artist and this is just now coming out, or what's the story there?
Speaker 2:You know, dan, I've, I've always had an interest in it and, of course, when you're in architecture, you're, you're always doodling something yeah.
Speaker 2:Right and I always had a keen interest in watercolors. As I was talking about my grandfather, I really wish that I had taken. I enjoyed watching him paint, but I never. I never took up the brush or anything when I was with him and it made me wish I had when I was with him. But I always he, he, he.
Speaker 2:Like I said, he worked in oils primarily and I just loved watercolors. I just think that there is a radiance about them and so I wanted to take up watercoloring and of course, it's probably one of the hardest mediums to work with, but I really enjoy it and I've learned a lot since I've taken it up in retirement. Up in retirement I've watched countless YouTube videos and slowly but surely I'm getting better. And I have also taken up acrylics and the thing I like about the acrylics is not only the medium. I think it's very fun.
Speaker 2:It's not my favorite, but I'm working on bigger canvases with acrylics where I'm totally intimidated on big pieces of white paper with watercolor and I don't know what that's, just it is what it is. But, again, inspired by my grandfather and it's something I always wanted to do and I'm just having a blast at it. One of the fun things is taking along, you know, on our travels. It's just a small sketchbook, you know, a little tiny travel watercolor set taking a few minutes and doing quick little sketches and splashing a little bit of color on them and just having fun and recording, kind, of your environment that you're in, dan, you know, taking your, your camera, your phone and taking a picture. Sure it just it makes you look at things a little, a little differently and I also enjoy doing that. Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 1:Thanks. Now do these pieces stay in your house or do you sell them, or what happened?
Speaker 2:No, they, they, they, they stay in the house. Uh, if anything, I I I haven't sold any pieces I give them away. I just give them away. Dan, if somebody's see something that they really like, um, I'll, I'll, just, I'll give it to them. I'll usually have it framed for them and I'll I'll send it to them. Oh, good for you. If you ever see something on my Facebook page that intrigues you and you'd like to have it, you just need to let me know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. Well, I appreciate that. Traveled a lot. You've seen some things, anything on your bucket list that you want to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think our next. We've I think I mentioned earlier we've traveled extensively through Europe and there's more parts of that we'd like to see. But I think our next big epic trip is possibly South America over the winter, next winter, or Australia and New Zealand, or, uh, australia and New Zealand, okay, um, I think is really the next big. If you want to call it epic, that would be it. Um, I will tell you, dan, that we're headed to the UK, uh, september, october, for nearly five weeks this year, so, and that's a driving tour.
Speaker 1:Okay, good yeah.
Speaker 2:So um that that that will be fun as well we'll have to make a lap out of it somehow, you know, so that you see oh it, it's, it's, it's basically a lap if you, if you saw the itinerary it's, go around up one the east side, go across scotland and come down the west side through wales and whatever.
Speaker 1:Wow nice, we did that in that in Ireland last year and did a lap of Ireland this year. We're going to do I told you we're going to do Spain and Portugal and it looks like a lap. I guess once you've done one lap, everything looks like a lap when you take a trip.
Speaker 2:You got it.
Speaker 1:If you could take a road trip with anyone, living or deceased, who would it be? Where would you go? What would you drive? Maybe that Volkswagen? What would you talk about?
Speaker 2:You know, dan, this may sound a little strange, but I would I would like to do a trip he's deceased now, unfortunately with my father-in-law Suze is her stepdad, but he was a really great man. I would want to do a trip with him, and here's why and where. First of all, I'd say I'd like to do a big, epic road trip in Europe with him, and the reason is because he was at 17 years old. He joined the Army, okay, and he was in the Army Corps of Engineers in World War II, wow, okay. And he was actually at the Battle of the Bulge Okay.
Speaker 2:There's some family debate about where in fact, he had an appendectomy procedure done, whether it was in the field or it was actually in the town of Bastogne, but I don't think it went very well. The poor scar the man had was just incredible Looked like a butcher had gone to him when he wore his bathing suit. But the reason I would like to do that with him was he, and he was very hesitant to talk about his stories and what he not only witnessed and saw, I think during the Ash War, but then after the war, when he was in Germany and I think he was involved with freeing some of the camps.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It really soured him on Europe, susan and I, my wife again having traveled to Europe. He just couldn't understand what we saw in Europe, suze and I, my wife, again having traveled to Europe. He just couldn't understand what we saw in Europe and I would want to take him back to places that he had been to see I think how maybe the country had healed and how things had been rebuilt and that it was a good place. I think he just had such bad memories of it is that he just I've seen it and I don't want to see it again. And I think the stories that he could tell and and he was just a delightful man, I mean, he was just a hoot to be around, never not laughing Um, I think would just be an incredible, incredible journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be fun. And uh, yeah, I would have to agree with you. You know, you see it during a wartime and then you see it now. It'd be dramatically different, and I think he, yeah, he car, I would do it in.
Speaker 2:Yes, of course, well, you know I am a BMW guy, right, absolutely. I had the privilege, if you will, of driving the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course through BMW and Mike Renner, which you know it was in the new competition package M3, the one with the piggish nose on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I drive the next model year earlier, m3. That car, dan, was just phenomenal right on the track and people said to me when I got home they were like well, robin, but the thing is so hideous, wookie right. And I said you know, oddly enough, when you're driving it you can't see that snout.
Speaker 1:So who cares? Yeah, who cares?
Speaker 2:Who cares who cares. But I said, performance wise that car is just phenomenal and it had lots of room. I'd probably say let's, let's get in a 2024 M3 competition package and have at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have fun, exactly.
Speaker 2:Maybe even do a couple of laps on the Nurburgring. Yeah, why not You're?
Speaker 1:there, right, exactly. Maybe even do a couple of laps on the Nurburgring, yeah, why not? You're there, right, right? Hey, well, robin, coming to the end of our virtual trip, but you've had a successful career, you've had some great trips. Any advice you would leave with people just on living life?
Speaker 2:it's listen to people, especially sometimes before you speak. It's work hard. My parents put a good work ethic in me. Read I like history. I think there's a lot to be learned from history and there's some great authors out there that don't make it. They make it interesting, such that you don't want to put a bullet through your head. Dan Right, honesty, be honest and treat people the way you would like to be treated. Treat them well. Yeah, I think the rewards will come and the rewards will come. You know, real quick.
Speaker 2:I didn't get to see my father before he passed. He was sick and I was on route home and he passed before I could get to him and I think he knew his time had come and he had a book of poems by Kipling and he had asked he had a book of poems by Kipling. My mom hands me this book of poems and it's got a, it's marked, it's got a bookmark in it and she goes your dad told me that he wanted you to have this. I'm like okay, and I open up the book eventually and I go to the bookmark and it was the poem that I'm sure you and many of your listeners have heard by Kipling, called If it was clearly my dad talking to me, I think, and giving me advice that he had probably never given to me before. Yeah, um, at least that directly. So those, those are some of the central lessons of of of that, that poem, love it.
Speaker 1:That's great. Thank you so much for sharing that. Well, robin, it's been a pleasure to take a little virtual road trip with you, um catch up, uh, on some things I didn't know about you, so I really appreciate your time thanks, thanks, dan.
Speaker 1:It's been great talking with you sir, uh, I always give my guests uh opportunity to to give a shout out to whatever charity business, but since you're retired, you don't sell your, you don't sell your, you don't sell your paintings. I don't know. Is there anything you want to uh to give a shout out to?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, one of the things that I was still passionate about in in on the one laps of America, that that I participated in, I was working for a cause for uh, in promoting a cause for a gentleman that had actually kind of gotten me to the track eventually, always had a passion for it, but uh, he was suffering from prostate cancer and he passed on and he had always talked about doing the one lap and, and so that's how that started. I don't know if you were aware that I was raising money for an organization called Zero, the End of Prostate Cancer.
Speaker 1:I remember that yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I eventually served on its board for four years and I'm really happy and proud to say that in those years that we did the one lap man we raised $800,000.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, wow, okay for in it for my.
Speaker 2:My thing was about awareness for men to get screened. Yeah, um, don't be afraid to get screened. And I, I would still promote zero. They're real kind of a grassroots organization based in alexandria, virginia, here. Okay, um, and they're, and they're doing, they're doing good things.
Speaker 1:Okay, do you know their website?
Speaker 2:It's zerocancerorg.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, I'll put that in the show notes and people can check that out. Well, Robin, it's been again, it's been a pleasure and I hope to see you maybe next May on One Lap. Until we meet up again, you can find me on the internet at dantheroadtripguycom. I hope you will follow this podcast so that you don't miss any upcoming episodes and share it with your family and friends so they can enjoy the stories of my guests also. Until we meet again on a future episode, keep having conversations with each other and keep driving.
