#dirtbagswag whips 004: Mark and Alex's 1971 Manabago

Makin' friends, Manabago style!

Remember when dreams were fueled by little more than peanut butter and jelly? When choosy moms chose to send their kids outside to imagine better worlds powered by high caloric food paste made from dry roasted peanuts? When Peter Pan was a tight-wearing, pirate-fighting hero and a delicious sandwich spread? Not a psychiatric syndrome or a psychological complex? When spreading the fun was all that mattered?

Well, those days never ended for two mustached dreamers named Mark Slagle and Alex Cox. 

Mark and Alex have a dream to reduce severe acute malnutrition across the globe. And like so many big dreams, this one starts on the open road.

Shortly after the turn of the decade (the 2010 one), Mark and Alex partnered with MANA, a non-profit company that makes Ready-To-Use Therapeutic Food (RTUF). Three servings of RTUF a day can totally save a child's life by providing basic nutritional needs. And people needed to know. 

So they bought a 1971 Winnebago.

whip specs

make and model: 1971 Winnebago Brave
moniker: The Manabago
under the hood: Dodge 318 cubic inch V8
gas mileage: "9 miles to the gallon, if the wind was at our back."
dirtbag mods: Ejection button (!), 20 ft. military tent strapped on top, mood lighting and orange leather, shag carpet, 8-track player, brodie knob, homemade paint job, swivel pilot seats, and basically everything you've ever wanted.

They took "The Manabago" from MANA's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina to preach RTUF's evangel in the halls of the nation's capital and then across the United States -- roughly following the I-40 corridor -- through Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, and on to California.

One of those stops was at a bar -- the Cannery Ballroom -- in Nashville, Tennessee where I stood in the back waiting for the lights to dim. It was the day after I moved for grad school and I knew absolutely nobody. A big guy with a bigger mustache introduced himself to me as "Mark" and he was driving across the country with his friend in an old camper. He was literally the first person to talk to me in my new city. I found out later that evening why he was driving across the country and I found out two years later that he worked for the same mountain guiding outfitter in Salida, Colorado that I now work for. 


According to Mark, The Managabo had "the shape of a toaster oven, but the spirit of a rebel pirate ship." And driving her "felt like waltzing with an elderly woman." An elderly woman who had once been a flamenco expert.

But she was still an old woman after all, and a few short months after my encounter with Mark and Alex in Tennessee, she had to go in for a brake tune up somewhere along California's State Highway 1. 

Minutes later, what sounded like a canon went off and a small flame erupted from the rear tire well. By the time the fire department got to her, the two rear propane tanks caught and exploded into a raging, 30 ft. tall cloud of black smoke and open flame. And in less than 25 minutes, over 2,600 miles of hopes, dreams and memories turned to ash.

Yet, like a phoenix, the dream rose from the ashes and while The Manabago took to the great highway in sky, Mark and Alex took to the great highway by foot. And after 2,500 miles of hitchhiking, the peanut butter company, Good Spread was born.

Good Spread exists to help good spread. And for every individual pack of all natural peanut butter mixed with organic honey you buy, a packet of ready-to-use therapeutic food is sent to a child in need. And that's pretty neat. Because unlike TOMS or other 1 for 1 business models, Good Spread provides a simple, healthy, ready-to-eat life-saving food that otherwise could not have been provided. It won't solve world hunger or global starvation, but it will feed a starving child in the arms of a desperate mother.

Help good spread, help Good Spread.

Big things are happening for Good Spread. You can still order packets online. They have jars now. The Southeastern grocery chain, Harris Teeters, now carries it on their shelves. I ate a whole jar in a less-than 24 hour period more than once now. They even have (unpaid) interns. And they're helping more and more mothers feed malnourished, starving children everyday. 

Mark and Alex keep some of the ashes in an urn in their Good Spread office so they never forget. The spirit of the Manabago lives on. Never underestimate the power of the great American road trip -- where miles turn into dreams and dreams turn into conversations and conversations turn into reality. 

Fuel your next road trip, your next climbing weekend, and feed a malnourished child. Help good spread.


learn more about MANA here. 
learn more about Good Spread here.
watch The Manabago in action here.