Fernandina Jam
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Surfer Weekend
Again, many thanks to Peter and Vince for the incredible hospitality and good times.
Week Three
It’s been a little while since a substantial update, so I wanted to get on here and type something up. Most of my updates will be in video form, since that’s easier to do from my phone. But I’m sitting here in Fernandina Beach, FL, on Peter’s laptop, so I’ll take the opportunity to type while I have it.
Last week, we traveled up the blue ridge mountains, which was an absolutely incredible experience. I was driving at the time, so I don’t have any pictures, but everyone else was hanging out the windows enjoying the view. I can say that it was incredibly fun to drive – the narrow winding roads made the journey fun for me, and probably terrifying for everyone else. When you’re a passenger in the bus, it’s hard to shake the fear that the bus could careen off the road at any moment, but eventually people realized I knew what I was doing, and started bus-surfing. For the uninitiated, bus-surfing is exactly what it sounds like: standing in the middle of the aisle, and trying to stay upright around turns. Not an easy task in the blue ridge mountains. Eventually we reached West Jefferson, NC, and I shot that video of the cop really early in the morning, but I never told you why we were there. West Jefferson Dr Pepper, is the last Mountain Dew bottler to use cane sugar in their soda. They sell other soda made with cane sugar, but they are not the sole source for cane sugar versions of those sodas. Their cane sugar dew is very good – it’s better than Mountain Dew Throwback (Pepsi’s cane sugar dew). And it comes in ridiculously classy bottles:
After that, we headed to Charlotte, NC, and stayed with Mike’s friend Carla and her family. They were very cool, and incredibly hospitable, and they had air conditioning. It was around this time when Xaq left us. For the record, there is no better way to be dropped off at the airport than in a technicolor school bus. On Monday, we made our way to Asheville, where we met up with my long time friends, the Mongans. They took us out to diner (thanks again!) and the next morning we made our way into Asheville proper. Asheville is an incredibly cool town with lots of little stores selling eclectic things, lots of cool people out in the streets – musicians, locals, tourists – and all were enjoying the city. Wherever we stay, people tend to trash talk the place they live. Even here, in this beautiful Florida beach town, there are people who would rather be somewhere else. This was not the case in Asheville, and everyone knew that they were exactly where they wanted to be. In the city, bus parking is non-existent, but we drove by a lot outside a shop that had enough space to fit the bus. Ned and Peter hopped out, and asked if we’d be able to park there. We lucked out, meeting some seriously cool people who were more than happy to help us out. We walked around Asheville for a little while, and when we returned to the bus, Andy (the guy who ran the woodshop where we were parked) was hanging around, hoping we would like to jam. Out came the guitars and the mandolin, and a really cool night followed. I’d love to spend more time in that city someday, it seems like a lot of fun.
Back in the bus, we noticed something funny was going on with our electronics, and the veggie pump in the back failed. I wasn’t sure the two were related, but after a few calls to knowledgeable friends and a few easy tests, we discovered our alternator wasn’t giving us any juice. A local diesel shop was able to help us out, and got us an alternator for pretty cheap (though it still exhausted the emergency fund), which we installed the next day. The new alternator was working, but the veggie pump was still shot, and I had to replace that as well (luckily, we had a backup on hand). During the downtime, we managed to fix some other minor problems with the bus, and install the solar panel.
From there (which was Waynesville, NC) we started heading down to Jacksonville, FL, where we would pick up Max and lose Mike. Georgia is a big state, but we have a lot of fuel and a lot of drivers, so we made it in a fairly short time. We picked up Max, and dropped off Mike the next morning (we’re caught up to yesterday now), and went exploring for a beach. All but Max hadn’t showered since Carla’s house, and it had been humid and hot as forty hells in Georgia, so we needed to cool off and get clean. We wandered North of Jacksonville, looking for some place that would work, and stumbled upon Fernandina Beach. It is beautiful here. Unsurprisingly, there was no parking for a vehicle of our size, so we asked a local shop owner if he’d mind if we spent the day there. We must have some good karma working for us, because he invited us to stay the night, and join him for a barbecue the next day. We spent all yesterday playing in the waves, and I’m appropriately red today as proof. We’re going to do a little work on the bus, and then enjoy the barbecue later today. Each day is so full, it’s hard to hit on everything, but those are the highlights of this last week.
Denver House
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