BodesWell

Campin’ with the Moonies

Posted on November 19, 2009 by jason13 Comments

From Mark’s VW shop in VA, we headed to North Carolina. Our destination was Camp Jomeokee near Mt. Pilot (or Titty Mountain as some called it). First we stopped by Floyd, yet another hippie mountain town that was on our way. Cool place – and some folks there insisted we stick around for the Friday night jam – but we were anxious to meet up with the Full Moon Bus Club.

We did have to make one other stop – Mayberry. The hometown to Andy Griffith is actually called Mt. Airy, NC and it was the basis for TV’s Mayberry. Now since driving through this town 4 days ago, I have actually seen The Andy Griffith Show on TV 4 times. We don’t have a TV, and we’ve been camping, but it has just been appearing randomly when we do see a TV ever since our visit. Weird. Anyway, the soda shop, Floyd’s barber shop, Wally’s garage and the police station–check! We opted out of the Andy Griffith Museum and headed to the campsite.

We rolled in just as it was getting dark, and found about 15 buses. By morning there were 25. By afternoon, there were about 40. Bode’s first rule of business–find the dogs and the kids, so off he went looking. We didn’t see him again until Sunday morning… it was that kind of campout.  Okay, not really, but it was kind of like that. First, he met Ben, a precocious 8 year-old and Bode’s new best friend for the weekend. A few hours later there was Austin (Bode wants to clarify that this is a different Austin than his friend from California). Austin, 7, and his dad brought all the cool toys.

By Saturday, we had 6 kids in the pop-top fort above the van… a new record. They seemed to appreciate Jason’s custom platform, and if Bode wasn’t already convinced, he now thinks our bus is pretty cool. At one point, there must have been 15 kids running around Austin’s campsite. It was a little like Lord of the Flies and I can’t say enough good things about Shaun who was able to oversee the mayhem. Despite the raucous playing, all the kids were really great and took care of each other extremely well.

Ben’s mom, Nikki made these awesome Camper necklaces. Check them out if you know anyone that loves her some Vee dubs!

Calling this weekend a campout is really an understatement. It’s a party. A good one. We pulled in knowing nobody and left feeling like we were part of a family and made some great friends. We’ve told everyone so far that our favorite part of the trip has been meeting so many great people, and this weekend was no exception.

Now, let’s talk about moonshine. We’ve all seen the Dukes of Hazzard and we knew we were getting pretty close to moonshine country, if such a place exists. It does.

I’ve never even seen moonshine before this weekend, but I learned quite a bit about it. According to these folks, plain moonshine tastes like kerosene, and ‘makes your insides feel like they’re on fire.’ Nobody drinks it that way anymore, so now you infuse moonshine with fruit (peach, cherry, etc) or flavor it like apple pie. Where do you get moonshine? No one claimed to have made it, but everyone knew someone that made it or could get it. The Fairy Dust Girls even had a neighbor that would leave it on their porch! By the way, these tasted nothing like kerosene. In fact, the peach moonshine tasted like peach iced tea. Dangerous stuff. Cherry moonshine was pretty good, and the cherries were like little booze bombs bobbing in the bottom.  Strawberry… it was fine, but the discoloration of the fruit after sitting in the mason jat made it’s appearance a little off-putting. That’s the other thing – moonshine is served communally from a mason jar.  Just like you think it should be. Awesome!

If we could buy this stuff in the store, we’d buy it. It was good! Really! We have friends who make beer, and friends who make wine… but we implore you guys to make some MOONSHINE!

The Fairy Dust Girls had the really cool blue bus with a sparkly paint job – we should have done this. We met Hot Dog, Beetle, Outhouse Mouse, Kooky Math Teacher – everyone had a nickname.  Great people and colorful folks. Damn, we’ve missed The South.

Saturday evening was the traditional Thanksgiving Misgivings meal. Deep fried turkey, people! It was the best! The kids had a picnic in the meadow and we stuffed ourselves with delicious food. The “almost world famous dutch oven bread pudding with whiskey sauce” was served as one of the deserts and was talked about by everyone.

Later, the kids decided to try to sell rocks. Bode came back with 4 quarters.

In a large group there are always interesting conversations going on. We walked up on the infamous “Animals I’ve Eaten” conversation (squirrel, turtle, various rodentia, etc.)

But my personal favorite story of the weekend (oh, there were so many)… The story began as he hitched around the U.S. for a number of years. He warned us that all the perverts live in Florida (apparently, you learn this when you hitchhike.) One couple that picked him up said that they had met each other when she picked him up hitchhiking, and they told him that love would find him soon. Six months later, he was selling lemonade for a carnival. Three days into a new town, he met his now wife. She owned her house and a Harley Davidson outright, and he remembered what the couple had told him. 18 days after they met they were married. He took her on the road with him for a month and they lived in a tent until they decided that living in their own home (and having a Harley) was a better life-plan. Now they home-school their 5 kids. These kids were so nice and smart, and the family were just all-around good folk. This guy was a real story-teller and had everyone laughing hysterically. We listened closely and heard many real words of wisdom – the kind you can only learn by living life on your own terms.

All around good times were had. Bode didn’t want to leave and I don’t blame him. He ran all over the place with great kids for 2 days straight. We had a blast, and this was probably the most fun we’ve ever had camping. I hope we can make it to another Full Moon campout some day!

Salem Imports

Posted on November 18, 2009 by jason7 Comments

We’re not really ones to offer endorsements or name names – good or bad. It’s more of a privacy deal. Sure, we give first names to tell the story.  In one case, give up the name of a con-man to warn others.  Otherwise, you can rest assured that if we come across each other some day that your privacy will generally be protected whether you want it that way or not. But, here’s one exception… Mark at Salem Imports.

Jeff and Teri (and Karl, and others as well) told us about Mark in Salem, VA. We had no idea what we were about to find. Mark is, well, my new idol.

One hell of a nice guy, VW guru, raconteur, bee-keeper, college football nut, moonshine aficionado, and I could go on… Oh, and we just met him.

We pulled in to the shop with Jeff and Teri – they were checking in on next year’s charity bus, which Mark is donating his time and space to help restore. From the street, the place would appear to the casual onlooker as a bit of an eyesore, but I was in awe.  Bays, splitties, panels, bugs, squarebacks, vanagons, a 23 window deluxe… all just around. The green splittie above had been in the shop for a complete restoration. While we were there, the owners just happened to drop by to check on it – from Ohio.

Mark’s crew replaced just about every piece of metal that could be replaced and it looked perfect. It was acquired after a divorce sale. Part of the job was to go to the house, remove all the large rocks piled in front of it, chainsaw away the trees that had grown in front of it, and extract the bus. We talked to one of the guys in the shop and he said he’s been working on the body for 6 months straight.

Anyway, Mark and his guys were nice enough to drop what they were doing to come check out Red Beard and give it the full look-over. The dual-carbs were tweaked up, new points and cap for good measure (I should have seen/done this earlier), and fixed the breather oil leak.  He drove it around the block and the engine got the thumbs up.  Some of those squeaks didn’t sound right, so next it went on the lift and got more inspection… greased the rear bearings, front beam, and everywhere else that hasn’t seen attention in noone knows how long. While it was on the lift, Mark walked us around and showed us a few more things in need of eventual attention.  More things for the list.

We drove away with a happy, happy bus.

Maybe the best part of the trip was just shooting the breeze with Mark while all the work was being done. He’s a huge Hokie fan – something I’ll forgive, since he can recount individual plays from particular games and he didn’t rub in the Sugar Bowl victory years ago over our Longhorns.

His toy collection… mind-boggling.

Beekeeping is something I’ve long-threatened to start doing – partly to vex Angela, but also because I think it’s really interesting (and the honey!)  Mark’s even made his own honey centrifuge. We shared theories on the mass nationwide bee deaths. He’s thinks there’s merit in the cell phone theory, but I’m going with pesticides.

The hives are right next to the shop and the bees float all over the place. It takes a little getting used to, but the guys at the shop just wave them off as they’re working.  “Get on, honey bee!” was overheard a few times.  Some of the nectar is coming from plants growing right out of the old VW’s… Mark claims this gives it a special flavor. He didn’t say it was a good flavor, but if you’re allergic to old VW’s, this might be the stuff to try.

Milestones

Posted on November 17, 2009 by jason4 Comments

For some reason this seems like it’s supposed to be a momentous occasion.  I don’t know why, but at least it’s fun to watch all of the digits roll over. It’s like a new beginning.  A rebirth of sorts. Put the past behind us and look forward to the next 100,000.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

Seneca, 4 BC – AD 65

The Blue Ridge Parkway is not a bad place to mark this otherwise meaningless event. We celebrated by having a snowball fight and then driving some more.

How many actual miles does our bus have on it?  We have no idea.

Thanks to the stamped “M-code” plate and some web magic, we are able to see where Red Beard got started, though.  It’s somewhat serendipitous that it’s first miles on the odometer were possibly right in this same area near DC. Also, if we extrapolate backwards from that production date a few months, it’s likely the bus was being birthed on the German assembly line around the same time Angela and I were entering into the world as well.

Shenandoah Snow

Posted on November 16, 2009 by angela5 Comments

We left Washington DC and the rain followed. It’s getting really dark by 5 PM here on the East Coast, and with rain and DC rush hour traffic, the highway was not my favorite place. Then, the turn signals shorted out so that when you tried to use them, it killed all the power to the gauges on the dashboard. No blinkers, but we still had lots of turning to do. My face was down in my hands a lot (Jason was driving), but finally we were off the major road.

I have been hearing stories about Robert from Jason’s dad since I met him. It’s usually the same story about the time he took them skiing during high school and they destroyed a hotel room. He loves to tell that story. Anyway, Jason and Robert recently got back in touch and he and his wife Michelle (also a friend of J’s from high school) now live in Urbana, Maryland. We met them for dinner and had fun telling (other) stories from the past and catching up.

We had a generous offer to stay with someone on the way to the mountains, but the weather and power problems sent us to the nearest motel. We got an early start the next day and the electrical  short seemed to have fixed itself (or at least dried out).

We drove to the top of the Blue Ridge Parkway and traveled through Shenandoah National Park. It was beautiful and at the highest point it was snowing. The fog came in heavy a bit later and the lack of visibility pretty much made us detour out of the park – and the campsites were all closed. Fortunately, we had been invited to stay with Jeff and Teri from the Full Moon Bus Club so we headed down to Roanoke.

We stopped at a grocery store before we got to their house and quickly realized that we were now in The South. Nice folks all over the store – really nice. Eagerly nice.

Jeff and Teri confirmed the Southern hospitality theory… more really great folks. They welcomed us, fed us, entertained Bode and let us use their laundry. Instead of the usual “hippies use back door” sign, their sign says to use the side door. Nice! The next day they gave us the tour of Roanoke and left us in the hands of Mark, a great VW mechanic.

Despite Teri battling some major illness in the last year or so, she and Jeff work very hard on their charity event Natural Bus. They spend an entire year restoring a VW bus and then raffle it off to raise money for the local Ronald McDonald house. They are passionate about the bus restoration and the charity. Great people working hard to help a great cause. Their website isn’t updated for this year’s event just yet, but please contact them through the website if you are interested in making a donation, an auction item, a door prize, or parts or services for the raffled bus. It’s a highly-attended Full Moon Bus Club event and we’ve been told by many that it’s a really fun weekend.  Where else can you go camping and come home with a newly restored Westfalia?  I’m hoping we’ll be back for this event someday.

I Don’t Think The Heavy Stuff Will Come Down For Quite A While

Posted on November 13, 2009 by angela9 Comments

Ever since visiting Parliament in Canada, Bode has been talking about wanting to make the laws when he grows up. None of us have been to the US capitol,  so after staying a day or two longer than we expected in Jersey we headed south.  We rolled in at dusk, with no real plan other than seeing the sights at the mall. Once again, a total lack of planning didn’t prevent us from just showing up and wandering around.

Note the beautiful weather on day 1. No jacket required.

Bode really wanted to go in the White House to see the President, and it took a while to convince him we couldn’t do it. We walked around a bit more before getting really hungry.

Ben’s Chili Bowl was recommended by two friends and it was awesome. I went back for seconds. Of all the landmarks in Washington DC, this is the only one that serves a killer chili dog.

Ben’s is one of those places that has been an institution for multiple eras and has pictures of it’s famous patrons.  There was a picture of Barack, but two of Bill Cosby.

Tropical storm Ida showed up overnight, much to our surprise. The rain got heavier and the wind stronger all day.  Although it slowed us down a bit, we still got to see much of Washington.

The Washington Monument is the tallest, so was first on Bode’s list. The rain kept the crowds away and we went straight to the top. It’s a great way to see the area.

After George Washington was out of office, it was quickly decided that a monument was to be built in his honor. He agreed that a statue of him on his horse would be acceptable. Fifty years later, long after his death and many delays, some committee decided that it would be a giant stone monolith. At least that’s what the park ranger told us. It’s pretty cool – way more impressive in person. No mortar – just stacked stones. At the top… in the rain… it leaks.

While waiting for the elevator ride back down, some impatient woman behind us starts whining… “Did somebody push the button?! Did anyone push the button? Did they (to us) push the button?!”  It’s the Washington Monument, lady… there’s no button.

We checked out Lincoln’s Memorial and skimmed the Smithsonian and Capitol. For this first time in my entire life, I was asked to move because I was blocking someone’s photo. There were 1000 people and I was blocking the Lincoln Memorial. It’s no wonder American tourists have such a bad rap. We’re bad tourists in our own country.

We could have spent a week here, but two days would have to suffice this time. We tested the theory that there is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing. After all day in the cold rain though, we were soaked through to our socks. Well, Bode was pretty dry–we pushed him around in a plastic bubble stroller.

It was Veteran’s Day which added so much to my experience. I can’t believe we’ve never been here, and I can’t wait to go back (in the summer.)

Go Around!

Posted on November 12, 2009 by jason12 Comments

The thing we’ve noticed about the East Coast is that they love their Turnpikes. Toll roads. Whatever. You can’t avoid them. They are everywhere. Nowhere else in the country do people have to pay to drive on what is deliberately named a freeway. Anyway, we took the Turnpike down to DC. It probably cost $20 by the end of the day, $2.85 at a time.

Back at the beginning of the trip, we went to the Busfest in Vallejo, CA on our way out of town. I took a picture of a cool bus sporting a sticker that said “Why are you still behind me? Go around!” Since we were transitioning to a new slower lifestyle, I made a comment on the blog that we needed one of these on our bus. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, only a few days later I got an email from the guy who designed it, Raul. It turns out it’s not a sticker – it’s a magnet! It also turns out he wants me to have it and ships it out ASAP!  The problem is that it took us a while to coordinate shipping logistics via my father, so we just got it in New Jersey, almost three months later. Just in time for the Turnpike.

Driving the bus on the Jersey Turnpike is not, ummmm…. enjoyable. We survived, and even had a few people slow down beside us and mouth a few comments over to us. We think they were encouraging words – really. One of them was a Westy Vanagon, the first VW bus of any kind we’ve seen since Wyoming – a long drought.

Jersey and NYC

Posted on November 11, 2009 by angela9 Comments

Less than a week ago we decided to change our route and go all the way to the east coast. If you’re going to drive around the US, you may as well drive around the US. It’s forced us to do more interstate driving lately and pass right through some otherwise stop-worthy places, but we made it.  Coast to coast, baby!

From Niagara, we stopped in a random town somewhere in New York (Corning?) for the night. Our hotel had a ‘wall of fame’ featuring previous guests including some girl from MTV’s Road Rules Semester At Sea, the third guy from Full House, and some comedian with a puppet. The hotel recommended a kid-friendly Hollywood themed restaurant and we headed out. Bode and I went in first while Jason was locking up the van. The hostess asked us, “2?”. No, there will be three of us. She grabbed three menus and walked over to a booth, threw them on the table and walked off without another word.  It was our own personal “Welcome to New York” moment.

We also got some interesting advice for driving through New York in a VW bus: “Don’t break down.” Multiple people e-mailed us this useful tip. There are simply no VW’s on the road around here and it seems no places to buy parts or get help. We took the advice and rolled on to Westfield, New Jersey.

One of the main reasons to come all this way was to visit our friends Alli and Kevin. And, Bode was keen on going to the top of the Empire State Building.

So, what is the exact opposite of living in an old VW? Living at Kevin and Alli’s!!! It’s a little like living in a Pottery Barn catalog, though I bet a lot of the stuff is better than PB. Even the ends of the toilet paper rolls were shaped into roses or something. Fancy! All kidding aside, their home is fantastic.

Alli and I have been friends since high school, and lived together through most of college. After college, she moved to the Big Apple and lived right in the  heart of Manhattan. She played host to lots of “Girls’ trips. Later, we both had kids at the same time, and spent every Friday of our pregnancy on the phone comparing notes. Her daughter, Lainey and Bode are one month apart.

Since then, they moved out to New Jersey and had another daughter, Keira.  Last time we’d been to their house was just days before Keira’s birth, and this trip we got to celebrate her third birthday with a party at a gym. Bode had a blast with the girls, and even enjoyed Keira’s new birthday toys- the Princess phone and the Gassy Gus game (courtesy of Uncle Ed). The girls were equally excited about what Bode brought–a camper van! Our van is only equipped to hold one carseat, so the girls had to take turns. Bode was happy to ride in Alli’s newer car. It had automatic windows after all.

One of the other highlights of our visit was getting to see another long-time friend, Melissa. She and I spent about every weekend together in our teens.  She and Henrick came in from Queens and we all went out to dinner. Another great thing about being at Alli’s house—they have a babysitter! One that will watch all three kids! It’s been a while…