Bon Voyage

After arriving back in Charleston I returned to work with Joe. Knowing now that my bus had what it takes to travel long distances I starting noticing a distinctly itchy feeling on my proverbial feet. For the first week back in Charleston my life was relatively stable. During my second week back in town my roommates at Beaufain street informed me that I had to get a move on away from my spot behind the house. It appears that the landlord was not enthused to have me living behind the house, and they gave me three days notice to vacate the premises.

Some good friends of mine had recieved similar news recently, and they were in the process of vacating their apartment on Rutledge Avenue, a fourth floor apartment lovingly named "The Rut". The owner of the house had begun major renovations on the roof and gave my friends a month's notice that they had to move out. They had found a new apartment on Spring street, which I lovingly termed "The Spring", which at least metaphorically made the move seem more positive and less inconvenient. The new apartment was supposed to have a good deal of off street parking and my friend Charlie invited me to park my bus with them when they moved. The timing was perfect and by the end of the second week of October I was living behind The Spring.

This lovely setup was disrupted rather quickly when my friends were informed that they did not in fact have as much parking as they initially believed. I had to high-tail it out of downtown after three days at the Spring. Luckily, my good friend Wray was more than welcoming to me, and offered me a place to park in front of his house on James Island. While all of this was happening, my job with Joe was undergoing some changes as well which got me thinking about hitting the road in a more permanent way.

For months I had been discussing the possibility of traveling northwards to Maryland, where I could stay with my close friends Nathan and Danny, at their house in Germantown, where they lived with Nathan's sister Meredith and their friend Mark. Work with Joe was slowing down, because on our current job, a major restoration project on a thirty-six foot tri-hull boat, was taking on a new life of its own. Joe was taking on the role of apprentice to a very experienced boat builder, Dave, and so my role as Joe's apprentice was in a state of flux. I took a look at my finances and decided that it was time to go to Maryland. Nathan and Danny had both completed the Recording Industry program at Middle Tennessee State University, and Nathan had been expressing interest in working on an album together for some time. I have wanted to record an album with Nathan ever since before I left Middle Tennessee State University at the end of 2006, and now it seemed like the time had come to take the leap of faith and drive north.

So, I parked my bus at Wray's house for a couple days before leaving Charleston for points only somewhat known. Before leaving I was able to spend some quality time on Wray's BP(backporch) where we discussed magic, volkswagens and the Florida house music scene of the 80's and 90's among other things. Wray got me in touch with a friend of his in Greenville who is a VW mechanic extraordinaire. He was willing to take a look at my bus to allay my fears of some undiscovered mechanical issue that could cripple my plans. So my tentative route fell into place: Charleston to Columbia, Columbia to Greenville, and Greenville to Germantown.

So on Saturday October 16th I left Charleston. In my next post I will record the journey and hopefully bring this blog up to date. Did I make it to Maryland? Did my bus explode? Will I be able to stop the ticking time bomb and save the city from the evil Dr. EvilBadBad? All this and more, next time on this blog!