Inspirational song: Rock and Roll Never Forgets (Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band)
I've been waiting more than a week to tell today's story, but it did not end like I expected it to. Now I have to rethink it. Friday a week ago, we got a call from my dad, saying that he had a lead on a school bus that had already been converted into somewhat of an RV. The brother of dad's friend was looking to sell one cheap, and we thought we were unbelievably lucky to find a bus on which much of the work was already done. My man called for directions, and arranged for us to come up today to see it. We knew very few details before today, mostly that it was a 1966 Ford, and while it may have been a great vehicle to take on family vacations or scuba diving trips once upon a time, it had not been so much as cranked over once in the last decade. Still, a bargain is a bargain, and we were in a position to be able to take a Saturday to drive to the Sandhills of North Carolina.
We were able to sweet talk the Bonfire leader into letting the dogs out mid-day, but Murray requires far more attention than that, so he rode along with us. There's an old picture of my brother from before I was born, when my parents went on a long car trip, and they made a cool play area for him in the back of the station wagon, with blankets, toys, and comic books, and he was leaning against the back window with a big smile on his toddler face. (Ah, the days before kids even wore seat belts.) Murray had a setup just like that for the drive. We put one of his beds inside his open crate, and brought snacks, chewies, and cleaning supplies. He was a great car dog, and he loved roaming the hills in North Carolina, sniffing strange smells buried under acres of oak leaves. His favorite parts were when the delicious snack foods fell off of mommy's fingertips into his mouth in the car, and when the flock of guinea fowl wandered up to him in the hills and teased him. He heard the call of the wild today, and the call sounded like tame birds.
We spent a couple hours with a very nice couple (mostly with the husband, the wife had to leave halfway through for her book club meeting), looking the bus over, and trying to see whether it was going to be functional for our uses. At some point, it was under a shelter, but the shelter lost its roof years ago. There was rust on just about every single panel, and the wheels appear to be made of solid rust. Even with jumper cables, the men couldn't get the engine to fire up. If we had a year and a half to devote to repairing, sandblasting, welding, and painting, then this would be a really fun project. The interior may have been converted decades ago, but now the paneling is worn out and the foam is rotting. I could enjoy starting over and making it hip and pretty inside. But we have no place to store this bus, no place to work on it, and we don't have the several thousand dollars it needs in material investments. I don't think we are going to make an offer.
We detoured on the way home, through the town where we used to live, when the kids were little. It amazed me how many places I recognized, even in the surrounding countryside. We were driving in the middle of nowhere, and highway intersections were so familiar I thought I had been on them just last month. We drove past both houses we occupied (one cul-de-sac apart from each other), and cried over trees that were cut down and fences we built that did not age well. We drove past landmarks and old haunts. And we were so happy to find our favorite Carolina barbecue joint was still in business (it was a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, and it was fabulous--still IS fabulous). It might be the last time we go through there, and it was a fond farewell. I'm glad I haven't forgotten it yet.
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