Adventures in a VW Bus
Every once in a while—not often—but every once in a while, our bus, Adie, needs a little extra care. We stopped at a shop called PiperBus Automotive in Connecticut, owned and managed by Tracy Tulloch. It’s one of those hidden gems we’re glad we found tucked away in New England. The shop has a small footprint, but Tracy really packs in the work.
Continue reading “Podcast: Tracy Tulloch”Here’s a meager offering of songs from the Palmetto State. Help me out here, friends—if you know of any great tunes that specifically mention South Carolina (or a city, park, etc. in South Carolina), drop it in the comments. In the meantime, you can listen to our ever-growing, Bob Dylan-heavy playlist.
Continue reading “Playlist: South Carolina”
The wild and winding roads of western North Carolina zigzagged us across the parkway and into Tennessee (but more on Tennessee when we give it the full treatment in a couple months) and then into the more central part of the state where we stayed on Lake Norman. It’s been an incredible week and here are the highlights:
Continue reading “North Carolina in review”
I am notoriously bad at holiday gift-giving. This is not to say that I am generally bad at gift-giving; it’s that I generally hate the holidays—namely the let’s keep the Christ in Capitalism part. I worked three soul-sucking years in retail and, folks, let me tell you: people are at their worst, most base selves when they are filled with the holiday spirit. Add in wage shortages and the fallout from a failed trade war with China and I’m gonna bet that we are about to have the cheeriest season of the gimmies yet. Let me help you avoid the mall and steer you clear of Amazoning the holidays. That’s why you’re here, right? You thought, “I don’t know what i’m going to get Uncle Ron this year; he has everything!” Then you logged on to the interwebs, to this very website, hoping that Ryan Ireland, that jobless fool in the VW Bus would have a list of potential, ethically-sourced, local-business-supporting gift ideas. Well, sport, you’re in luck.
Continue reading “Holiday Gift Ideas”
We don’t use sleeping bags in our VW for a couple reasons—chiefly because they would be a pain in the ass. Our pop top is a Riviera style, which is not exactly spacious. Each night we crawl like John McClane into our sleeping quarters. Needing to negotiate a turn into a sleeping bag and a set of zippers is simply too much. Besides, this is our home. We are living in the van, not camping. So, blankets.
We had been staying in David’s driveway as we ventured toward Salem, Massachusetts. Even though he insisted he didn’t need to be interviewed, we decided otherwise. Over the breakfast he prepared for us, we had a little conversation with him about his time driving VWs.
Greetings from the mountains of Tar Heel country. This place is a hotbed of good tunes, including some true mountain music. Here’s a sampling of what’s cooking on our Spotify playlist:
Continue reading “Playlist: North Carolina”
North Carolina wins the prize for most dog-friendly state thus far. Not only are dogs allowed in regular stores where it shouldn’t be an issue (like hardware stores, auto parts stores, etc.), dogs are allowed in some bars. Dogs are a part of the family here. Campgrounds haven’t uncharged us for having a dog. Dogs pretty much are able to do everything short of voting (and what a better world if they did have the right to vote…).
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North Carolina has been a pleasure so far. We’ve had some wonderful hikes, some unique hard ciders, and great conversations.
Continue reading “North Carolina”
Virginia is for lovers, which made it perfect for us. Miracle and I have made many trips to Virginia over the past three years—most of them to see our buddy, Dustin, at his family’s mountain home.
Continue reading “Virginia in review”
On the Road with Adie