On the Road with Adie

How to make coffee

Few things in life are as essential as coffee—maybe water and oxygen (both ingredients needed to make coffee by the way). Since being on the road, we’ve tried a variety of coffee brewing techniques before settling on Aeropress our morning joe. In this post I will outline the various methods and their pratfalls.

Podcast: Jerry

Before we left on our 49 state tour in our bus, Adie, we met up with Jerry Shields, at a local coffee shop. He’s a man with an appreciation for the finer things in life. Just take a look at his bus, Velma (more pics on Instagram). She’s a keeper.

The Toader

I’ve visited my buddy, Dustin, and his family at their mountain home many times over the past few years. This time though, we were there specifically for the annual post-Thanksgiving run held at Blue Toad Cidery in Roseland, VA, the Toader—a 1.51 km race that begins with drinking a hard cider, continues on to a donut stop, before hitting the final stretch with a strip of bacon. It is, by all rights, not a serious competition.

Playlist: Virginia

Okay, so the last few playlists have been very male, very white and leaning toward country. I’m afraid this post won’t correct that trend. I promise more variety as we work our way out of country country and continue southward.

Happy Thanksgiving

A few years ago, my buddy, Dustin, invited me down to his family’s mountain home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It gave me a weekend to think things through and then make some major life changes. I’m always glad to come back to the mountain home and I’m thankful to have the friends I have and be living the life I have. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Pooping

You’ll see plenty of vanlifers Instagram about their meals—decadent things served in cast iron skillets with the steam still wafting from the top. Mugs of pour-over coffee. “This is van life,” they proclaim. And, sure, it is. You can eat great while camping. But what everyone really wants to know is what happens on the other side of the equation. What goes up, must come down. What goes in, must come out. So, if you dare, read on about how to take a shit whilst vanlifing.

Playlist: Kentucky

Ohio’s southerly neighbor boasts some of the best horse racing in the country, the best booze in America, and the home of bluegrass tunes. We have three heavy hitters lined up for this state with a Dylan song coming in on a technicality.

Podcast: Geoff

Over a year ago, we were camping in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania. It was our first trip in Adie and we had only started to kick around the idea of a VW Bus podcast and a multi-state trip, when we met Geoffrey Heigh. We were walking around the campground when we struck up a conversation with this man, Geoff, who had this great New England accent and started telling us about his day kayaking out on the rapid filled river that carves through the forest of Ohiopyle. It turns out, our new acquaintance is no stranger to adventure. Lucky for us, Geoff gave us his New Hampshire address and phone number when we met him. As we moved from apartment to apartment over the next year, his number stayed on our fridge. And I was determined to interview him someday. When we set off on our 49-state adventure, we stuck his number on our bus fridge. We finally caught up to him at his New Hampshire home in the early autumn and he’s even more of an adventurer than we first realized.

And then I fixed the wipers

Last we left off during the swing-through-home-to-say-hi-to-everyone portion of this venture, the wipers had gone out and we muscled our way back by sheer will and lots of luck (navigating between two lines of precipitation and nary a drop or flake). Sam at Dune Buggy Supply already had a motor on the way to us, so it would early be a thing. I just needed to take out to wiper assembly, which consists of two pieces: the motor and the transmission (the mechanical arms that physically move the wipers). I soon found out that the wiper system must be the first thing on the assembly line at VW. A wiper assembly comes down the line and they simply start constructing the entire van around it. Getting it out is a chore.

Season 3 coming soon!

Me, hard at work in Happy Productions’ Listening Room—a very cool music venue / office.

Join us this season for the New England leg of our journey as we chat with VW mechanics, brand new bus owners, veterans of the road, and even a true adventurer of epic proportions. Ten hot, fresh episodes will be dropping in the next 48 hours depending on your streaming service of choice.