So, in a nutshell slathered with massive paraphrasing, this is the LONG overdue blogging of the conclusion to the maiden voyage of the 2011-2012 art bus adventure:
From Indiana where we were visiting Brent, Charlotte and their dog Zoey, we drove down to Louisville (pronounced "lulvull"!!!!) to visit my friends Paul and Shane and their dog Scrappy! Ari and I stayed there for a few days before collecting some more veggie and heading back down to Berea to meet back up with Stella and Celeste. Ari and I parked back in our spot in front of The Black Feather, while Stella and Celeste completed the tail end of their school work. Ari got a ride back towards VT with Celeste, and I stayed in Berea with Stella. Stella had about a month before her summer job at Mammoth Cave started, so she invited me to come with her and two of her friends, Bethany and Leandra, on a backpacking trip (my first!!). We hiked the Sheltowee Trace/ Daniel Boone trail for 60 miles over 9 days. We took it easy, stopping for coffee breaks and reading aloud sessions at least twice a day. Three trees tried to kill/maim us, leaving us with scars. We all got foot related knick names like: "walks with blisters", "pokey toes", "boots aflame" and "chip kicker". We saw two rattlesnakes, an aggressive turkey, many signs of non-committal beavers, a huge male Dobson Fly (look it up! Scary!!) we nicknamed Gilgamesh, and a live baby deer in a backpack....
After hiking, Stella and I drove to Vermont, the final destination of the bus's maiden voyage!!! After visiting with Celeste in Montpelier and checking out Vermont for a couple days, Stella took a megabus back to KY to start her summer job at Mammoth Cave in KY.
This summer Christian and Franzie visited Montpelier for a week before selling their truck and traveling back to Germany. Then, Dan visited Montpelier from Georgia and he, Ari and I had a Busketeers reunion at Bagitos in Montpelier. People loved it, and it was tons of fun! During the summer,I worked as a teacher for the TW Wood Art Camp (so much fun!!) and then I visited Stella at Mammoth Cave for three weeks! The cave is 392 known miles long!!! Everyone should go there at least once. It was an excellent visit, but far too short. I took a megabus back to VT (36 hours) and worked in Montpelier at a book store and on the bus for a month, trying to get it back in inspect able shape (it was sitting for about 3 months at that point). Then I took off for KY, passing through NY to drop off friends. I visited Felicia and Bowie in NY, but missed out on visiting with ray as he was working on a movie set with Russell Crowe. I forgive him. Then I drove from NY to KY to meet up with Stella while she finished her bat research job. That was a little over a month ago, and we've been working on remodeling the bus ever since. LOTS of photos to come of our bus transformation! We're about to head out to Santa Fe New Mexico in two days, to meet up with Laura Fritz for her birthday! 1,230 miles here we come!
Also:
Bits of conversation between Stella and I the first time we went dumpstering :
"i hope my bike pedal doesn't scrape the cambium layer off the tree"
"I think there's a recall on peanut butter, here let me check my iphone"
"there's some blue mold on this cheese, do you think it's ok?""whatever, I'll eat it, I went to college!"
And:
We got a tomato thrown at the bus in a walmart parking lot while making fresh pesto.
