I’m done working, the house is empty, the van is packed, and it’s time to hit the road. It was a balmy 80 deg so I was rolling with the windows down until I stopped for the night. I decided to stay in Savannah, GA for the night, have some dinner and explore the town. With some recommendations from friends I ended up at Moon River brewing company, if you’re in the area I’d recommend it as well.
Walking the town I found some photo-worthy historical features and I was entertained by a booze cruise floating down the river belting out “Don’t Stop Believing”. Spent the night in the van parked downtown and continued to South Carolina in the morning.
Somewhere outside of Savannah I nailed a pothole and the van developed a pretty serious wobble. Stopped in to a local shop along the way, I had wrecked the belt of the back right tire. They didn’t have one in stock so they swapped the full-size spare on and I was on my way. I made it up to Spartanburg, SC where my friends Bill and April hosted me for the weekend. Tuba Gin was playing at the local 13 Stripes brewery, we spent most of Saturday making new friends and enjoying good company, music, brews, and even a cigar.
Monday morning, it was time to get back on the road. I stopped in Charlotte, VA to replace the wrecked tire, bringing my usable tire count back up to five. Not 300 miles later, the spare we had put on the back right blew out completely.
It had been a brand new tire but there I was changing it on the side of the road. I back-tracked south a ways to get to Roanoke, VA to get a new tire mounted. At this point, I wasn’t going to go any farther than I had absolutely had to without a spare on board.
With the tire dramas sorted, I made it a ways further north before bedding down in a truck stop. It was going to be below freezing overnight, so I decided to turn the heater on – turned out that doesn’t work. Huddled under all the blankets I had I was reasonably warm, getting out of bed in the morning wasn’t particularly fun though.
Finally, without any other issues I made it to my Dad’s place in New Jersey. He’ll keep an eye on my van and start it every so often while I’m on the trail to keep it running. Now all I have to do is relax until it’s time to fly back down to Atlanta on Mar 14.
Paul – looking forward to seeing posts about you (& company) on the trails. I’m totally jealous.
Looking forward to posting a lot. It might be a little slow at first since Kacy will be on the trail with me for a week, but after that it should be pretty steady. The insta and facebook will have the most updates at first. It’s only 4 days away, starting to get nervous now.
Don’t be nervous you got this and looking forward to the updates of your journey! Say hello to Jon and Amy Jo from me and you all be careful out there. 🙂