White Bus Black Dog

Well, the bus is having troubles. We’re parked out back of a gas station along a highway in Charleston, South Carolina. We’ve been here since Saturday evening, and the service station doesn’t open up until 8:00 am on Monday morning. I spent several hours this morning roaming the town on foot in an attempt to find a mechanic who works Sundays, but the only one I found refused to look at the bus because we’d converted it to run on waste vegetable oil.

“Boss won’t let us touch ‘em,” he said.

So Muddy and I walked further along US-17, past closed Chevrolet and Ford dealerships, bustling Sunday morning post-church pancake houses and massage parlours.

It poured all last night, and it’s hot and humid today. We’ll sweat out the rest of the day on the bus, and then hopefully we’ll be able to find someone tomorrow who’ll fix us up and get us on our way.

The problem is this: the bus shuts off suddenly. Three times yesterday we were driving along the road when, out of nowhere, the bus turned off. No sputtering, no warning lights, no heaving or sighing or screeching. The engine goes quiet, the steering wheel locks up, the brakes stiffen until they’re unusable, and so we flick on the four way flashers and try to edge over to the side of the road. Once we got stuck right in the middle of two lanes of traffic, at rush hour no less.

It has been pretty trying on the old enthusiasm; it’s difficult to stay excited about the next day’s travel when the threat of mechanical problems looms so large.

So, at this point in time we’re forced to reconsider our plans. If the bus is going to continue to give us trouble, should we really try to cut a diagonal from Savannah, Georgia, up through deserts and over mountains in an attempt to make it to Vancouver by the start of July? We’re questioning whether or not this is still a wise idea.

Right now, the most attractive alternative is to just throw in the grease towel and park the bus in a warm, friendly locale for June and July, then slowly make our way back up the coast and over to Halifax for the start of September. Anyone know friends or family looking for subletters or house sitters in Georgia or South Carolina?