Date:         Thu, 22 Jun 1995 19:47:06 -0500 (EST)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Jim Kirk <captain@indy.net>
Subject:      Trip Addendum

     We planned for this trip for quite a while, maybe a week or two! It
was a last minute decision to make the trip to Charleston SC to visit our
daughter, Jessica, who, along with her boyfriend Hans, is working on the
next Ace Ventura movie. The decision to drive Blushie, my 1971 VW bus, 
was two fold. First, she was running better than my Dodge Caravan
second there was a VW meet in Elizabethtown Kentucky we could hit on
the way home. (Plus, I guessed there would be a story in there
somewhere!)
     I spent a couple nights getting the old girl ready for the trip. I
changed the oil, plugs, and points and condenser. The valves were
adjusted, and she was cleaned up from about 3 different camping trips.
     Before we left, I had taken the opportunity of getting on the
Internet and asking for advice from several of the groups I frequent. I
was on the homebrew group asking for the best places to find good beer
along our planned route.  None of the Budmillercoors swill for me! Then I
asked on the Blues group for the best Blues clubs, and of course I got on
the Vanagon group and asked for the best places to get a 1971 bus fixed
along the way. This is a GREAT resource!! I got many responses. With this
information firmly in hand, we headed off on a great adventure.
     The thing that was going to make this trip interesting, I thought,
was the fact that on the way out of town, we stopped at some friends
house and picked up our two new kitties that were about 7 weeks old at
the time. We took them away from their mother and the only people they
had ever known and threw them into a shaking, vibrating metal box and
kept them there for 8 to 10 hours at a time.
     The first day, Kate, my wife,  had a kitty necklace. They were
scared. Who wouldn't be scared?  I was scared! We drove to Marietta Ohio,
stopped to eat dinner and see about getting a motel for the evening. It
never occurred to me to make reservations. It never occurred to me that
it was Memorial Day weekend and there would be lots of travelers out
there. Lots of travelers looking for motels at the same time I was. There
were no motels to be had in Marietta. We called Parkersburg, West
Virginia, just across the Ohio River. We called all the major chain hotels,
Red Roof, Best Western, Holiday Inn, etc. No way! So we started calling
the lesser known motels such as Johnny's Motel. We finally found a motel
for the evening. It was clean and we were tired.
     Another thing occurred to us at this time. During the ride to
Parkersburg, our two kitties had slept most of the way. Now when we
were tired and ready to pass out, the kitties had other ideas. They
romped and jumped and played all night. At least that's what Kate told
me. I passed out and it would have taken a Mack truck to wake me. When I
got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and found the
cats locked in there, I figured something was up!
     The next day, we were on the road again. By this time the cats had
decided the bus was Ok and they were ready to start exploring. (We
thought of all kinds of names for them. Things like Bartles & James, and
Sears & Roebuck. After watching them for a couple of days we decided
upon Twist and Shout. They live up to the names!) This day we drove to
Charlotte, North Carolina. Blushie was running fine. The prep work paid
off. The only problem had been a slight drifting of the timing but, it took
only about 5 minutes to fix it before we left. When we got to Charlotte,
something else occurred to us. I'm from Indianapolis. What do I know
about NASCAR races? I only know of one race over Memorial Day, and I
had tried to leave that mess behind in Indy.  It turns out there's is a big
race in Charlotte over the same weekend. Guess what?? No motels! When
we stopped to get gas, we were told the race would be over in about an
hour, so we gassed up and headed south as fast as Blushie would go!
(Which, by the way is exactly 68 mph!)
     At this point it was only about 3 or 4 hours to Columbia, South
Carolina, so we used our brand new cellular phone, bought just for this
trip, to make motel reservations in Columbia. We were in luck! Again, the
cats slept all day and stayed up all night, in the bathroom. Again, I slept
through the whole thing. Kate was amazed that they didn't bother me,
but then again, I did all the driving.
     So far, we hadn't had time to look for the blues bars and brewpubs
we had learned about over the Internet. Luckily, we hadn't needed to
locate any of the VW repair places either! Now were only about 3 hours
away from our destination, Charleston. It was an easy drive to Jessica's
place. When we drove up in front of her apartment, we thought it would
be funny to call her on the cell phone and tell her to look out her front
door. As we were making the call,  she came out telling us that her
boyfriend, Hans, recognized the sound of a VW engine and knew it had to
be us.
     While using Charleston for a home base, we took the drive to
Beaufort. This is the place that is loaded with very old homes. It's where
they filmed Prince of Tides and The Big Chill. We found a restaurant that
had the hottest hotwings I have seen this side of the Mississippi River. 
     While in Charleston, one of our missions was to visit musical
instrument stores looking for an acoustic guitar for Kate. We happened
into Town & Country Music. I immediately recognized the owner as the
man that taught mandolin classes at Blues Camp last year where we got
married. He didn't have any guitars for Kate, but he did have an old
interesting looking Romanian mandolin that we snagged for a good price.
He stepped out to take a look at Blushie who was sitting in his front yard
(parking lot). He told me of his '80 Vanagon that had no engine. He'd been
looking for an engine for 4 years! He said he wanted to get rid of it, so I
asked him that fateful question..."What do you want for it?" He told me I
could have it if I gave it a good home. So now the problem is to get back
to St. James Island, South Carolina and pick up my "free" Vanagon.
That'll be the next chapter in this story. 
     We went to a blues bar in Charleston. Well, at least we thought it
was a blues bar. The name of the place was Blues. There was a blue neon
sign in the window proudly announcing the name. When we walked in, we
quickly determined it wasn't a blues bar. There was a very large painted
mural on the wall of Jimmy Buffett. They were serving Cheeseburgers in
Paradise. This could be my kind of place. I'm a devout Parrothead (Jimmy
Buffett follower)! I settled in with a cheeseburger and then the music
started to play. It was disco! Everyone know's disco sucks! So we ate
quickly and left. We did find a brewpub in Mt. Pleasant (suburb of
Charleston). T-Bonz is a good place with good food and fairly good beer.
They were new and only had made about 3 batches of beer thus far, so I
thought they were doing very well indeed. They told me this was a pilot
brewpub. If it did well, they had backing to expand all over North and
South Carolina. I hope they do! If the crowd is any indication, they
should do fine. 
     We spent about 4 days in Charleston visiting with Jessica and Hans.
They were production people on the movie and worked 12 to 15 hour
days, leaving us lots of time to sightsee.
     I was ready to get underway due to some information I had
received from the Internet. We needed to stop again in Columbia  to visit
Maurice's Piggy Park, the home of some of the finest mustard based BBQ
this side of heaven! We had a big dinner, and drove to Asheville. By the
time we got to Asheville and found the motel (gotta love that car phone!)
our choices were very limited for dinner reservations. We ended up
going to the little Waffle House by the motel for some of the greasiest
food you would ever want to try. 
     The next morning we headed up the Blueridge Parkway to visit
something else I learned about on the Internet. Busses by the Blueridge
was going on this weekend. We had tried to go up the mountain the night
before, but it was getting dark, foggy and my wife was very nervous, so
we tried again after a night's sleep and some sunlight. It was third gear
all the way except for the part that was second gear! This time we made it
and visited some friends we had made over the cyberspace link. Ray and
Lea Hale from Gainsville, Florida were there. It was good to be able to put
a face to the letters that appear on the screen. Nice folks. Turns out,
they knew some friends of ours. It really is a small world! We weren't able
to stay long, many miles to go before we had to be back at work on
Monday. We stayed a couple hours and spoke with several bus owners
and vowed to come back next year and stay the whole weekend.
     Now we were off through the mountains (downhill all the way!) to
Knoxville, Tennessee, where we found the Smokey Mountain Brewing
Company. Good eats, good beer. I liked the Pale, Kate preferred the
Amber. Great onion rings!! We drove on through the day to Nashville,
Tennessee. Had dinner at Hooters. Good food again, great hooters!  Had to
keep checking the timing, but it didn't take much to keep it running
right. Blushie was running fine and seemed to like driving through the
mountains.
     From Nashville it was about 5 hours to Elizabethtown, Kentucky
where we met up with Pete and Ed from the Southern Indiana Volks Force
club and people from several other VW clubs in Tennessee and Kentucky.
It was a nice park. Lots of nice people. Twist and Shout made friends
with lots of ladies. It seems that kitties are chick magnets. Too bad I
learn this after I got married! (Just kidding Kate!) We spent a few hours
there talking to people, hitting the swap tables and generally having a
good time. Again, we had miles to go before we slept and were getting
closer to home. A home Twist and Shout had never seen. 
     We stopped in Louisville Kentucky and called Robin Garr, a guy I
had talked to many times before. He is one of the system operators of the
homebrew forum on CompuServe. He's given me much advice over the
years as I was learning how to homebrew. Now I was going to possibly
get to meet him in person and hoist a brew or two. I called him from the
Bluegrass Brewpub. He came right over with his wife and their two
friends, Martha & Deb (Wierd Sisters Brewing, Louisville, KY) to share a
brew with us. We talked at great lengths about what? Beer! We brought
them out to visit with Twist and Shout. Can you believe it, they wouldn't
let our kitties in the bar. I guess you have to be over 21 in Kentucky to
go into a bar. After saying our goodbyes, we headed north into Indiana,
stopping in southern Indiana at a WalMart to buy kitty supplies and
finally made it into our driveway around 10:45 P.M.
     It had been a long trip, but Kate, Twist, Shout, Blushie and myself
made it with no problems and we all had a real good time!
     I would like to thank all the folks who gave us advice and
encouragement to make it through the trip. We couldn't have done it
without you! Hope to make the trip again someday. If you are ever
travelling through the Indianapolis area and want to know where the
Blues Bars, Beer Bars or VW repair shops are, let us know! We'll point
you in the right direction and probably even join you!
     The next installment will be about the impending trip back to
Charleston to tow back a 1980 Vanagon with no motor. There's gotta be a
story in there somewhere. <Jim Kirk>