The Appalachians
We eventually found our way onto the freeway that would take us across the Appalachian mountains, down through West Virginia into Tennessee. There wasn't much to stop off and see on this leg of the trip, so I spent all evening and the early hours of the morning getting as many miles clocked up as possible. About 2am I was too tired to keep going, everyone except for me and Nez, who was co-piloting, was fast asleep, so we decided to pull into the next service station and park up for the night. We had discovered that when driving the bus, you needed a co-pilot, not only to help navigate, they had a much more important role... to lock the gear stick into 5th gear! The bus had developed a dislike for 5th gear, when you dropped it back into 5th, it would randomly jump out of gear. We fixed this by hooking a heavy duty elasticated strap around the gear stick, and onto the prison cage. Obviously the driver couldn't do this, so it was the co-pilots job. As I approached speed ready to engage 5th, I'd shout "ready for 5th", and then change gear, in a split second, the strap was around the gear stick, and it remained in place. When I needed to slow down, I'd shout to the co-pilot to unstrap the bungy cord, and I'd be free to change down. It sounds like a bit of hassle, but it became common practice, and we had the timings down to a T.
That night was bloody freezing, we were in the middle of the mountains, we had no bedding, sleeping bags, pillows, nothing but some summer clothes and a prison bus. We all froze, and were all up bright and early for a hot drink from the service station, and a quick wash in the toilets. The first stop today was Wallmart, we needed some blankets!
I brought myself a hammock, a pillow, and a fleace blanket, my idea was to tie the hammock to the prison cage, and sleep in the bus. Others brought small tents, blankets and sleeping bags, but all did the same job. Martin and Biggles thought it would be handy to buy a couple of high powered air rifles, and why not. This inspired a few others to go back into Wallmart to see what goodies we could find. I went halves with Keith on a slingshot, and Iain went for a gas powered bb glock.
A day of driving and general dicking about, and we arrived at a campsite in West Virginia. It was dark when we arrived, and felt very spooky driving around the wooded area looking for suitable tree's for others to tie their hammocks too. Off the bus, torch in hand I wandered through the woods. We had a few cans and bottles we were going to set up to shoot at. As I walked into the unknown, a thin white silk wire glinted in the torch light. I immediately stopped and followed the line up, and about face level was the biggest cobweb I had seen in my life, smack in the middle was big black blob, this was scary, I had no idea if it was poisonous or not, but I wasn't waiting to find out, I back tracked and left the spider well alone! I'd definatly be sleeping inside the bus tonight!
After a few hours of shooting, we were told off by the park ranger, and we put our weapons away. My idea with the hammock worked, and settled into bed, it was comfy, and I was warm – perfect.
Written by Richard Smith
