Blood is the price of glory.
✖
PORT TOWNSEND, WA
playing some wax at our new spot. we stumbled upon a two-day only garage record sale back in paonia, and had picked up a bunch of jazz that we were still listening through. the media cabinet we built has a floating turntable tray that makes it super easy to level out both platters when parked on uneven ground. the driveway here was especially steep, but our records tracked just fine
SEATTLE, WA
paul found us a great spot down the street from his house, on the edge of a park in SE seattle. nice and shady, close to lake washington. the next night we biked up to Lo-Fi for Emerald City Soul Club and had a hell of a time
PORTLAND, OR
brought the bus by the maple XO shop where they create things with old, thrashed skateboard decks. after a few records out front, lindsay showed us around her shop and handed us two of the dome shot 45 adapters they’ve been making with john cardiel. an extremely badass collaboration, the things are great. snug and heavy. and we’ve been using them ever since.
thanks lindsay!
DETROIT, MI
next up was the dirty d. we love detroit, and we’re excited to go back and see how our friends andy & amy’s urban farm had progressed. they had left chicago a fews years back to break ground, and we hadn’t been up there since we dj’ed a kickstarter for their first site.
while there, we also got the opportunity to catch one of brad hale’s vinyl sets right down the road from our parking spot on a different farm. brad owns the legendary peoples records, and has a rich supply of soul + funk 45s from the area. can you dig it?
DANIEL BOONE NATIONAL FOREST, KY
since we’d already started heading south and winter was on it’s way, we decided to keep heading in that direction and dodge the cold weather. our new target became lake santeelah, a mountain lake with free dispersed camping in north carolina. on our way down we spent a night in the daniel boone national forest. it was pretty hairy finding the forest access road in the dark. it definitely took a few loops before we spotted the tiny brown sign, but eventually we did, and the spot was nice and quiet.
CHEROHALA SKYWAY, TN
the next morning we found another route (maybe the only other route from the west) into lake santeelah. we’d need to take the same route south of knoxville, past 129, and catch the cherohala skyway east from telico plains. the new route had no formal length restrictions - but judging from the map, it was definitely gonna be a white knuckle kinda drive. lots of turns, lots of steep grades. the closer we got, the more motorcycles we saw. not a great sign when you’re driving a huge rig. we reached the top of the skyway around noon, pissing off many bikers in the process, and pitstopped for lunch at this badass lookout. it was our first high elevation sight of the smokies
LAKE SANTEELAH, NC
full tilt. with all the smoke blocking our cosmic rays we decided it was time to point our panels at the sun for max efficiency. now, we can go without power pretty easily. lots of books to read. no shortage of powerless sources of activity on the bus. but the one thing that always needs juice is the sundanzer chest freezer and even with the panels at an angle facing south we were barely putting any charge back into the battery bank. looking at the battery voltage we figured we’d be good for about 3-4 days if we just ran the freezer so we cut all other electrical usage
CHEROHALA SKYWAY, TN
the next morning we found another route (maybe the only other route from the west) into lake santeelah. we’d need to take the same route south of knoxville, past 129, and catch the cherohala skyway east from telico plains. the new route had no formal length restrictions - but judging from the map, it was definitely gonna be a white knuckle kinda drive. lots of turns, lots of steep grades. the closer we got, the more motorcycles we saw. not a great sign when you’re driving a huge rig. we reached the top of the skyway around noon, pissing off many bikers in the process, and pitstopped for lunch at this badass lookout. it was our first high elevation sight of the smokies
