Bus Log: July 15, 1971--A Tender Heart

(I'll resume the bus log in the new year. This will be the last log entry until after the holidays; meanwhile, we'll be in present time for a while.)

Still here at Sutton Lake, fetching two-gallon containers of water about twice a day. I made a gigantic dinner of spaghetti with sprout and jerky sauce, a salad, and a layer cake of sorts done in the frying pan. 

The cake caused us some trauma. I was snuffling around eating onion and drinking alka-seltzer all day, plotting to feed the ever-hungry kids so that they'd stop snacking and thought the cake would do it...but Nonda tripped and dropped it on the way to the picnic table. I wept. Subsequently we had to go pull Nonda out of the bushes, where he was weeping himself and was being feasted upon by a giant mosquito. I forget that he's still tender-hearted, even though he looks like a big strapping bruiser. "All that work," he kept saying sorrowfully. We ate that cake anyway, every crumb, and nobody was hungry for a while afterward.

Anna and I each had a good sponge bath. Here's how you do it. Spread your towel in front of the stove. Put down the washbowl and fill it up with hot water from the kettle. Soap your face, ears, neck and arms. Rinse the washcloth and wipe off the soap. Then soap and rinse your trunk, then legs. Then put your feet in the hot water while you do your fingernails; then give yourself a pedicure, toss out the water, dry the bowl, and dry yourself.

A danced and did her yoga exercises while we played the piano tonight. The hammers are getting very loose and will need some repair before long, but the tuning isn't off too badly yet.

(Here's a scrap of video showing the usual piggyback procedure.)

Bus Log: July 8, 1971--The Second Disaster

We are sitting in our poor beached bus at a 30-degree angle to keep out of the rain (all of us sitting on the high side) while J is somewhere out there, trying to find a way to contact AAA. A nice young bearded man named Bob drove him somewhere toward the highway. Anna is freaking out very badly and bit Eddie.

5:30 P.M. He's still not back. V and Anna have fallen asleep. There is this strange wide-eyed wild child who keeps appearing from the woods and watching us. He has yellow hair and is wearing some strange kind of fur boots, turned up at the toes and embroidered on top. Just now he appeared again, trilling like a bird, barefoot.

(Entry by Vince)

10:00. We didn't wake up till 10 o'clock. Anna is awake as always. We left camp at 2:00. One mile up the road Rock Creek. Everything looked fine but at the turn around slide, sloosh, EEEEEEEEEEEE,cracccck. We're stuck, we're tearing the pavement like paper. After time J got a ride to Florence but after finding that who he called wasn't triple AAA, the man who drove him was gone. He had to walk back. JF think to himself well I'm wet, There is what I need, a garbage bag. So he cut a hole in the top and emptyed it before he put it on. Then someone gave him a ride back to the bus. Then a ranger gave him a ride to a phone he called triple AAA, and triple AAA came, the ranger drove him back and triple AAA pulled us out. And that will teach us a lesson.

At camp we stay warm in the bus getting ready to eat dinner. Dinner time well goodby and good night.

Entry by Eddie:

Joe got up because he heard the theme from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid that Mom played on the piano. We guys went to the beach. Joe gets a walking stick, I get a walking stick, Vince gets a walking stick and so does Nonda. When we get back I am frightened to find that Anna has taken off toward the beach after us. She goes farther than she can walk. Mom carries her two miles back to the bus. We take off for another campsite. We come around Number Six, thinking there is enough room, but bumpbumpbump we're in a ditch. Joe goes to town in a jeep and the guy comes back with news.

"I left him there."

To Joe's surprise, he found that the place where he was left was no longer AAA. Joe hitchhiked back. The ranger gave him a ride to a phone and back. Joe called AAA and I and Vince went to sleep. I slept through the whole towing and I woke up in a new camp ground. It was raining but hot because of everyone's hot air and the potbelly stove.