Of all the wonderful people and places we visited on our trip, we owe a very special thank you to Jake and Caitlin Beardsley. We arrived at their home with only a day's notice, and about 5 hours later than predicted because the veggie kit airlocked and shut off the diesel supply to the engine, meaning no fuel was running to the engine. If you don’t know anything about how vehicles work, allow me to enlighten you: if you want to go anywhere, you need fuel to reach the engine. While this may have initially seemed like the worst morning of our trip (we had started driving at 5am, ok, I had started driving. I did the am shift. I literally would pack up, drag Zach from the bed and strap him into the front seat with a juice box and some toast and drive while he napped. But it’s cool, because he drove the pm shift, much of the time finding a place to camp, dragging me from the front seat where I had fallen asleep with a juice box and some toast, and tucking me into bed. If you can travel well with someone you love, you really love them), our day ended fabulously. Despite the jerky owner of the gas station who told us we had to move the bus, which was clearly broken down in his parking lot, and we were so grateful to be in a parking lot and not just out of the road, and he wanted us to just shove off into traffic, thanks man, Zach did amazing things. He single-handedly (I was busy sitting on the lawn of the convenience mart trying to pick up wi-fi to find the nearest repair company that would actually tow a short school bus -- way to have faith in the situation, Jess) rerouted the fuel lines using only, I believe, twisty ties, some spare nuts and bolts, and pluck to bypass the veggie system and run the diesel lines back to the engine directly. And when he turned the key and the bus started, I did the best happy dance you have ever seen. And I think also busted open a beer at 9am.
Anyway, we arrived at the Beardsleys' to the most glorious welcome: Old Fashioneds (Caitlin’s wonderful holiday drink creation) and brie cheese. And we hugged them so hard because in that moment I cannot tell you how much we really really loved them. We had the best time with Jake and Caitlin who let us snuggle with their cat, Princess, since we were missing our animal friends, and gave us so much amazing food. Pasta carbonera, fried bananas, a lot of brie cheese and hummus, home made chocolate chip muffins (which Jake baked while wearing the coolest apron ever that his talented mother made) and so much more. And Caitlin was kind enough to let me wrap some of the Chirstmas gifts she was packing up while sitting under their beautifully decorated Christmas Tree. I’ll admit it, I’m such a ham for Christmas, and I was really missing some Christmas spirit. Jake and Cailtin, you saved Christmas.
And then, they showed us their wedding video. For those of you who may not have made the connection, the wonderful jam that Zach and I were surviving on for most of our trip was actually gleaned from Jake and Caitlin’s beautiful wedding. Only truly fabulous people give out homemade jam as their wedding favors. And many of the guests left theirs behind! Which meant opportunity for us. The Beardsley wedding was fun and beautiful in every way, and they took it really well that the end of their wedding video was them waving goodbye to their guests, and then the camera panning over to the corner where Zach was not so stealthity stuffing jars of jam into every available pocket of his suit. Zach and I for some reason thought we should dress as a pair of blueberries for this wedding, me in a cobalt blue dress and Zach in a retro powder blue suit, and thus the great jam heist was perhaps not as secret as we thought. So, thank you Jake and Caitlin for wonderful southern hospitality, holiday spirits, delicious food, and so much jam.
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