The Best Bus makes its journey to Sherman Island, California

Posted Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

My journey to Sherman Island by Bucky Ashcraft

Soon after I bailed out of the Oregon rest stop, I realized that much like the guy I left alone in the parking lot, I would be spending the next couple of hours (more like 13-16 hrs) by myself just driving. I did this same solo trek last year and, if any of you recall, this is the route during which I was stung by a bee driving the bus...Kind of a weird situation to be stung by a bee, driving down the road in a bus at 70mph! Well, it's actually kind of funny now that I think about it!

This time, I was armed with my new Casio Exelim Ex-Z77. I knew whatever happened during this trip would be well documented this time! I truly have fallen in love with this camera especially because it has You Tube connection capability. Now I can post my short video clips of the bus and my travels on You Tube. My videos should be posted up on there within a week or two so make sure to search You Tube for Best Bus videos and some of the Barnacle slider videos from Brazil (where Shannon kills it on the Brazilian ingenuity built slider.)

Anyway, I digress. Let's get back to the travels on the bus...

Taking off from the rest stop that morning I knew it would be a long journey but with the help of Red Bull, my fully loaded IPOD (Thanks Zach) and good scenery I thought it would go by quick.

Fast forward 6 hrs later and 400 miles down the road….here I was again at another rest stop. WHY, WHY, WHY?! Are there some sort of subliminal signs that I seem to be missing on the roads that say “WEIRDOS CONGREGATE HERE...THE BEST BUS IS STOPPING BY SOON!” Once again at yet another rest stop, something extremely peculiar happened. On this occasion, I ran into the twisted version of the "Partridge Family" with a Bible.

I wouldn’t say this bus was weird because that would be an understatement, I would say this bus and the people on it were more than likely Branch Dividian survivors. I wont say anymore than that, I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

As I was taking pics of this other bus, I turned around to find a lady just standing there looking at me but not saying a word. This was weird but not surprising for many reasons. First of all, I had just finished reading all of these twisted quotes on the other bus and then all of the sudden I turned around and the lady, who is still not speaking, shook a gallon jug, with a sign reading: “Picture Taking Donations”. She stared at me for a while longer and I figured that she would start preaching to me but she didn't. We just stared at each other, eye to eye, for 15 seconds. I guess she figured she had done all the preaching that needed to be done on the outside of the bus.

The silence by her was even more awkward than the text on the bus, which I am sure, was normal for her. But it was just down right scary for me.

So there she was staring me down in a rest stop on the side of the interstate waiting for me to give her money. I wanted to do the same thing as before at the last rest stop to “CREEPY GUY” and mumble something about a Christmas tree being on fire but I knew that that trick wouldn't work twice and she would probably tell her God too. Now I began to wonder, how much should I give her? All my coins or some paper? I ended up giving her $5 (can I expense that?) and couldn’t help but to equate that into the distance she could actually travel in a bus on that amount. See you at the next rest stop!! Well, hopefully not...

I pretty much ran to the BEST bus after that, punched it out of there and vowed to not stop at anymore rest stops along the way. Fortunately for me, not a whole lot else happened other than driving past a lot of mountains, some RV overheating issues due to long incline grades, me trying not to burn up the brakes on the way down the backside of the grades, and a lot of conversations with myself. Just to let you know... Yes, I am a great speaker and hold a lot of great debates amongst myself.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

I arrived in Sherman Island at around 1 am to find that the Sherman Island gate was locked. If you have never been to Sherman Island let me give you a brief description of the road...

There is barely enough room to let one car pass let alone turn a bus around to get out of someone's way. You see, Sherman Island road is on top of a levee and on one side the California Delta and on the other a steep drop off. I basically had no other choice but to pull the bus off to the side of the road and sleep on a steep angle throughout the night. During instances like this, I would usually put the jack on the bus down and level it out but someone spilled Coca Cola on circuit panel for the jacks and shorted it out. MANY THANKS TO WHOMEVER YOU ARE!!!!!!!!!!!

At 7 am, I was awakened by the sound of the wind. As soon as I looked outside I knew it was on! The gate was finally open so I drove right in and paid for a camping site for the next 5 days. I got set up in my spot and had the whole day to ride. I spent of time on a 9m Waroo but then switched to my 10m Bullaroo when the tide started to Ebb.

I truly love Sherman Island and could spend several months here like many people do. One of my favorite people here is Toraun. I was in luck because, as soon as I pulled in, I saw her getting off the water. She is such a TRULY stoked person and I have more fun riding with her than some of the guys I ride with! Plus, it doesn’t hurt that she is as sarcastic as I am………always a bonus!

I spent the next week in Sherman Island demo’ing kites for 3 different accounts. We did a lot of riding in between, which seemed to be more prevalent than demos, and also met a lot of new people. Since there wasn’t a lot of wind in the bay area most everyone from there made it up to us in the Delta to try out the new kites.

I would like to personally thank Luna and Holland Duell for spending countless hours on the beach shooting pics of us riding,

I would also like to thank, Bruce Sheldon at Sheldon Sails for once again repairing one of our kites and a surfboard in less than a day with superior quality, Evan Mavros at Live 2 Kite, and Jeff Kafka at Wow Kiteboarding for sending their clients out to us.

We had a blast at Sherman and plan on being there many more times next year.

There are still more RV blogs to come...Stay tuned.

See you Soon.

BA