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18 minute read

September 10, 2024, 3:36 PM

Recently, Elyse and I, along with our friend Kyle, made a trip to Charleston, South Carolina on something of a bus adventure.

However, before I get into the actual story, I have some updates for you, since it’s been a while since anything was discussed about the bus situation.  Remember back in October, when Elyse, Montigue, and I went down to Charleston in the HR-V in order to pick up former CARTA bus 3426, a 1996 New Flyer D35HF, which we were then going to swap with Trevor Logan for an Orion V?  Since then, things have changed quite a bit.  First, the New Flyer needed a lot of work in order to be healthy, including a new transmission, which was more than Trevor was willing to commit to, and so he ultimately discontinued his efforts in restoring the bus.  That made all of us sad, because we all wanted to see that bus restored and preserved, and didn’t want to see such a unique model go to scrap.  Additionally, at the same time, I was having problems getting insurance for the Orion V, which was former Westchester County Bee-Line bus 700.  That was a 2006 model, which was too recent to qualify for historic vehicle insurance (i.e. Hagerty), plus most of the other insurance companies balked at giving me insurance because of the two recent accidents that I was involved in with the old HR-V and with the new HR-V.  I really resented that, because in both of those cases, I was ruled to not be at fault, i.e. I am a very safe driver, but they were holding it against me anyway, like it’s my fault that some idiot in a Nissan Pathfinder ran a red light at high speed and plowed into me.  In any event, that problem with insurance caused delays in my taking possession of the bus, since I really couldn’t do anything with it until I was able to get it insured.  So that’s where things stood for a while.

Then in April, when Elyse and I made our pleasure trip to Charleston, recall that the first thing that we did upon arrival in the Charleston area was to check up on 3426 at General Diesel‘s facility.  We were pleased to see that it was still there, and at that time, I remarked, “The estimates have come back in, and while everything wrong with it can be fixed, it’s going to cost a big chunk of change to do.  Whether that happens, however, is not up to me.  But we at least wanted to say hello.”  That was the end of our bus involvement for that trip, because other than Elyse’s riding around on various CARTA routes, there were no bus activities planned.  But that visit set off a light bulb in my head.  I knew roughly how much it would cost to repair 3426.  I also knew that I could afford to have those repairs made.  Because of all of the hassle with insurance and whatnot regarding the Orion V, I had also soured a bit on that bus, since I was facing roadblocks to even get into the game.  By comparison, insurance for an historic vehicle would have been a snap.  To qualify as historic requires that the vehicle be 25 or more model years old, and a 2006 Orion V wouldn’t hit that threshold until 2031, which, for our planning purposes, might as well be forever.  So the idea was, why don’t we undo our trade, and let Trevor keep the Orion V, which was former Bee-Line 700, and I would take over former CARTA 3426?

So in mid-May, Elyse and I cold-called General Diesel to ask about 3426.  We soon learned that, General Diesel was, understandably, tired of having it sitting in a state of limbo in their lot, and were planning within the next week to initiate the legal process to take possession of its title.  In other words, we called them right in the nick of time.  We discussed a few things with them, and figured out what the situation was.  Then we called Trevor and pitched the idea of undoing our trade.  He jumped at the idea, and turned the title back over to us without even a second thought.  He had his Orion V back, and I had 3426 again, and I was going to do it.  I let the folks at General Diesel know that I was taking it over, and they changed it in their system to associate me with the bus instead of Trevor.  Cool.  So I got all of the estimates and looked them over, paid whatever outstanding invoices that there were for the diagnostic work that was already done, which got the bus down to a zero balance.  I was quickly able to get insurance for it through Hagerty, and then, with that in mind, I was able to authorize the repair and sent them a deposit to begin work.  So it was off to the races.  Their original estimate was for the work to be completed in early July, however, due to product availability, it ended up being late August when the work was completed.  With that in mind, Elyse and I planned a trip in early September to retrieve 3426.

Last time when we attempted to retrieve 3426, we had two drivers, with one on the bus, and another with a chase vehicle.  We used the HR-V as a chase vehicle, so I did that, and then Montigue drove the bus.  Having a chase vehicle for a bus in unknown condition is a precautionary measure, so that if something goes wrong with the bus, you still have a vehicle to go for parts or, if all else fails, to go home in.  Good thing we did it that way, because at the end of that adventure, we all piled into the HR-V and went home in it.

This time, we felt that a chase vehicle was unnecessary due to the amount of work that had been put in the bus.  As such, I rented a car to go down to Charleston, and so Elyse and I rode down in a black Ford Expedition, which is fittingly described as a “land yacht”.  We went big because we had a lot of tools and supplies that we needed to bring down for use on the bus, and that was more than I could hold in a vehicle sized more like the HR-V.  If it tells you anything, we put the second and third row seats down, and we filled that thing with stuff.  That thing also had a massive fuel tank, and gobbled up the gas at a pretty high rate.  It was quite nice inside, with leather seats, a heated steering wheel, ventilated seats, a panoramic moon roof (that Elyse wouldn’t let me use), and a whole bunch of other doodads that I don’t need in a car, but were fun to play with.  It also had some major acceleration that would throw you back in your seat.  I’ve seen various articles that describe the acceleration in my HR-V as “gutless”, but I think that it’s nice and smooth.  I don’t need something that will take off quickly at high speed.  So this was quite a different beast from the HR-V.  Check it out:

I also had a license to drive like a crazy person, because it came with a Florida license plate:

So Elyse and I joked that I was “Florida Man” in this car.  But it was a good vehicle to drive, albeit one that I would never buy for myself.

Going down, we took I-95 southbound to I-26 to get to Charleston, i.e. the same way that we went on the two previous trips.  We stopped in Fayetteville, North Carolina on the way down, because Elyse wanted to see the transit.  Last time, we discovered that transit service in Fayetteville ended at 7 PM, but this time, we were ready for that, and made sure to get there earlier.  Elyse got those transit photos, and I entertained myself with the drone a little bit.  Look for those photos later on benschumin.com, i.e. the portfolio site.  We also found out that Fayetteville has a pretty cute downtown, but that’s about the only thing that’s cute about Fayetteville.  The downtown is like an island of cuteness in what is otherwise a downright dumpy town.

Continuing on from Fayetteville, we stopped again at the Buc-ee’s in Florence, South Carolina.  We’d been to this Buc-ee’s twice before, on each of our previous trips, and we’ve also been to the location in Crossville, Tennessee.  This visit felt different than the others, though, and I eventually figured out why: by now, we knew our way around a Buc-ee’s, and we were not exploring the store so much as we were hitting specific areas of interest to see what’s new.  I felt like our Buc-ee’s haul was fairly conservative this time, with a combination of grocery items, a few shirts, a blanket, plus food for dinner, and that we would get out for less than $200.  Then we got to the checkout, and it turned out that we exceeded $200 once again.  Damn you, Buc-ee’s, you got me again.  We might be more accustomed to the format now, but apparently, that doesn’t mean that we won’t still buy a bunch of stuff while we’re there.

That was our last stop before getting to the Charleston area.  When we got there, the first stop was at Charleston International Airport.  There, we picked up Kyle.  He had previously planned a trip to the east coast around this time, and our trip down coincided with his arrival.  So he switched his arrival from DC to Charleston, and met us there.  We were all surprised that Charleston had a large Boeing facility on the airport grounds, seeing all sorts of aircraft liveries there, including Korean Air.  Apparently, Charleston is where Boeing builds the 787.  Pretty neat.

After this, we headed over to General Diesel, despite the late hour, just to give everything a quick once-over before actually doing business the following day.  Here it is:

There she is, sitting in the same place as she was last time, nestled between two trucks.  We boarded in order to see the shape that the interior was in, and it wasn’t particularly clean, but such is what happens when you sit largely idle for 11 months, and much of that in a state of limbo.  We did make one grisly discovery, as Elyse found a dead cat beneath the right-side wheelchair seats.  The cat’s body had decomposed a bit, and it didn’t smell, which told me that it had probably been dead for a while.  We suspected that the cat knew that it wasn’t doing well, and hid in here because it was a fairly protected space, and then it expired while it was there.  It felt like a bad omen, and I hoped that I was wrong about that.

We then headed to our hotel, the Hampton Inn in North Charleston.  This was a different location than where we’ve stayed at in the past, as this was picked due to its proximity to General Diesel.  I got the sense that this was an older property that was overdue for a remodel.  The lobby was nice, but the room looked quite worn and in need of repairs.  The walls had clearly been repaired a number of times in various places over the years, the sliding door between the two rooms in our suite was off of its track and wouldn’t close, and the toilet was loose, as in it rocked around when you sat on it, and you could see caulk lines on the floor.  I reported these issues to the front desk in the morning, i.e. making sure that they knew about those issues so that they could get those fixed, and much to my surprise, they gave me 50% off of the price of the room for that.  I was just expecting a “thanks, we’ll take care of it”, since it didn’t affect me anymore, but I’m also not going to turn my nose up at a discount.  So while the stay was less than perfect, they made up for it.

After checking out of the hotel, we headed over to General Diesel.  We said hello to everyone, and then they started moving vehicles out of the way in order for our bus to be able to leave, as we had been blocked in.  We also asked about the cat, and they cheerfully removed the dead cat for us.  We observed a number of stray and/or feral cats on the property, and we quickly surmised that this was not their first rodeo with cats, as we saw various items on the property that indicated that they had been feeding them.  So we appreciated that they took care of “Whiskers”, as Elyse had taken to calling it, for us.

After we made our contact with the folks at General Diesel, Elyse and Kyle checked the bus over to make sure that everything was as it ought to be, while I went over to the airport and returned the rental car, and then used Lyft to get back.  Once I returned, we put the bus in the cul-de-sac at the end of the street, and then continued our check-out of the bus.  The folks at General Diesel were great with helping us get the battery tray fully put back in, and also stowing the wheelchair lift, which was out a little bit.  They also helped us remove a quick-fill port that CARTA used for fueling their buses, which was incompatible with conventional fueling nozzles.  I also attached the bus’s new Maryland license plate, i.e. you are no longer a South Carolinian.  Here it is:

With all of the preparations done, we were off.  Our plan was to do something of a “shakedown” test in Charleston before hitting the road.  First thing that we did was fuel it, giving the bus a full tank of diesel, because we had to go 500 miles with it to get it to its new home in Maryland.  The bus sounded and felt pretty healthy – much more than it did when we first tried to retrieve it back in October.  As we were going along, we noticed that the bus was giving us a check-engine light with a buzzer whenever I would brake or go over rough terrain, and then go away when we were moving smoothly on level ground again.  At first we thought it was an air issue due to its occurring while I was braking.  However, the air was okay.  We then suspected that it might be a byproduct of the work that was done on it, as fluids had to get everywhere that they needed to now that the bus was running.  Earlier, we had noticed what appeared to be a coolant leak, but as it turned out, this was just the coolant system’s being run up for the first time in a while after a coolant fill, and now that everything was running, excess coolant was coming out of a blowoff valve.  In other words, that was normal, and it was doing what it was supposed to do.

Then, coming down from a bridge over the railroad tracks, the bus threw up the stop engine light.  I knew what meant from previous New Flyer experience at work.  You pull over and secure the vehicle, because it’s done.  So here we are, broken down on the side of the road:

Yep… there we are.  We called General Diesel, and they sent a road mechanic to diagnose the issue.  When he came, he hooked his computer up to the bus, and it turned out that the oil pump had given up the ghost.  Lovely.  That explained everything that we were seeing, that oil wasn’t getting everywhere that it needed to go because the oil pump wasn’t providing enough pressure.  So we had the bus towed back to General Diesel, and the mechanic was nice enough to take me to the airport to rent another car, because clearly, the bus wasn’t going to make it home, but we still had to get home.  Turned out that the dead cat was a bad omen, and things indeed did go wrong for us.  I didn’t like that my feeling was right, but that’s how it goes sometimes.

Meanwhile, we had many reminders that we were still well within CARTA service territory, as people at bus stops gave us looks as we passed them without stopping, and a woman came up to us while we were fueling at a gas station to ask if this was where they were supposed to board the bus.  Pay no mind to the big “NOT IN SERVICE” sign on the bus, the fact that the bus has a shredded advertising wrap on it, or the fact that none of us were wearing anything even remotely resembling a CARTA uniform.  Of course, I see the same thing from the riding public in DC, so please don’t think that this sort of cluelessness on the part of the riding public is something that is unique to Charleston.

At the airport, I had the choice of several cars for the ride home.  I had a choice of several Hyundais, a black Jeep Compass, two white GMC Acadias, and a gray Mitsubishi Outlander.  The Hyundais were instantly out because, well, you know, and then the others, I evaluated on their merits.  I eliminated the Compass first based on the feel in the driver’s seat, i.e. I couldn’t see myself driving it for eight hours.  The Mitsubishi would amuse Elyse, because our friend Tristan owns one very similar to that, and Elyse loves that vehicle.  I was thinking that I would end up in one of the Acadias.  Funny thing is that the Acadias had license plates that I appreciated.  One had New Jersey plates, while the other one had Maryland plates.  I figured, either I could be a New Jersey driver, or I could be a full Marylander on the road.  However, the determining factor was trunk space.  The Outlander had a really big trunk, while the Acadia had about the same amount of trunk space as I have in the HR-V.  So that was that.  The Outlander would be our chariot home.

Here was Elyse’s reaction upon seeing what I rolled up in, and noting the similarities to Tristan’s car:

Elyse was thoroughly amused, and approved wholeheartedly, considering that it was a slightly newer version of Tristan’s car.  So with that taken care of, we transferred what stuff we were taking back home over to the Outlander, and we were off.  Our first stop was at a Culver’s, since we had enjoyed going to Culver’s in the Chicagoland area, and they also have a significant presence in the South as well as the Midwest.  Plus we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so we were hungry.

I also discovered the hazards of booking hotels out in advance when doing bus retrieval missions: things can go sideways, which will put you well away from your hotel late in the day.  I had booked a night at the Hampton Inn in Kinston, North Carolina, thinking that would be a good midpoint stop with the bus, and it was too late to change that without incurring a penalty.  So we had to drive four hours and change to Kinston for that.  It’s not like Kinston was out of the way or anything, but it wasn’t ideal anymore.  We went the route that we were intending to go with the bus, which went through Myrtle Beach and around Wilmington.

In the Myrtle Beach area, we stopped in at a place called Suck Bang Blow, which is a kind of rednecky biker bar in Murrells Inlet.  There’s a funny story behind why we stopped in here.  Back around 2000 or 2001, a colleague and I at CFW Information Services somehow turned up the telephone listing for this place called “Suck Bang & Blow”.  All we saw was the listing with address and phone number.  We wondered what kind of business it was, with my colleague’s wondering if it was a brothel or something.  This was by no means the first time that we had found an unusual listing in the directory.  We had also found a place in Virginia Beach called “Flaming Ass Productions”, as well as a listing for someone named “Fuckfluckers Nickiah” in the residential listings.  On that last one, you knew that had to be a fake name, but all the same, it amused.  But in the case of Suck Bang Blow, I found the name interesting enough to look it up online when I got home after work.  That’s where I found out that it was a bar, and that it was in the Myrtle Beach area.  Now fast forward 22 or so years to the present day.  Elyse and I went right past it on our April trip and never realized it, but before this trip, I remembered it and made specifically sure to stop by.  If we had the bus, it would just have been a quick stop-photograph-go kind of visit that took all of thirty seconds, since there wouldn’t have been a really good place to park the bus.  But since we had a rental car instead, we gave it a proper visit.  And here it is:

Like I said: kind of a rednecky biker bar.  Then they had a gift shop, where they sold various branded merchandise, like t-shirts and various other things.

I was surprised to see that Suck Bang Blow sold branded condoms.  Note the sticker of Jesus with the “I saw that…” caption, and the sticky note saying “Cover that thang!” which is a reference to the “HAWK TUAH” video.

They also sold thong underwear with a cheesy line on it.

Elyse and I were looking for a shirt or something to buy from here as a souvenir, but ultimately, we came to the conclusion that we would never wear any of this stuff out in public, either because it was not our style, or because it contained the Confederate battle flag on it.  Just as well – saves me some money.

Then at the bar, Elyse and Kyle got alcoholic drinks, while I got a water:

The decor, meanwhile, was definitely a mixture of things.  These things stuck out to me:

“Private sign: DO NOT READ” on a column at the bar.

“EAT STOOL” painted on the bar top.  I wondered what this was supposed to mean, because I could definitely go a few different ways on it.

Quote from Calvin Klein on the wall.

And that was Suck Bang Blow.  Good to finally visit a place that I’d known about for quite a while.  And then we hit the road again.  That was our last real stop in South Carolina, and we soon crossed into North Carolina, where we saw this state border sign:

“Welcome to North Carolina: Nation’s most military-friendly state”

That sign amused us all, because while we never thought of North Carolina as being military-hostile, we also never thought of it as being the most military-friendly state, either, i.e. it doesn’t rise to the superlative.  Our first reaction was, “Hampton Roads has entered the chat.”  And according to the research that I did, it seems that North Carolina has 24 military bases, while Virginia has 51.  So there you go.

North Carolina was pretty straightorward, with not much to see.  We didn’t stop until we got to our hotel, arriving around 2:30 in the morning.  Going into this Hampton Inn, the architecture looked very different than a normal Hampton Inn, and it led me to suspect that this hotel had begun life as something else.  Turns out that it was originally built to house a Sheraton, and was converted to Hampton Inn in the late 2000s.  That made sense.  It made a whole lot more sense when I took an aerial shot with the drone:

Looking at it from above, it is definitely an older Sheraton property.  This also reflected in the room layout, where the “suite” was really just a large hotel room with a couch in the center and the bed in something of an alcove.  I don’t really consider that a “suite”, as it is still a single room.  But I’ll take that into consideration if I ever find myself in Kinston again.

Finishing up at the hotel, Elyse and Kyle stopped in at a nearby Hardee’s to eat, since they got up too late for the hotel breakfast, while I photographed a Super 8 sign nearby.  I had previously wanted to photograph this sign on our 2021 trip, and said as much, and so I jumped at the opportunity to check this piece of unfinished business off of my list.  Here it is:

Not bad.  We then headed into Goldsboro, where we checked out the campus of Wayne Community College, where my friend Patrick works as a math instructor.  We saw where his office was, and also checked out a few other buildings.  Not bad.  We then went down and saw Patrick at home, and we hung out for about an hour.  Not a bad time.  It was also nice to see his and his wife’s dogs, Maggie and Ellie.  We’d met Maggie before, but this was our first time meeting Ellie.  Here they are:

Maggie (at left), and Ellie (at right), on the deck at Patrick’s house.  Maggie spent much of our visit barking at us.  They both were quite proficient at standing and walking, just like Rory Calhoun.

Finishing up at Patrick’s, that was the end of our time in Goldsboro, as we headed over to Raleigh.  There, we visited MoonRunners Saloon, which was featured on Bar Rescue a while back.  I had identified this place a while back as a Bar Rescue bar that was still open, and which I could reasonably get to, and this was the opportunity.  Here it is:

Kyle and I had their mac and cheese bowl, while Elyse had a drink, and then peaced out for a while in order to ride buses.  I was pleased with the place, though the service was a little bit slow.  I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that they were doing so well that they had opened a second location, with a third on the way.  Outstanding.  I’m glad that they’re doing so well, as this was definitely one of host Jon Taffer’s better rescues.

From here, we went into downtown Raleigh to pick up Elyse, only to find out that the place was mobbed due to a large outdoor concert being held.  That made navigation a little difficult, but we managed, and eventually scooped up Elyse.  From there, we started making tracks for home.  We took US 1 for some ways until it intersected with I-85, and then we stayed on that all the way to Petersburg, when it merged with I-95.  In Richmond, we made a very quick drive-around visit to the Greyhound terminal, which Elyse wanted to see because it, along with all of the other Greyhound stations, was closing soon due to a strategic move by Greyhound parent Flix.  From there, we only made one more stop: Sheetz in Stafford for a quick restroom break.  And then we made it home.  Good deal.  Then it was just a matter of dropping off the rental car at the Enterprise facility near my house, and the trip was officially over.

All in all, despite the disappointing results with the bus, I’d say that we had a fun trip.  Once these further repairs are completed, we’re going to go back down one more time in order to retrieve the bus, hoping that the third time is the charm, and it makes it all the way home.  I also took a lot more photos than what I shared here, so look for more photos on my portfolio site, benschumin.com, in the coming months.

Categories: CFW, New Flyer D35HF, North Carolina, South Carolina, Travel