Assateague Island, a horse paradise off the coast of Maryland

After the Woodstock shows, we went to Assateague Island, MD.  Assateague Island is a primitive state park on a small island off the coast of Maryland that is home to about 300 wild horses that roam freely on the island.  They are smaller in stature because of the saltgrass in their diet.  Every Thursday in July since 1930, the local firemen round up all the horses and swim the horses from Assateague Island,MD to Chincoteague Island, VA, only about an eight minute swim.  An auction is held for many of the horses to keep the population in check.  The horses are generally bigger once they get to a new habitat since they're not eating the saltgrass.  We had a beautiful beachfront campsite for the first night.  It was at the base of a big sand dune, over which is the Atlantic Ocean.  We knew that one of the rules is no generators from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am.  We figured, "ah...we'll be on the beach getting the ocean breeze and it will be fine."  We pretty much went to bed right after 10:00, after all of our lights and AC went off.  Around 2:00 am, we both woke up hotter than hell!  I seriously debated just going outside the bus and sitting in a chair until morning.  We spent a rather restless and hot night on Assateague Island, and as 6:00 am rolled around, nobody else turned on their generators.  By 7:00, I said screw it, and turned ours on for some AC.  It's a beautiful place, but quite hot in the summer without AC.

We were paid up for the next night, so we went across the bridge to Ocean City and found Crabs to Go, a local restaurant that serves crab and seafood.  It's family run, and the family all loved Sugaree and came out to check her out.  We took our dozen steamed crabs and a pound of beautiful shrimp back to Assategue Island and ate and hung out for the day.  As evening rolled around, we headed back to Ocean City and hit a Walmart to park the bus and stay for the night.  We cooked a nice steak and had dinner and went to bed reasonably early to hit the road for Lockn' the next morning, nestled in cool air conditioned comfort.

This was our camping spot on Assateague Island, with the ocean just over that dune

Woodstock...two days of peace, love and music

It occurred to me as we drove into Bethel, NY that driving Sugaree is like driving an art car on the playa at Burning Man.  We're just fortunate that the playa in our case is the entire US, so it's fun to cross the country and meet so many cool people along our way.  We missed Ringo Starr and His All-Star Band and the Edgar Winter Group and Blood Sweat & Tears on Friday night due to our AC delay in Dallas.  Saturday, we rolled into Bethel with an hour to spare before jumping on the shuttle bus from the camp to the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, where the 50th anniversary of Woodstock was being celebrated.  We caught the Doobie Brothers and Santana, which was fun.  After the Boulder incident a couple months ago, you'd think we'd bring our rain gear.  No...not us!  We left the rain gear in the bus and went to the show, only to be rained upon for about thirty minutes, but it was fine and it felt pretty good and the vibe was great!

Our campground was perfect.  It was full of people going to the shows and/or just celebrating the anniversary of Woodstock. From the looks of it, most of the people at this show were at the original Woodstock in 1969.  One guy even had his original $7 ticket in mint condition.

The next day, we headed to the venue early to park Sugaree and hang out before the John Fogerty show.  We had people come into the bus from Germany, Russia, Belgium, Canada and France and all over the US.  Francois and Jean Michele spoke no English, but loved Sugaree and we all had fun laughing about her.  Sabine and Harry from Belgium were very cool and hung out with us for awhile.

We had a great crew of people through the bus over the course of the day, and towards the end where we were about to head in, one of the guys hanging with us, Kevin, tells us that the show has been delayed due to weather and nobody was being admitted.  This worked fine with us and we just continued to enjoy ourselves in the bus with the folks who happened to be in or near the bus when the rain started.  After about 45 minutes, the rain subsided and a beautiful double rainbow came out.  At this point, we went in, and brought our rain gear this time...but never needed it!

John Fogerty and his band were awesome.  We saw the opening night of his tour in Las Vegas in April in a small theatre, and this place is pretty big.  It was great!  John sung all of his iconic songs and the crowd responded really well.  It was pretty cool to hear John's son, Shane playing Hendrix' version of the Star Spangled Banner and John's other son, Tyler kicked some ass on My Generation.

Woodstock is DEAD

If the last post didn't speak to adversity, then this post surely will.  About a week ago, we took Sugaree to McLain's RV because the AC kept shutting off.  I even went to Home Depot and bought a new breaker and changed that, but it continued to shut off.  On Thursday, they told me that they had ordered a new compressor and it was coming from the manufacturer.  Then, on Friday morning, they call to say that the manufacturer, Coleman, is out of RV AC compressors in the US and Canada.  I say, "ok...give me the model number and I'll find one".  He says that Coleman's system can see who has one in every mom and pop RV place in the country and they're flat out, and they'll have to make one and send it out.  That news as we are supposed to be leaving the following morning, Saturday 8/10 for Bethel Woods to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. "Ok...when will you get one?", I ask?  "Thursday or Friday of next week", he says.  Ringo plays on Friday of next week, so Woodstock is out.

As most know, the BIG celebration planned for the 50th anniversary of Woodstock was Michael Lang's vision.  Lang was the promoter for the original Woodstock, and he planned for 75,000 people with bands as diverse as Dead & Company to Miley Cyrus and $400 tickets.  Ultimately, his financial backer pulled out.  Then, as he found another financial backer, his venue, Watkins Glen pulled out saying that he doesn't have the necessary permits.  He bounces to a couple other venues, and then lands at Merriweather Post Pavillion in Maryland, but by that time, Jay Z, Dead & Co, John Fogerty and others begin to bail out like rats on a sinking ship, and that Woodstock festival was cancelled.

We were planning on going to the OTHER Woodstock celebration in Bethel, NY, where the original festival was held at Max Yasgur's farm in August of 1969.  We have tickets to Ringo Starr & His All Star Band on Friday, the Doobie Brothers opening for Santana on Saturday and followed Sunday night by John Fogerty with Grace Potter and Tedeschi Trucks opening up.  There were no RV parks available when we decided to go to Bethel, but we ultimately found the Bethel Hills RV Park who made a spot for us and Sugaree.  They even kindly featured us on their Facebook page as they did other folks who were coming for the weekend.  Now, our Woodstock plans are pretty much dashed (unless a miracle occurs and they get a new compressor early in the week).  The disappointment was pretty heavy, but we kept out spirits high.  We are also going to the Lock'n Festival in Arrington, VA the following week, so not all is lost.  Lock'n will feature Bob Weir & Wolf Brothers, Oteil & Friends w/Bob Weir, Joe Russo's Almost Dead, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Gary Clark Jr., Tedeschi Trucks, Keller Williams Grateful Gospel, and other great acts.

Update:  It's Wednesday, August 14th and we were supposed to leave four days ago on August 10th for Bethel, NY.  Nathan at McLain's told me they weren't supposed to get a new compressor until Thursday or Friday, but I had to at least manage my expectations.  We had pretty much conceded that we weren't going to Woodstock, and at this point, our hope was that Sugaree would be ready in time to make Lock'n.  I picked up the phone several times to call to check on Sugaree, but didn't want to be a pain in the ass.  Finally, I called McLain's to get the latest.  Brittney tells me that Nathan is out in the bus and will call me soon.  This sounds potentially positive...why would he be in the bus if there wasn't something going on there?

After a little while, Nathan calls to update me.  He said that Coleman was not able to make a new compressor in time.  Then, the golden road to unlimited devotion opens again, and he says the following:  "Coleman couldn't get a new compressor here in time, and it turns out that you have one month left on your warranty.  Therefore, Ava at McLain's pushed them to give us an entire new AC unit ($4,000) at no charge, other than the labor.  He said they were installing the new AC unit, and I could pick it up this afternoon.  Yippee!!!!  We are going to Woodstock!  We are going to Woodstock!!  We spent the afternoon packing up Sugaree, and getting her road worthy and looking beautiful.  Now, it's 10:30 at night and Sugaree is packed and ready to roll.  We will get up early on Thursday morning and hit the road around 7:00 am.

So....we left at the crack of dawn on Thursday and made it through Little Rock, Memphis and all the way to Nashville.  At this point, we're hoping to make it to Bethel before the Doobie Brothers start on Saturday night.  We pulled into a Super Walmart and nestled up to some trees in a far-off point of their parking lot right under the "No Overnight Camping" sign, cooked a chicken pot pie and went to bed.  Like the day before, we got up early Friday and hit the road by 7:30.  We pushed on up through the beautiful Appalachian Mountains and got as far as Winchester, VA, which is north of Roanoke, so we really made some headway.  Tomorrow, we will only have three hundred miles, which is about six hours.  If we leave at 7:00, we should roll into Bethel around 1:00-2:00.  That's when the fun really begins!