"Reunited and it feels so good..."

After being picked up at the airport by Frances' sister (thanks Eleanor!) and hanging out with her family for a few hours, the chase car pulled into Vernon's driveway and I was swept into the loving embraces of Whitney (fresh off a bus ride from Minneapolis), Hayley and Frances. Oh, Reunions! Always a joyous event, and that was certainly the case that day, the fourteenth of August, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Yes, that’s correct: the one, the only Cedar Rapids, also known as the hometown of busser Frances Vernon.

After properly greeting one another and catching up on our lives apart, we piled into the car with Frances' parents for a delicious dinner at a Greek restaurant aptly named the Vernon Inn. Understandably exhausted after a long day of travel, Whitney tucked in for the night while Frances, Hayley and I rallied for an evening in Iowa City.

A Wednesday morning thunderstorm thwarted our (rather ambitious) plans for a run, so we compensated by sleeping in and eating a delicious breakfast of fresh fruit. Sigh. Life can be tough on the bus sometimes. The chase car then headed over to the local farmer's market where it was met by the bus, carrying Lucas, Esther and Merritt! We spent the afternoon drinking lemonade, talking about alternative energy, and showing off the bus. I had an interesting encounter with an old farmer who wanted to know my name so that he could report me to the Cedar Rapids police, because "it would be so funny to read in the paper that you were in jail." Hmm.

He had a good point though, and one that we've encountered several places along our journey: because we don't buy our fuel from gas stations, we aren't paying road tax. Back in good ol'New Hampshire we tried to do this, but the state had no way to process our money. In Raleigh, NC, we met with legislatures who were in the middle of figuring this issue out as a WVO user had just been fined several thousand dollars and was getting lots of media attention. As our country starts to change the way that we get energy, whatever method that might be, our government and infrastructure will have to change as well. Clearly, switching to alternative energy sources is a long and complicated process - but the sooner we start talking and thinking about these issues, the better.

Ok, enough of that, back to our day in Iowa. After the farmer's market we all headed back to the Vernon's for a delicious potluck block party. It was a great chance to have some longer conversations about the bus and also to eat some ridiculously good food. We managed to get quite a crowd of friends to come along for our grease run. We hit the jackpot - 75 gallons! Merritt enjoyed showing off his muscles, and we all like having so much company.

The next morning we were up bright and early with another delicious breakfast. After saying goodbye to Frances until D.C., we were on the road again....

Many thanks to Monica, Bill, Natalie, and Eleanor Vernon for hosting our wonderful stay in Cedar Rapids!

-kate

Busser-fact-o-the-day: The Vernon sisters are so accomplished and well known in Cedar Rapids that, for a period of time, they were actually banned from being written about in the local newspaper in order to give other people a chance.