After an epic live music performance at the train station, we took a magical train ride back to Charleston! Then we fetched our VW bus for some errands and camping.

Kelly was leaving at 6am this morning for her errand, which meant we got to the train station around 8am for our 2.30pm train ride. At least there’s wifi at the train station so we both pulled out our laptops and get some projects done.

Around 10am I heard what sounded like live music? On a random Wednesday in the train station? And sure enough, a gentleman had set up a boombox and was singing along. Eventually he was joined by another gentleman with an electric guitar, who would strum every now and then. When they started singing “My Girl,” a few ladies in the audience went up to sing with them. It was absolutely epic, they were so adorable.

After they were finished, I chatted up the first gentleman, he said they played in the train station every other Wednesday morning! As we finished up our chat, he said “tell your parents you saw one of The Platters!” Has anyone heard of this group? I told my mom and she said I should invite him to dinner. We told Ken and Kelly and they mentioned that he has performed at the marina before!

There’s something absolutely magical about train stations. They’re so ornate, more like a museum than a public transportation building. And the interior – interesting tile patterns, chandeliers, surprisingly comfortable wooden benches! I guess my mom (who has sneaked aboard several trains) has been right all along…

Our train was, of course, delayed several times. But once we finally got on board – amazing! No security, practically no limit to how many bags you could take, enough leg room to store a small horse, and the freedom to roam the whole train, plus a dining car! I’d never fly again if I could help it, take everything that sucks about flying and chuck it out the train window. Just bring a book or two.

We did have a 40 minute stop to wait for another train, so with all the delays we were a couple hours late, but eventually we ubered over to the marina and picked up the bus. We stayed with bus club friends that night, Bill and Betsy are phenomenal hosts, and they have a gorgeous backyard for camping.

On Thursday we ran all of our errands. We had to pick up a gift for a baby shower that we won’t make it to, plus we stopped at the thrift store because all the bins in the world won’t satisfy Kyle’s organization genes. The bus has been making an intermittent noise, we thought it was the tie rod but Kyle replaced that and the noise persisted. We’re having a hard time even locating the origin of the noise since it sounds like it could be coming from anywhere underneath us.

Kyle had an axle shipped to our friends house, and we had plans to take it over to Jim and Frances’ house and replace the axle, but before we made the swap we wanted to be sure that would solve the problem. So I stood in the Target parking lot while Kyle drove circles around me, so I could try to identify the source of the noise. Then I trotted along with the bus to see if that would help – we probably looked like a domestic abuse situation, with him driving away and me chasing down the bus like he wouldn’t let me in. Unfortunately that’s probably not enough to get a second glance in North Charleston.

After he parked again, he wiggled some things around, but couldn’t reach any conclusions other than one axle moved differently than the other one (it has independent rear suspension so there are two rear axles). Then we continued on with our errands…and never heard the noise again.

We still went to Jim and Frances’ house, but we didn’t want to replace the axle now that it wasn’t making any noise. We joined Frances while she took the baby for a walk, then Jim came home from work and we caught up with him. It was a good visit!

After a long day, we headed back to Bill and Betsy’s to camp. Of course as soon as we left the noise started up again. We stopped twice so Kyle could wiggle the axle again, which caused the noise to stop for a while, so at least we are able to confidently say that it’s the axle or one of the CV joints. Fortunately we have just the parts to fix that!