After our VW bus trip, we spent a few more weeks in Michigan before we decided to head back to NC.

The bus drove really well the whole week we toured the coast, but the day after we got back I drove it into town and it was seriously lacking power. I could barely hit 55 mph, pedal to the floor! Since Kyle had just given it a tune-up (new spark plugs, points, condenser, cap, rotor), it was weird that it was running so poorly. Kyle rented a compression tester, thankfully compression was good. He swapped in old parts, sealed every tiny vacuum leak, ran through the fuel injection manual, but still nothing! He bought a dwell meter, we’d been adjusting the points by feeler gage, but when we started to run out of options he bought a meter to really set the points. That wasn’t it. After two days of trying everything he could think of, he checked ohms to the fuel injection harness and that’s how he found that one of the injectors was disconnected – it looked fine, but when he moved it with his hand it wasn’t fully seated. It was a pain to diagnose, but now she’s running better than ever before!

Our friends hosted another art night and we got to try out pour painting, which is incredibly easy and fun! We all made a few paintings, and we’re taking a couple home to display on the boat (just small canvases)!

We attended the first birthday party for these nuggets, their parents managed to keep them alive for a whole year – and even made it look easy! We had a great time at their birthday party!

A couple days later, Rachel and I went to pick blueberries and the twins helped out with cleaning up the berries on the ground.

Our front seat upholstery finally arrived! Lead time was about six weeks, we were really hoping to have it installed by the time we started our road trip but it didn’t arrive in time. The old seats had almost no padding left, and they’re the reason I could hardly ever photograph the front – we had them covered in ugly temporary padding just to keep the springs from poking our butts!

The old seats were original and the padding had mostly disintegrated. It was messy. And nasty.

We fought the new upholstery for two days. We had to pull and pull in order to get the new upholstery to fit on the seat frames, but once we got it in it was amazing! So comfy.

Rachel and I took a day to go paddleboarding in the Grand Traverse Bay. I know I keep saying it, but the water here is beautiful. We had so much fun! It was perfect weather for paddling.

After that we found a pick-your-own farm and we picked some fresh cherries! It takes no time at all to fill up a bucket, the trees were laden with fruit and the cherries were big!

Our Michigan visit was almost over, so we invited over some family that we hadn’t caught up with yet. We even got a bonfire going!

As people started to head home, we realized that it was a beautiful clear night, so I grabbed my tripod and Dad got out some fireworks. Check out that Milky Way in the background!

We took my parents out to the local brewery as a final thank-you for hosting us this summer. It was such a wonderful experience and staying with them worked out so well. We’re so grateful!

After that, we packed up and started south. First we stopped in Grand Rapids to say a final goodbye to Caleb and Amy. Yes, we are all bundled up and sitting in front of a fire – a sure sign it’s time to head south again!

Then we stayed at Kyle’s mom’s house over Labor Day weekend. The weekend was a blur, between getting the bus ready for storage and all the holiday activities, the only photos either of us took are when I washed and waxed the bus.

We opted to put the bus back in storage and rent a car to drive to NC. With hurricane Dorian bearing down on the coast, we wanted to complete the drive in a single day, whereas the bus would be more like a three day drive. So now we’re back in NC! We dove right back in to boat life to help prep the marina and our boat for anticipated storm surge. Read the full story of hurricane Dorian here!