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The Big Green Bus
The Southern Part of Heaven – the details
Elysa
Currently we're in New Orlenes and Ro is crafting a Mississippi post about what we were up to yesterday in Bay St. Louis. In the meantime, here's a little flashback to our visit to Chapel Hill with some details filled in...
Chapel Hill, North Carolina – affectionately known as the Southern Part of Heaven to those who know and love the town, hosted the Big Green Bus for three days this past week. Highlights from hanging out at home include doing 7 loads of laundry at my Mom’s house in Snow Camp and taking showers that did not involve a garden hose. After we recovered from Bonnaroo, I had a great time introducing the crew to the sights and sounds of CH. We spent all of Wednesday (6/18) at Morehead Planetarium and Science Center on UNC’s campus and were visited by hundreds of Elementary and Middle school kids who were wide-eyed upon discovering that the inside of our bus is much cooler than the school buses they are used to. (That’s why you go to college, kids). The crew blew me away with their ability to talk about the bus’s mission and alternative energy sources on the level of our audience, and the busers’ enthusiasm never waned even as the temperature outside increased.
We left Morehead around 3:30pm, explored downtown Chapel Hill (Franklin Street), ran some errands, and ultimately met up at Mama Dip’s for dinner. For as long as I’ve lived in Chapel Hill, and for years before that, Mama Dip’s has set the bar for southern cooking in the Triangle Region. I wanted to introduce the crew to as much of the South as possible, and mom graciously offered to take the crew out to dinner. After consuming gallons of sweet tea, piles of fried chicken, and all the biscuits, cornbread, collard greens, mashed potatoes, sweet potato fries, squash casserole, and blackberry cobbler we could handle – the crew left 5lbs heavier with a greater appreciation of Southern culture. Ahh, if only we could have sunk into a food coma at that point. However, it was back to work for the intrepid members of the Big Green Bus and we returned to MPSC for the evening portion of our education spiel. A group of about 40 adults arrived at 7pm for our “formal” educational presentation. I spoke to our audience for about 35 minutes on America’s relationship with energy, what the crew finds problematic with that relationship, and things that can be done to improve the situation. Afterwards, the crew descended upon the audience and we broke out into smaller groups for discussion and tours of the bus.
The staff of MPSC was amazingly supportive of us throughout the day, and I’d like to thank Denise (Director of Educational Programs) and everyone else who helped make the event a success. The bus made it into a few local papers, so be sure to check that out under the “In the news” tab of our website over the next few days. Thanks to everyone who came out to visit the bus, it was great to see so many familiar faces. And, of course, a huge thank you goes to my mom (and brother) for taking such good care of us.
We all wished Bennet could have been with us at MPSC but, thankfully, he spent his day out in Hillsborough with my Mom’s mechanic Chuck and was able to fix the chase car single handedly. The next day the crew greased up at “Ye Olde Country Kitchen” in Snow Camp, got a bunch of free gear from the restaurant, and headed on our way to GA. Sorry this post is a little late, but it has taken me a few days to recover from all the preparations that went into the visit home.
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