On The Table

Lily is set to undergo surgery early this coming week. Since it's too expensive to use a tow truck (also known as a car ambulance) my dad and I decided to slowly nurse the old girl to the hospital. We drove slowly through the entire city of St. Catharines, from the north end to Thorold.

Now I haven't gone into incredible detail as to what exactly is wrong with our trusty RV, and I don't especially intend to, as I know I could lose a few readers with boring motor talk. However, I will let you know, that the exhaust manifold has a gap which causes her to be EXTREMELY LOUD. Now, when you have an RV that was built in the 70's with graffiti all over and a basketball net on the side, you are bound to turn a few heads.  But now, she also sounds like a monster truck revving up to jump 10 school busses, even though she is barely going over 30km/h.

Let me tell you, the people were staring.

I have also come to realize that I thrive when I drive Lily. It's one of the places I feel most at home. Her sturdy, yet zesty steering wheel with the tractor steering knob from Bolivia, her worn in seats that hug all the right places, the way she barrels down the street demanding love and attention from everyone around, the old sound system from my VW Jetta (RIP), simply put: she's the best.  Limping her across town was just another adventure as I would shout at her over the deafening engine to encourage her up that tiny hill, or quietly reassure her at every red light that she could make it.

That's why we took her to the right guy, who will fix her up properly. She deserves to have life and have it to the full. I just know she has a few more years (and a lot more adventures) left in her. But as time runs out leading up to when we want to leave, we're still unsure if she will be ready for the weekend. We have faith.

If you can, send flowers. I'm sure she would appreciate it.

An Exciting Announcement!

You may have heard the rumours...
You may have heard the word on the street...
You may have seen some pictures on various social networking sites around the internet...
You may have even seen our posters on lampposts in the city you live in...
Well dear friends, I am happy to confirm that The Open Road Project IS DOING THE EAST COAST!

Starting May 5th, myself and some fine young gentleman you would not have read about before, are going to begin a new journey. Recently, we decided that The Open Road Project didn't need to be a specific group, but rather, something that could be shared and experienced by different people. Spreading kindness and love while touring in an ancient RV doesn't have to be a one time thing! Dylan Hamm, Jordan Duerrstein, Calvin Berry and myself are going to be taking the themes and values that were exhibited during last years trip out west, and bring them to the rest of this great country!

While this is a really exciting time for us, what would an adventure be without a road block before we even leave the driveway? To put it simply, Lily (our trusty RV) is ill, and by ill I mean basically on her death bed. Very kaput.

We are in serious need of an organ donor and also a capable (yet cheap) surgeon in order to get her back on the road for the long haul to the beautiful maritime provinces. Also, as I am sure you are realizing by now, May 5th is less than 2 weeks away. We don't have a lot of time.

However, we are going out east no matter what. We are determined to find a solution, and believe in the age old saying "Where there's a will there's a way." There is bound to be some drama in regards to how this trip will begin, and although it's stressful for us right now, we know it will tell a good story.

In the meantime, we would appreciate your prayers as we get ready to go, and start to locate places we want to stop, and organizations we want to work with to help spread kindness and hope.

 I don't want to give away too much so stay tuned....

THE OPEN ROAD PROJECT IS BACK!

A Long Overdue Update!

Hello friends! It's Jeremy here and I just wanted to give you a quick update on what has been going on! I'm sure you have noticed the serious lack of blogging from Jamie and I during the past school year, and for this we apologize. Not too many crazy things have happened during the year, but we are gearing up for some exciting summer plans!

First of all, thank you for your continued support of this blog! We recently reached 100,000 pageviews and we are so blessed to have such great readers! I promise that you will soon have something exciting to read again, so don't go anywhere!

Also, I wrote a few posts about my missions trip to Bolivia this February on this blog but, for the time being, have moved those posts over to www.boliviatrivia.blogspot.com. There are still a few posts I want to write, but just haven't found the time. I'll remind you if I post on that blog again, but for now feel free to explore over there if you haven't read about the trip yet!

A wise Doug Coupland once said "Adventure without risk is Disneyland." and I don't really plan to visit Disneyland anytime soon.

Stay tuned!
Jeremy
P.S. Here's a pic of me. On a mountain.