We woke up this morning to find two comparatively fresh bus tires sitting on the sidewalk just outside the compound. No one knew where they had come from. The mystery deepened when we looked at our tires and thought that maybe two, at least one had been switched out during the night. The mystery grew gradually shallower as we realized that our tires could not have possibly been replaced without our realizing, and shallower still when we checked our email and found a message from Bob Boyce, saying that he was driving down from NC with two tires for us. The photo above is of Bob and his buddy Sal who drove down to Miami last night in a Prius to rendezvous with some solar power equipment, in particular a single panel that will supply him with as much power as the seven or eight he will be donating us.

OK, back up. Here’s a little history: Bob contacted the original Transit Antenna crew last year offering to resurrect Walter with a new transmission, but he was already stripped, embalmed and buried by that point. When we initiated the second leg of the project Bob contacted us offering to help out on the renewable energy front and we snapped his hand off. Bob has been researching solar and other alternative energy systems since the 80’s – you can find him all over YouTube – and more recently has been developing batteries and hydrogen fuels. Luckily for us he is also a bus nut. With a payment from a life insurance policy he decided to replace all the solar panels on one of his RTS buses and offered us his cast offs (in addition to a stove, a fridge, some family sized portions of meat and of course tires!).

Bob travels a lot, but resides permanently in a sweet spot at the foothills of the Smokey Mountains in a property that runs on off the grid power and gets its water from a local, gold-rich spring – its nice, I tasted some this morning! After we get our acquisition and filtration system connected we will be taking the bus on a dry run up to his place to install all of our house power.

As we embarked on this project, with no savings or secured income, we held fast to the belief that if we committed ourselves to a greater good the universe would arrange itself around our dreams. Six months in and we not only have people donating valuable photovoltaic systems, but personally delivering tires so that we can collect them! Thank you, Bob. We love surprises and people like you!