Sunday, August 2, 2009

Lois and Austin Have Left the Building

Lois Pryce and Austin Vince took a few days off from their cross country tour to swing by and visit the 555 this week. Riding a Ural Patrol sidecar outfit, which Ural USA loan the couple for this trip, they rolled into town on Wed for an evening of jawin', food, beer and a little TN motorcycle juice. This was the first time that we actually met. Up until then, we'd only known them through their books, DVDs and a few email exchanges. However, that did not prevent Austin from releasing flatulence that sounded like sound effects from War of the Worlds the entire evening. We knew we'd found one of us.


Lois, Mike and Austin












Tennessee Paella, better than the real deal.

(yeah, you heard me)





The following day, Thursday, was spent recovering from the previous night's gorging, libations and Austin's gaseous releases and preparing for a presentation that there were scheduled to give at the Time Warp Tearoom. Technical difficulties aside, the show went off without a hitch and all who attended were treated to an incredible evening of Lois's bold travel stories and Austin's funny as shit, Benny Hill driven, travel log. Ewan McGregor's ears must flame up and burn to a crisp every time Austin does this talk....and I thought that the 555 made fun of Ewan.

Austin self documents all of his travels with both digital video and Super 8 film so Friday he took advantage of having a chase vehicle at his disposal as well as having stunt doubles Dic and Tina available to stand in for Austin when the riding got really hairy. What's it take to double for Austin Vince, you may ask yourself; nerves of steel and a custom pair of coveralls, of course. I guess tits and a heavy beard can cleverly be disguised or edited out during post production.





The Tree Austins: Austin, Dic and Tina





Being a 'concrete nerd', one of Austin's desires was to do some filming at a TVA dam so Dic and I took him up to Norris were we were tantalizingly close to the Norris water shed and the off road trails that lie within. After bagging the footage he wanted, we headed up High Point which was a bit muddy after a week's worth of rain. I'm hear to witness that the Ural is everything it advertises. We never once got stuck and we never used the two wheel drive option.






Lois, Dic and Austin (giving the finger to the local union and OHSA dicks)






Saturday saw them heading off down the road to their next stop.
If you are reading this and you have not read their books or seen their DVDs, you owe it to yourself to do so. Between them they have three books and a slew of DVDs, all inspioring works of what they call 'DYI travel' and what I call 'pure adventure'.




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