While I was in New York, I had the opportunity to film Matthew Van Dyke in my Happy Prius. He has such an epic story. He was riding his motorcycle around North Africa and the Middle East and ended up in Libya. While he was there he befriended many Libyans and decided to fight with the rebel army groups to defeat Gadhafi. In this process, he ended up getting caught and put in solitary confinement for six months. In those six months they tortured him in all ways. He thought he was going to die. While he was in prison, the Libyan revolution occurred and he was let loose. He is now in Iraq training with soldiers to combat Isis. He has had one of the most interesting lives of all the people I have met. In Wikipedia he is quoted as the next Che Guevara. There is footage of him in my car that will be posted soon. He is also a great filmmaker and made a movie about what is going on in Syria called “Not Anymore. A Story of Revolution.”

For more information about Matt, you can go to www.matthewvandyke.com. Also, check out his great movie!

So after 24 days on the road, I finally ended up in New York.  It was close to Halloween and I had the sudden urge to die my beard blond. I thought I could incorporate a costume around my blond beard.  I ended up looking like a Hulk Hogan imposter! The good thing about hair die is that it doesn’t last forever. I ended up never dying my beard blond again.

After New Orleans we went to Asheville, North Carolina. The only reason I went there was because of Aloka, the guy I met in Sedona weeks before. After being on the road and traveling for many weeks, I was getting really tired being constantly on the move. When you’re tired you do stupid things… I drove under a parking garage forgetting that my bike was on top of my car. It totally ruined my bike rack. Instead of getting pissed off I thought, “I will go to a bike shop to get it fixed, you never know what experience might happen to me there.” I ended up getting referred to a place called Hern’s Cycling, which happened to be the oldest bike shop in the whole U.S. They also happened to hire deaf people and homeless people to work on fixing the bikes. It was quite the special place.

I am in this photo with a guy named Monroe, who was homeless. He was a great guy with such an upbeat attitude. He had a very rough life. His son recently passed away and he was stabbed three inches from his heart, but survived. This trip kept putting me in contact with survivors with such positive attitudes. I felt honored to have spent the time I did with Monroe. There is some great footage with him that I will be posting soon.

-Tim

After I left Houston, we went to New Orleans. When we got there, the idea popped in my head that I should have a happy hour with the Happy Prius. I thought, if I’m going to do it, I need to find a band to play. Within a day I stumbled across this amazing band called the Ford Theatre Reunion from Lexington, Kentucky.  They were busking on the street.

They had agreed to play the event. So it was a go, and two days later, we just posted my car up in a neighborhood called the Bywater and set up shop. We were on a small street corner and the band played and I had a “Free Hugs” sign, and was giving away free coffee, juice and tea. I met some amazing people that day, and around a couple hundred people passed through. It was a giant success. We filmed the whole event it will be posted soon.

To find out more info on this amazing band go to www.thefordtheatrereunion.com

-Tim