But the bus isn’t going to be there for much longer. “I told them it was OK, so that’s what they did. “Last year, I had three or four groups of seniors from the high schools come up and ask if they could take their senior pictures near it,” he said with a laugh. “But people seemed to get a kick out of it when they would stop for the ice and the trinkets we sold, so we just left it there so it would be something of a landmark for those folks every year. “I just didn’t know what I was going to do with it after that,” Dennis said. A good amount of damage was sustained, Dennis said, but he managed to get the vehicle started, and he and his wife made it home the next day. That’s where, on the very first night of their stay, the bus burned because of pinched wires in the kitchen area. “Freedom’s Way” once was a fully equipped vehicle owned by Dennis Kirkpatrick and his wife, and they took the bus to Bark Camp a few times before making the 245-mile trek to the historic Civil War battleground.

It has sat there in his yard along County Road 808 for 19 years after it caught fire in Gettysburg, Pa., and that’s why thousands of country music fans recognize it today because it’s where they purchased their pre-show ice before heading into Jamboree in the Hills.

Slowly but surely, this bus is vanishing to the spot in Belmont County where it has rested for 18 years.

Jamboree in the hills union township