These last few weeks have been hard, ya'll. Mentally, emotionally, physically draining feats- juggling knives and every damn one of them cuts you. On the bus front, we managed to get all of the seats out. Barring a few instances of rust and having to cut a few bolts out, the bus is now seat free. But then we got to the walls... the ceiling panels come off, no problem. Managed to get one of those and a wire chase out. The wall under the windows though? We quickly found out that they are tac welded to the outside walls, meaning we're going to have to take every window out and drill out those welds. That adds on at least a solid 3 days of work to our schedule. Fun stuff! It also completely rearranges our project because we might as well paint the exterior while the windows are out. It's a LOT less to contend with in terms of taping and tarping. And while we have the windows out, we might as well put steel panels in the spots where we want privacy (bathroom, bedroom, parts
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The last few days have been a struggle, to say the least. I'm overwhelmed, stretched thin, verging on full blown depression, and I have zero desire to do anything because it all feels overwhelming. I have no idea how we get from here to there, and the amount of work in between those two points seems insurmountable. This kind of head space isn't normal for me. Once I set my sites on something, I forge ahead full throttle until that shit gets done. From the wax stuff to the farm, to just life in general- if you put something in front of me and I decide that's what I want.. good luck stopping me. This change feels different. I'm filled with more hesitancy then I ever have before. I'm not ready to be excited about it yet, and I can clearly see all the challenges ahead for such a massive life change. I mean, we're building an entire freaking house - on a bus - in less then 8 months. And we have to consider all of these variables that you don't normally have t
Holy balls, getting the bus here was insane. We paid $800 to have a delivery driver bring it from Maryland to Chicago, which is pretty damn good considering that covered the cost of gas as well. We had them meet us in Chicago because we wanted the delivery guy to be able to easily get to the airport and get a cheaper flight, plus it was just overall cheaper to have him drive there and then meet him. Long story short, the drive should have taken the driver 16 hours with stops and the slower speed thanks to the 55mph governor on the bus, but he ended up not arriving until well over 28 hours with no explanation as to why. We ended up getting a room in Chicago and staying the night, expecting him to be there early in the morning, and ended up not leaving until well after 8pm the next day. Why so late you ask? The reason is both ridiculous, and exhausting. The delivery guy goes over the bus with us - it's in GREAT shape. Like, amazingly good shape compared to the ones we've
We had to back out of the bus purchase. :-( Turns out, the information in the listing was completely incorrect. The year and model were correct, but just about everything else was listed incorrectly. Which wouldn't be a problem if the engine in the bus wasn't listed as one of THE worst possible engines to have. We're talking class action lawsuit against the engine manufacturers for that exact make a year due to complete engine failure (often while driving!) that cost 8k just to replace the parts, or 30k for whole new engine. Yeah- no. Due to the incorrect listing, they were nice enough to let us out of our bid without any penalty. We went to look at another bus locally here, but much like the other's we've looked at in the area, whole body panels were rusted out and would need replaced, along with some concern about axle rust being extensive enough to be of concern. So, we turned to eBay where I had been keeping an eye on an older, lower mileage model with a muc
We just bid on our first bus. Bus. We're bidding on a BUS. There's an hour and 25 minutes left before the auction ends and we're currently the highest bidder at $1525. I doubt it will stay that way, so I keep refreshing the page and guarding myself against the inevitable disappointment that comes with being outbid when you're bidding your maximum. I suppose the WHY behind us bidding on a bus is just as important as the bid itself, so I'll spend the time between repeatedly checking the auction to introduce ourselves, and explain why, exactly, we feel the need to own 20,000lbs of yellow magic. It all started 33 years ago, on a dry April day in Nevada...... Kidding! But maybe there is some truth to that, now that I think about it. Who knows exactly when the wanderlust of this world hit me, but some of my first memories are of our trip between Arizona and South Carolina as we moved from the Air Force base my father was stationed at, to the spot he and my mom wan