GETTING COMFORTABLE

January 31, 2015 / Lindsey&Steven / 5 Comments

Hey there, everyone. If any readers have stuck around, that is. We haven’t been good about keeping up a blog since we got home, obviously. Normal life resumed and the summer of a lifetime came to an end. But I am here to dust off the old WordPress and say hello once again! Because you guys are very important to us, and we feel the guilt of neglect settling in. Having a place to share our experiences makes them that more real and special, and we really appreciate all the support and help along the way! The New Oregon Trail would not have been the same without you.

That being said, we have a couple more adventures to share with you. And yes, inevitably, the sale and parting of our greatest accomplishment so far. But just because we’ve chosen to move forward does not mean we are done exploring. This trip has only opened our eyes to all the opportunities that lie before us in all their glorious shapes and forms. Our story doesn’t end with the bus, it started with the bus.

It’s easy to get comfortable in life, but that doesn’t mean we will stay stagnant. We take no shame in enjoying the amenities of a real house, though we may still long for the road. But we feel at home, feel grounded, with our families close by and our familiar landscape around us. This is just the jumping off point. Thanks for joining us.

To be continued…

OREGON COAST

September 9, 2014 / Lindsey&Steven / 1 Comment

Where we last left off we were driving through Northern California along famous highway 101, enjoying a beautiful day along the coast. We had spent the night in Fortuna, parked behind the Eel River Brewery. Our goal for the day was to drive through some of the redwoods, cross the Oregon border, and find a place to camp close to the beach. This was the big day! We would be seeing that “Welcome to Oregon” sign for the first time in almost 2 years.

Crescent City was the last large town before we got to Oregon, I recall some wild stories from my Grandpa’s early days working as a logger here. Back when they worked hard and partied even harder. We passed through without stopping, as we were too excited to get to the border. When we finally saw that Oregon sign we had to stop and take some photos with the bus. We couldn’t believe that we were finally here, the southern Oregon coast is so beautiful! After we took enough pictures we kept driving, heading along the coast until we reached Bandon, OR. This is where we would be camping for the night, at a nice little campground just a short bike ride from the beach. Once we were settled into our camping spot and said hi to the neighbors we unloaded our bicycles and rode down to Face Rock State Park, where we locked up the bikes and hiked down to the sand. The beach was mostly empty so we got to enjoy a beautiful summer evening all to ourselves. After cleaning up the dinner dishes we crawled into our cozy bed and felt the cool breeze come in through our windows.

The next morning we were on the road early and heading for the northern end of the Oregon coast. Before we left Bandon we had to stop in at the Face Rock Creamery, where we enjoyed sampling all of their delicious cheese. We couldn’t leave without buying a couple different types, as well as some of the best butter ever.

Our next (and last) stop on the trip before reaching home was Pacific City, one of our favorite beaches on the whole coast. A big part of that is due to the Pelican Pub, an award winning brewery right on the sand overlooking the ocean. Even though it was the peak of the busy season we managed to snag an RV campsite at the county park directly across the street from the beach and the pub. What luck! The tricky part is that the site was listed as only allowing an RV up to 23′ long, so when we called to book the site I asked the camp host to measure the site, and she reported that the absolute maximum length that would fit would be 35′. Dang, should we attempt to squeeze our 40′ bus in there? We didn’t have any other options so we crossed our fingers and headed for the campsite. When we got there we unloaded the motorcycle and took the rack off the back, giving us just enough clearance to fit in the site with 2 feet to spare. Woohoo! We were ready to have a couple beers at the Pelican and wait for our friends from Portland to join us for our last night camping.

While we were relaxing on the back deck at the pub we started chatting with the guy next to us, and quickly discovered that he was riding his bicycle around the US. Daniel was a very interesting guy, and it was a lot of fun to exchange travel stories with him. His trip is mostly centered around craft beer, kind of like ours is, so we had plenty to talk about. Pretty soon we offered to let him camp at our site with us, so he joined our group for the rest of the night. You can check out his travel blog here.

Pretty soon our friends from Portland arrived, and we went out to the beach and built up a nice fire to sit around while we enjoyed a few more beers and some good company. There was a lot of catching up to do after being away for a while, and it was nice to finally be camping with some of our oldest friends. That night the floor of the bus was packed with sleepy campers, which is always a fun experience. The next morning we made a big breakfast for everyone, really putting our little kitchen setup to the test. It worked wonderfully, and we even got to make some beermosas using Widmer Hefeweizen, which is a beer that we really missed. We packed up our camp and prepared for the drive up to Tillamook and over to Portland. Daniel was heading toward Tillamook, so we loaded his bicycle up and gave him a ride. He was very excited to get to experience riding in the bus, and we always enjoy having extra passengers! Having Daniel along for part of the trip was really fun, it is always nice to meet another unconventional traveler.

After dropping Daniel in Tillamook we turned onto highway 6 and headed toward Portland. We were going to park at my moms property in Sherwood, where we would meet a large group of family and friends that had gathered to welcome us home. Getting to see so many people that we’ve been missing all in one place was a real treat.

It was such a surreal experience driving through all these familiar towns and roads. After driving this bus all over the country in unfamiliar places we were finally home. We are so excited to be here and so proud that our old bus made the journey without much of any issues at all. It has carried us safely and in style through some of the most interesting terrain in the country and hasn’t let us down. Now we are working at finding jobs, finding a place to park the bus and work on it some more, trying to decide if we are going to live in it full time or just use it as a camping rig. So many questions! We will be keeping this blog updated with any interesting bus adventures or additions to the project. Thanks for following along with us!

HOW WE TOOK THE SUMMER OFF

August 3, 2014 / Lindsey&Steven / 6 Comments

When we decided that we were going to buy a bus, we had a lot of questions. First off was the size. How do you get around in a giant bus? How do we title and insure it? We started reading about buses online and learned quite a bit, but we needed to go look at some in person. It had been years since either of us had set foot in a school bus, and we didn’t know what to expect. We found a dealer in Tampa who carried quite a few retired school buses and went to check them out. After spending a few hours in the lot we found what we thought was the ideal setup. It was a mid 90’s Blue Bird, with a standard truck hood and Navistar 7.3 diesel. This bus was known as a half size, about 28ft long, and it had a wheelchair lift in the back. We thought the large handicap door would prove useful for getting larger items in and out, and the length seemed just right. I even felt comfortable behind the wheel, as it was so similar to other large trucks I have driven. We negotiated the asking price down to $4200 and promised to return the next weekend with cash in hand.

Unfortunately, we were too slow. The bus we had picked out was sold before we could come back with the money. We were sad, but the hunt continued. Our time was running out, the lease on our house was up at the end of May and we needed to be out. I scoured Craigslist and EBay every evening after work, bidding on a few buses only to be outbid at the last minute. Then one night after I should have been in bed I found our bus. It was listed on the Georgia craigslist, hidden deep in the lists without a proper title. I was dubious but I clicked on the link. I was greeted with the glorious sight of a classic Blue Bird; it’s quad headlights winking at me. I studied the grainy photos in the ad, and fired off an email to the seller. I crossed my fingers, and the next morning I found a reply email waiting. The seller was the football coach at the small private school in Damascus, GA, and while being an incredibly nice guy could hardly tell me anything about the bus. I arranged a meeting for the weekend, and Saturday morning Lindsey and I took off on the 6 hour drive north. We met with the coach and had a look around the bus. We were immediately surprised by the size; it looked smaller in the ad! We measured and found it was indeed a full size 40 foot bus, much more than we had anticipated using. But as we explored further we realized the white factory paint was in pretty good condition still, the interior paint was excellent, and it had the large sliding windows, that seal and latch so much better than regular school bus windows. I also discovered it had a really nice 4 cylinder Yanmar diesel factory mounted midship to run the AC system. We took it out on the little country road for a test drive, it was my first time driving a forward control vehicle like this, and it took a little leap of faith to pull out on the road. The bus was surprisingly easy to drive, and felt good going down the road.

After pulling back in to the school we summoned up the courage and agreed to buy it. The school didn’t know much about it and didn’t really know what to ask, so we tossed a few offers back and forth and finally agreed on $2,000. That’s right, we only paid $2,000 for this giant bus, which was running and driving pretty well. Lindsey and I quickly unloaded some supplies we had brought, checked the oil in the engine and transmission and topped up as necessary, cleaned the mildew off the drivers seat and steering wheel, cleaned all the mirrors and windshield, and chased away some spiders and wasps that were hanging around. We set off on our adventure home, a 6+ hour drive back to Mount Dora. Along the way I got to figure out what all the buttons and knobs did, how to open the air powered door, and of course, how the air horn sounded. It was an uneventful drive back down south with Lindsey leading the way in our Jetta. I am so happy that we found our bus, it is perfect for us. Sometimes it would be nice to have a shorter vehicle but having all the space we do can’t be beat. It is an All American body, but it has factory white paint, and doesn’t have any school bus lights on it. That combined with the interesting seating layout and large sliding windows leads me to believe this was some sort of charter bus when it was new. It makes the perfect base for a bus conversion; we absolutely love all the windows and have no plans to remove any of them.

At the time, I was working for a company that ran a couple of farms in the area (the reason we moved to FL) and my boss kindly agreed to let us park the bus on one of the properties. That is where we dropped it after bringing it down from Georgia, fortunately it was only a 5 minute drive from our house, so it was quick to get back and forth while working on it. There it sat for the next 7 weeks while we worked on stripping the old interior and building it back up. I was fortunate enough to have an understanding boss who let us do the conversion on the property, which really solved a lot of problems for us as our house had a little driveway on a tiny residential street.

One of the main questions we are asked when people hear our story is ”how do you afford it?” and when we explain that we bought the bus for so little, and didn’t spend much more on the conversion then they begin to understand. We built our interior out of mostly second hand lumber and supplies I got from work for free so that really helped cut down on the expenses. We dismantled an old horse corral which provided us with a ton of lumber, and we also collected a few pallets which we broke down into individual pieces. There was a store down the road from our house that sold overstocked building supplies, so we got our slightly beat up laminate flooring and old stainless sink from them at blowout prices. We also had a free place to park it while we worked on the project, which is a huge help.

Once we decided that we wanted to move back to Oregon we knew that we wanted to spend the summer traveling the country. We were already good about saving money, and we were (and still are) living debt free so there wasn’t anything to eat into our savings. We increased our savings in preparation for the trip, and started selling off anything we didn’t need. Furniture and household things were sold until the house was empty. Our cars and my dirt bikes got sold off to add to the savings pot. Now our only vehicle is this giant antique bus and our little dual sport. We sat down together and worked out a budget, which is mostly for fuel. We included a large allowance for brewery and restaurant visits, as that is one of the things that make us happy in life. What is the point of living if you aren’t happy? Our biggest expense is obviously fuel, our bus will get anywhere from 7 – 10 MPG depending on speed, terrain, and wind so it isn’t the most economical vehicle, but it isn’t bad for a house on wheels. While we were working out our budget I estimated that we would be driving about 10,000 miles on this trip, so we planned accordingly.

Finding free camping and parking has been another huge asset to this trip. Beyond the standard free overnight Wal-Mart parking, we have been using a couple websites to find free places to stay with great success. The first is www.boondockerswelcome.com, which is a great website that links fellow RV travelers together who offer free parking on their properties, and the other is www.harvesthosts.com, where agricultural businesses offer free parking at their farm, winery, produce store, etc. These sites have helped us stay on budget, and have introduced us to some really amazing people and places. If you are traveling by any sort of RV or bus I highly recommend checking these sites out.

I also get asked frequently about needing a special license to drive the bus, the short answer is no. If it was still a commercial vehicle I would be required by law to have a class B license but we were able to change the title in Florida to a motor home title, so anyone with a standard drivers license can operate it. It does take a lot of getting used to, remembering how much room is between the axles and how far the back hangs out. We are also able to insure it as a motor home, although it can be a struggle to find a cooperative insurance agency.

Bottom line is, if you have a crazy idea to do something like move into an old bus, it isn’t hard. There are a few difficulties to overcome but nothing worth getting worked up about. We have seen families online with 3-4 kids who still manage to live comfortably in a bus the same size as ours. If you have the motivation, saving money is pretty simple. Cutting back on expenses in order to save for a trip is easy to get the hang of. We plan on keeping our bus for a long time to come. We have big plans to remodel the interior into a more permanent living space, including a large solar array, real plumbing, and a wood burning stove. Home is where we park it!