So…for those of you who know us well, you know we NEVER do anything easy.
10 years ago we decided that tent camping was no longer going to work for us…especially with children. We decided to take the plunge and buy a pop up trailer that we have been hauling with us on all of our climbing trips and it has truly made for some wonderful experiences. However…in the last couple years, we’re becoming more and more aware that we just don’t FIT in it anymore. We made bunk beds that were awesome, but the boys are getting older and BIGGER and our space is starting to disappear.
A year or so ago, we got in touch with a good friend of ours who works at an RV shop and asked him to show us some upgrades. The trailers were beautiful – with price tags to match. The one I fell in love with was a hybrid. It was a hard shell trailer with beds that popped out of the sides. It had a TON of room and a really nice floor plan but was a bit on the heavier side so we were looking at possibly upgrading vehicles as well. After discovering that the price was $24,000, I knew this wasn’t an option and refusing to buy ANOTHER car, we abandoned the idea of getting a new trailer.
I kept searching on RV sites for something that would work but nothing came up. Until one day, I found what I had been looking for. =)
Among the posts for RV’s, fifth wheels, pop-ups and truck campers, I found… A converted SCHOOL BUS. Yes that’s right. A school bus. If you’re like most people, you’re thinking… HIPPIES. Make love, not war. The Partridge Family. Well, you’d be wrong. Believe it or not, the school bus is becoming more and more popular as a converted vehicle and even a tiny house because it’s WAY cheaper than buying a huge RV and you can design it however you want. The one I saw for sale was beautiful and I instantly fell in love. Now mind you, this was almost a year ago when I stumbled on this. I grabbed Tommy, showed him what I had found and he immediately shot me down. Hahaha! Not too surprising. Well, if you know me at all, you know that I don’t give up easily. So over the past year, I kept dropping little hints and suggestions on his head, trying to soften him up. He was pretty resistant until 3 months ago when I was searching for something on Craigslist and found a listing for a school bus. It must have been divine intervention because I was just sitting at my desk not saying a word when he walked in to see what I looking at. I started looking through the photos and something happened. Tommy said “Is that a cobra on the hood??” (It had a COBRA as a hood ornament which made me love it all the more! HAHAHA!) I said, “Here look at the pictures…” And as soon as he sat down, I knew he was ready.
We didn’t end up buying that bus, even though it was awesome and the cobra alone made it worth the money the guy wanted. After seeing that post though, Tommy got the bug and things started moving fast. He was like a bloodhound on the trail of busses and I was happy to hand the reigns over to him. He scoured tons of sites looking for one that would work. There’s a site called Public Surplus that lists busses for sale all over the country. It’s an auction site and the cool thing is that the bidding starts at like $500. We found one we liked but it was in bad shape and decided to pass. Then in June while he was up visiting his dad in MT, he found another one that we really wanted but we got outbid. Then one day I woke up and saw an email from him about a bus for sale on Craigslist up in Utah. I looked at the pictures and said “This is the one.” He ended up emailing and calling the guy and after some back and forth, he agreed to hold it for us until we got up there. We were thrilled. It was in excellent shape, had low miles and was the length we wanted. It had already been somewhat converted. The guy had ripped out all the seats and put in really nice custom made couches. He had also done some work on the transmission and ass end of it so that it would drive smoothly at high speeds. Because I was swamped at work and couldn’t get the time off, we had to wait FOREVER to drive up there and finally get it. So about a month later , at the end of July, we packed our bags and made the 11 hour drive to Utah to pick up our new bus.
So as you know, it’s HOT in the summer. And this bus didn’t have AC. We anticipated the pain and bought some water bottles with fans so Tommy and the kids could keep cool. I was the lucky one. I got to drive the car back and use my air conditioner. Hahaha. By the way, the boys didn’t know we were buying this. I think they had an idea because we had been mentioning it a lot, but we never told them definitively that we were buying a bus. So it was a lot of fun to surprise them.
The trip was LONG. It was all driving pretty much and it was stressful because there was a lot we had to do in a little amount of time. Tommy was a natural behind the wheel and had a blast driving it for the first time. Getting gas was a goat rodeo but we managed. The worst part was the heat. Driving back through Phoenix in the 108 degree weather was NOT fun and even though the boys had the option to ride with me, they chose the bus and nearly cooked to death. I remember driving behind them and seeing little heads and arms hanging off the couches with their water bottles spraying themselves. Pretty funny. After we made it back, it was a race to get it registered and insured because we only had a 4 day temporary tag. THAT was a complete cluster and I don’t have the time or space to tell you all the details. Needless to say, we got it done and now our bus is sitting happily in our side yard behind a NEW block wall waiting to be gutted and worked on. But that my friends, is another story. Stay tuned. =)
