For those of you that don't know. busing has been a dream for Patsy and me for some time now. We bought this bus in Chino Valley Arizona in November of 2008. When we closed our carpet business down in January 2009, we moved to Weiser and was going to get started on our dream. But work got in the way and not much got done. 3 weeks ago, the owner of the ground we were selling cars off of decided to sell and guess what, we are out of a job. We were given 30 days to pack up and hit the road. So Patsy and I after 3 weeks of trying to figure out a game plan have to decided to go for broke. (wait, we already are broke). We decided to make the bus livable and move it to my sons house and get to work on our future home. I am not sure financially how everything is going to work and we have spent a lot of money this last two weeks on generators and insulation and wood, etc, but here we go.
So as you can see, we have been very busy. First of all, there is a lot of work involved just to strip the inside of a MCI to get ready to make it a home.I have now made three trips to the recycle plant with aluminum and stainless steel. The first trip I mad $155.00, the second was $210.00, and the third was $175.00. I have another load to go in the morning. The bathroom in the back corner was a pain in the, well Chads butt. And all the side walls and over head storage and ceiling had to be removed. The next step was to remove the windows. After many grinder disks and drill bits, we finally got everything down to bare walls. Kurt and Scott and Chad and Marty ( it is nice to have 4 sons sometimes)worked on getting the windows all out. They were riveted in and that was quite a job.
After much reading and studying, I decided to skin the sides with 20 gauge steel. I bought 5 matching RV windows. We will put two windows on one side in the front and one on the other. The we will put one window on each side in the back where the bedroom is. We finished skinning the second side all but the front piece today and we left that off until tomorrow. The stove (mom wants a full size propane stove and we have one so it is going in tomorrow. Also, we put the shower enclosure in through the window because it would not work through the door. Tomorrow we put the couch in and then button it up. Then we will cut the RV windows in and get them mounted. Our game plan is to have the out side all put back together with the new windows in and the big items in the bus by the end of the weekend.
That will give us a week to move a bed and a desk and a few basic items in before next week end.
Next sat, we will start up our new home and head for Martys where the work will continue as we work to make a little money and try to get ready to hit the big road. We would like to work our way to alaska next year if everything goes together.
So, I hope that gives you an idea what we have been up to. I will have pics for the site posted on Monday or Tue. Thanks to all that have been helping and following this site. See you next time. RAZ
