My Bus Adventure

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that, about 20 years ago, I had a school bus that was converted into a motor home, I then went on to talk about hippie buses and how cool they were. Well, my bus was a 1962 Dodge. It was 32 feet long and had a 350 Chevy engine and automatic transmission. It was slow and got between 8 and 9 miles per gallon.  I bought it in 1990 for $800.

I wanted to move away from the L.A. area and needed a good camping vehicle. What I was really looking for was a Volkswagen bus. I saw an ad in the paper for an old school so I thought I'd go ahead and take a look, even though that was not what I was looking for. I have always loved the old hippie buses so I called the advertiser of the school bus and arranged to see it. I was a bit panicky as I caught myself making an offer on it. "What am I doing?" I thought to myself. "This is crazy." Amazingly they accepted my offer and then a big smile creased my face and the next thought was, "I just bought an $800 ticket to heaven!"

It was already partially converted inside. I went to work on it to finish the conversion by adding cabinets, cleaning up the kitchen, adding some furniture, etc. I painted the bus and my friend, Billy, made a wooden grille for it. I had a couple of yard sales to sell everything I owned that wouldn't fit in the bus, moved into it, and drove off into the night leaving Southern California behind for good. I didn't know where I was going or where I would end up. I was on the road! I ended up in Prescott, Arizona, where I still am today. In 1992 I traded the bus for a truck and a small travel trailer.

It was fun having the bus but I think, even more fun, will be the gypsy wagon I am building. Now that I am back from my annual allergy escape trip, I am back to work on it. I got the tongue-and-groove siding put on the front of the gypsy wagon this past weekend. The next step is to create the jambs for the door and windows.