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Old 06-05-2015, 02:13 PM   #341
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Military green is the colour I would like for mine. Did you paint the top part of the roof white or green? [Hard to tell] If green, do you notice any extra heat from the sun?

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Old 06-08-2015, 06:30 PM   #342
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Could you send me your measurements. I have a 1995 thomas and want to do the stairs, sides and bumper guards.
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Old 06-08-2015, 06:33 PM   #343
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Send me the link for the headlights
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Old 06-11-2015, 12:20 PM   #344
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 64crew4x4 View Post
my 1997 Pusher was Blessed with 100 Gals from Factory.... More than Enough to go State to state....;)
Awesome! I will just get some jerry cans and hope for the best.

Quote:
Originally Posted by REDD View Post
Military green is the colour I would like for mine. Did you paint the top part of the roof white or green? [Hard to tell] If green, do you notice any extra heat from the sun?
The exact color on mine is BEHR Home Depot House Paint, Exterior Semi-Gloss. The color is "Ivy Topiary." For the roof, I initally painted the whole thing white from the very top to the rain gutter. However I thought it looked a bit goofy, so I extended the green to about 10-12" above the rain gutter and the top and part of the curved sides of the roof are white. The white is this: Henry 4.75 Gal. 287 Solar-Flex White Roof Coating-HE287SF871 - The Home Depot and if you use it, I recommend using a couple layers of white primer first. I can still faintly see green through it where I painted over green, and I have put probably 7 coats of the stuff on. The little strip of green on the roof may generate a little extra heat but I'll deal, I think it looks better. I put 2" of polyiso insulation in the ceiling which helps a lot. Also, since the bus had been sitting under trees for a while, it had accumulated that east-coast tree-sh!t that accumulates on anything left outside that hadn't been washed in a while, so we washed it and put another coat on and you can definitely feel the difference. But I have really considered redoing the coating, putting the proper primer on and putting several more coats of the elastomeric on so that you'd need sunglasses to be on top of it in the sun, so it reflects more light, as the roof still does get warm to the touch when in the sun.

So basically, the white elastomeric stuff works if you actually follow the directions and use primer.

The metal around the windows and the rub rail is all rustoleum oil-based flat black. Let me know if you want better pics of the paint scheme and I can get you some.

Quote:
Originally Posted by kaisersersae View Post
Could you send me your measurements. I have a 1995 thomas and want to do the stairs, sides and bumper guards.
Measurements of what, exactly?

Quote:
Originally Posted by kaisersersae View Post
Send me the link for the headlights
Say please, dammit. Which are you referring to? The sealed beams? The projector retrofits I got that didn't end up working? The LED spot lights?
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Old 06-11-2015, 01:07 PM   #345
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The exact color on mine is BEHR Home Depot House Paint, Exterior Semi-Gloss. The color is "Ivy Topiary." For the roof, I initally painted the whole thing white from the very top to the rain gutter. However I thought it looked a bit goofy, so I extended the green to about 10-12" above the rain gutter and the top and part of the curved sides of the roof are white. The white is this: Henry 4.75 Gal. 287 Solar-Flex White Roof Coating-HE287SF871 - The Home Depot and if you use it, I recommend using a couple layers of white primer first. I can still faintly see green through it where I painted over green, and I have put probably 7 coats of the stuff on. The little strip of green on the roof may generate a little extra heat but I'll deal, I think it looks better. I put 2" of polyiso insulation in the ceiling which helps a lot. Also, since the bus had been sitting under trees for a while, it had accumulated that east-coast tree-sh!t that accumulates on anything left outside that hadn't been washed in a while, so we washed it and put another coat on and you can definitely feel the difference. But I have really considered redoing the coating, putting the proper primer on and putting several more coats of the elastomeric on so that you'd need sunglasses to be on top of it in the sun, so it reflects more light, as the roof still does get warm to the touch when in the sun.

So basically, the white elastomeric stuff works if you actually follow the directions and use primer.

The metal around the windows and the rub rail is all rustoleum oil-based flat black. Let me know if you want better pics of the paint scheme and I can get you some.



Thanks!

I've got a co-worker that said he'd spray it if I supplied all primer, paint, hardeners etc. and did the prep...going with a CIL automotive paint.
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Old 07-21-2015, 12:59 PM   #346
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Thanks

Thanks for posting so much about your build and experiences. I am hoping to do something similar in the next few years and have been researching. One of my high school teachers once said to me "You have the world by the ass and don't even know it". He was right. If I could go back in time I would do exactly what you are doing. The lessons you are learning will help you throughout life and the experiences you have and will have will be treasured. Good job man, keep it up and post often! Have you thought of an instagram account to post pics? Have a great trip!
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Old 07-21-2015, 01:01 PM   #347
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I have been posting to Instagram of my trip. My account is allahrackbar and #skoolietrip2015 is our thing you can search to see what we've posted. Thanks!
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Old 07-21-2015, 01:06 PM   #348
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Thanks I will check it out.
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Old 07-21-2015, 01:07 PM   #349
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Allahrackball*
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Old 07-21-2015, 06:40 PM   #350
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Good to Meet you....:)

John in Oregon here....

Had the chance to meet Justin and his Crew as they blasted up I-5 towards Seattle...

Good group of Young Guys Living the American Dream Doing a Giant cross Country trip......

Good stories to tell for the rest of your lives...

Have a Fun and Safe Rest of your journey.....I will check you out on Instagram...

I will be sure to hit you up when I am on your side of the States with my BEAST this Fall.....

John.
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Old 08-20-2015, 04:00 PM   #351
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Apologies for the long delay with no updates. I am working on a mega-post to update the last bit of the build I did and our 9,000 mile trip we did around the US this summer.

Long story short, due to changes in my life, I may be looking to sell the bus, so if anyone is interested, please let me know.

Stay tuned!
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Old 08-20-2015, 05:51 PM   #352
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So, I am going to start with details of our trip because I am waiting on files to transfer with my last build photos.

We left Kensington, MD on June 17th (I believe). 4 guys in their early 20's, 2 recent Mechanical Engineer graduates. So we figured we are in good hands if something breaks. We brought pretty much every hand tool I own. We packed the bus hastily in a disorganized manner, because we were excited to leave and I was incredibly antsy. I had been working my ass off on the bus for months to get it ready for this particular trip, excluding the year or so of work I did on it prior.

So we packed our bags and boxes, filled the basement storage to capacity, filled the fuel tank and water tanks and we were off. Our first stop was Winchester, VA, at the home of one of the guys on the trip. That is roughly 1.5 hours from Kensington, MD. This was a bit nerve wracking, as I hadn't even hardly done a test ride in the bus after building the storage compartments and water tank mounts out. The only "testing" it got was being taken about a mile around town. So we left, fingers crossed for Winchester at about 10 PM. Everything was fine, so we slept that night, woke up and wired up the auxiliary battery bank, which I didn't even have time to rig up at my house.



I wired up 4 200 AH, 6 volt golf cart batteries, 2 sets of 2 in series for a 12 volt system with a roughly 400AH capacity for the whole bank. I used 2/0 to wire the batteries together with crimp connectors, and used 2 gauge to the inverter, which I later realized was too small. I used the west marine manual battery bank switch, the "Off / 1 / 2 / 1+2" switch which you can see in that picture. So the switch was connected to "1" as the bus starting bank, "2" as the aux bank, and the third "load" lug was connected to the inverter inside the bus, and also the on-board charger / 12v DC power supply. So while off, the switch would be in "2" to keep the starting batteries alive, then you start the bus on only the starting batteries, so right after you start it you switch from "2" to "1+2" so both the starting batteries and aux batteries charge while driving. While plugged in, you could keep it on "1+2" to keep both banks topped up.

This system worked okay. It was pretty good considering I designed and built it in a matter of hours. The issues were:

-Our 120 volt fridge pulls a ton of current upon startup, and we only have a 1,000 watt inverter, so if the aux bank was anything less than fully charged (about 12.7/8 volts) the fridge would either not start, or take like 5 attempts to start, which made the inverter scream and is awful for the fridge. Part of the issue I think was the wire size I used, which was 2 gauge over about a 15 foot run from the bank to the inverter, which is probably too long for that kind of amp draw, no matter how short the duration of the draw is.

-The alternator on this bus is 160 amps at peak. When you start the bus, have a very low aux battery bank, and switch the switch to "1+2" while the engine is running, it puts a very heavy load on the alternator for a few minutes. This would normally be okay, and the alternator didn't die, but since I hastily changed the belt routing on my bus which compromised belt tension, the serpentine belt on the alternator would squeal very loudly for up to 5 minutes, which didn't damage anything but was incredibly loud and annoying.

-The location of the switch is annoying. The fact that it had to be switched manually wasn't that annoying, but I put it in the compartment because I was running low on 2/0 wire and didn't have enough to run it into the cabin. This can be easily changed, however.

-I didn't take the time to put solar on this bus. This seriously reduced the off-grid capabilities of this bus to the point where we would have to go to RV parks overnight just to plug in, as our generator wasn't really fit to run overnight (too loud). We had to keep the fridge cold so we had food. Looking back, we probably should have just ditched the fridge and gotten dry ice and a big cooler. I tried dry ice in the fridge but it didn't do all that much. I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH how much I would have loved to have had 300-500 watts of solar panels on the roof, especially because everywhere we went was sunny. The way we went, we didn't encounter rain for like 5 weeks.

Lessons learned.

After Winchester, we bombed south to Asheville, NC to visit a friend.



We just stayed here for 8 hours or so to sleep and plug in to charge the new batteries. Wish we could have stayed longer, but we had reservations for a park in New Orleans for the next day. So we left around 10 AM (early for us) and I drove (I was the only one who drove on this trip) the 680 miles from Asheville, NC to New Orleans, LA.

Driver hydration system:



Pit stop in Atlanta, GA for a few hours, because we went through there right at rush hour:



Very fast electric RC car:



Had some great BBQ and headed out of there around 7 pm.

We got into NOLA at about 4:30 AM, and you cannot believe how ecstatic I was to see this:



I saw this rig thinking some fat old American dude owned it, but it was some 30-odd year old German dude. He was on a trip with his German parents, and said the first thing he did upon coming to the US was buy a restored Chevelle. He bought it partially converted and is working on it gradually. It is a 40' Thomas MVP, older version of mine, with a 6.6 liter CAT 3116. Not sure how it gets out of its own way given how slow mine is with a 7.2!

Had a decent time there. Toured a bunch of stuff during the day, and it is hot as hell there. I am not about the heat, and our A/C in the bus, consisting of the freestanding ducted unit I posted a few pages ago, and a 5500 BTU window A/C unit from Home Depot that just happened to fit in the bus window. So like 16,000 BTU of cooling capacity total, which did nothing when the sun was out, but worked okay at night. It did kind of force us to get up early, though.







We spent 3 nights and 3 days here, and headed out after that for Austin, TX. Our route plan was to sort of bomb through the southern states, stop where we wanted to see real bad, and head North West, as we were all being bitches about the heat. It is hard when it is 100+ degrees with minimal to no A/C.
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Old 08-20-2015, 05:52 PM   #353
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Awesome, I love seeing buses being USED!
You've done a great job, congrats.
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Old 08-20-2015, 06:25 PM   #354
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Bottomless mimosas were fun in NOLA. You could get drinks to go there., as all of America should be.



So we left NOLA in the AM to head to Austin, TX. At this point, we didn't have any reservations anywhere. So about 2/3 of the way there, we started calling places. We had discovered by now the issues with the battery bank, so we were looking for a place to plug in, and fill our water up. With 92 gallons of fresh capacity, even with 4 guys on board and taking showers, it still lasts an awful long time, though it does take a while to fill. We called an RV park that was pretty much downtown, but they didn't allow school bus conversions because "Some guy 20 years ago said he didn't like them, so we haven't allowed them since." Such a Texas thing to say, I don't like them personally, so nobody gets them! So we ended up staying in a state park about 7 miles outside of downtown for $20 a night with hookups. We biked in the first day, but due to our crappy bikes and the heat, we called an Uber cab the next day because the ride the previous day killed us.

Relatively uneventful drive from NOLA to Austin, as it was Interstate 10W basically the whole way. I did, however, top up the oil at one point and forgot to put the cap back on for about 150 miles:



Stopped at a parking area and played with the RC car in the dirt:



One guy had a remote control drone, but it was way too windy there to use it.



We got passed by damn near everything, including triple-trailer semi trucks:



Austin is a great city. We all loved it. It is an unusual feeling for us to go into a big city and not feel unwelcome. We met up with some girls our age who were also doing a cross country trip in a car, and they hung with us for a night at the park.







We spent 2 days and 2 nights there, but definitely could have spent more. We left in the early afternoon, and headed to Roswell, NM to see the cheesy alien stuff. The drive to Austin we started running a bit warm, as the bus is supposed to run at 195 degrees but it was holding a bit closer to 210. The same thing happened on the way to Roswell. It seemed like if the ambient temperature was above about 80-85 outside, during the day, the bus would run warm. If it was in the 70s or lower during the day, or anytime at night (no sun on the roads = lower intake air temp at the radiator) the bus would run at 195, even up inclines.

We took 10 West for a while from Austin, filled up on some nice cheap diesel, and then picked up US 285 North off 10W a few miles west of the parking area picture. It was about 7 PM when we hit 285N, which ended up being a pretty scary road. It is a one-lane-each-way highway that was being used heavily by refinery and drilling companies like Halliburton, and there were tankers, dump trucks and dually pickups carrying huge trailers with likely sleep-deprived drivers bombing down the road, kicking up mud and rocks. This road passed through some tiny towns, and we happened to be driving through right after a torrential downpour caused some pretty bad flooding. One town we drove through, I drive through about a foot of water in the streets. We could see the thunderstorm happening in the distance on the way there, but didn't actually encounter the rain. The road was bumpy as hell and very uncomfortable in the bus, and I thought we were going to lose a tire from all the potholes and debris.

We stayed on this road for about 250 miles and only suffered a chip in the windshield:



We finally got to Roswell at probably 1 AM. We stayed at Bottomless Lake State Park in New Mexico, about 10 miles outside Roswell. It was $15 a night. We learned from a local, telling him about our drive the night before, that there were something like 65 casualties on the highway 285 since the beginning of the year. We felt more lucky to have made it fine. The park in NM was beautiful, but unfortunately we only budgeted one night.





From there, we went downtown to see the UFO museums, which were just as cheesy and poorly-done as we had expected.





We decided that a few hours there was enough. It was getting quite hot, there wasn't much to do, and a bunch of flies had infested our bus, likely from us leaving food out and not having screens up. So we tried to smoke em' out.



That didn't really work, neither did doing 65 for half an hour with all the windows open, so we got fly swatters and took care of them.
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Old 08-20-2015, 06:46 PM   #355
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Very Cool Trip so far!!
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Old 08-20-2015, 06:57 PM   #356
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The morning we woke in Roswell, we discovered our bike rack had fractured on the harsh road to Roswell:





This was not a cheap bike rack, but a $400 Thule Swedish one I had borrowed from a friend's dad. I looked like an a-hole because it was the one thing I borrowed from him that he was most concerned about, and I promised we wouldn't break it, and it broke. The mechanical engineers on board pointed out it was a poor design; rather than have a constant 2" tube piece, they reduced it to 1.25" for a smaller hitch and had you use a 1.25" to 2" adapter. The reduced section had a hole in it and plug weld attaching the sections, right in the middle of the support on the rack with the most stress and flex to it. So since the welded area was much more brittle, it cracked from the bumpy road and weight of 4 bikes on it. So until we found a solution, we put the bikes inside and undid the hitch.

We headed out of Roswell in the afternoon, and headed to Colorado Springs. My dad has a friend there, who's house we parked near for a night. Then we went to my friend's aunt's house, also in Colo Spgs, then back to the first spot. The drive out of Roswell was...hot. We headed through some very remote areas on old US highways, which was interesting, but also nerve wracking, as the bus started to run quite hot. We were climbing in elevation most of the drive, and it was also about 100 degrees out. The engine eventually hit 220 degrees, which is 10 degrees before the engine warning light and buzzer come on, and the computer derates the power of the engine by about 50%. Since I didn't want that, I pulled over and high-idled it back to 195, which takes about 10 minutes. It kept getting hot, so I decided to remove the cover door over the radiator:



This door was pretty restrictive for airflow, it didn't let a whole lot in, and there wasn't much area for the hot air from the fan to go. So this seemed to help some, it kept the engine in a temp range where I was comfortable to continue driving.

Bear in mind, this is with a perfectly functional cooling system. The radiator is new and I had recently flushed the dirt from the fins, the water pump and belts were good. These buses were just not designed for sustained highway cruising in high temps. The radiator is just not big enough, and doesn't have particularly good air flow. If I were to do this trip again, I would have to put in some sort of aux radiator, or at least hook up the heater loop.

We got to Colo Springs, where one of the four of us decided to leave on a plane. He decided he did not like the way we were traveling, staying up late and getting up late. He was more of a bed at 10PM and up at 7 am kind of guy. I couldn't do this, because I was driving, often late into the night and needed to sleep late to make up for that. He was the one who basically planned our route, a little too precisely, and was also turned off that after a few days we basically scrapped the plans and went with our gut feelings on where to go / what to do. So I guess he just got fed up with that and left. Which ended up being a good thing, because he was stressing the other 3 of us out with either constant activities or driving, and no time to just chill out and enjoy an area.

So in Colo Springs, we started with a little housekeeping. We stopped in a Home Depot lot for a few hours, and decided to turn the area of the bus that I intended to be a bathroom, into a closet:



We never used the porto potty I brought, so we figured it was more useful as a closet. We went into home depot with measurements and had the guy cut OSB and 2x3's to our specs, and they didn't even charge for the 20+ cuts! We assembled it using the tools we brought and in a couple hours had everything off the floor, organized much more properly and more accessible. Then we headed to my Dad's friend's house to chill for the night.

The next day we went to get the windshield fixed, at a Safelite which was conveniently across the street. They were able to do a repair on it with epoxy or something which held the rest of the trip.

We then went to ride a cog railway up Pike's Peak:





The view from the top of Pike's Peak was impeccable:



We then went to Garden of the Gods:





We originally hadn't budgeted more than a few days in Colorado, as we were in favor of seeing the West Coast, but many people recommended to us to go visit Rocky Mountain National Park, and the little town near it, Estes Park. Since we were operating with no plan now, we did, and we were glad. We headed to Fort Collins first, spent a night there visiting a friend from MD who lives there now:



I broke the glass on my door by hip-checking the door because the lock was sticking. The rivet on my jeans caught the glass:



Oh well.





We stayed in a KMart parking lot right off the main street for a night and 2 days, and had no issue. We then headed west to Estes Park, about 45 minutes away. Very small and winding road, but the bus did just fine.
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Old 08-20-2015, 07:16 PM   #357
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RMNP is a beautiful place.









Set foot on snow in July:







We spent 2 nights and 2 days here, again more than we had budgeted, because it is such a beautiful place. We had been warned by the park rangers about lightning, since the campsite we were at was at about 7,000 ft, and the trails we hiked to were 10,000+ feet. I thought they were overreacting, as I had always though your chances of being struck by lightning were pretty low, but we read on the news a week or so after we were there that 12 people were struck by lightning in one day on one of the trails we were on.

Beautiful place nonetheless.

We headed back East to Fort Collins, because there wasn't a good way for us to continue West from Estes Park. So Our plan was to avoid I-70 W because it is very steep and probably would have killed the bus and us. Also, my friend's Dad had ordered us a new rack for us to pick up. Little did I know it was a flat rack which was extremely awkward:



To check the oil, the whole rack had to come off from the hitch. I got real tired of this after a few days, walked into a random sporting goods store, and bought a brand new 4-bike rack like the one we had. Except the one I bought was solid 2" steel and bolted, not welded. And it was $89. And it lasted the whole rest of the trip.

Our last night in Fort Collins (after returning from Estes Park) we decided that the KMart parking lot was boring, so upon recommendation from our friend's friend, who lives out of a Westfalia VW Vanagon, we stayed at this campsite by Cache La Poudre River, about 10 miles outside Fort Collins. The friend's friend brought his Westfalia, and we all charged up our batteries in harmony.

Due to being supremely intoxicated, this is the only picture I have of that place:



But this is from nearby:



We woke up that afternoon, ditched the broken bike rack and the flat tray with our friend who lives in Fort Collins (thanks again) and were on our way. Next stop was Zion National Park.
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Old 08-20-2015, 07:34 PM   #358
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Going from Fort Collins to Zion, we decided to go North and then West, to avoid having to go through the steepest parts of the Rockies. The most direct route would have been to go South, then take 70 West to 15 to Zion. However, I had been on that particular stretch of 70 West in a rental car while visiting my future college (CU Boulder) and a Nissan SUV with a 5.6 V8 was struggling, so we figured the bus would not have a good time with it. So we went North and caught I-80 W and went through Wyoming for a bit, and to break up this long trip, slept in a WalMart parking lot on the eastern outskirts of Salt Lake City on the evening of the Fourth of July. Woke up the next day and continued, caught I-15 South, and took some other small road off of that to the East entrance of Zion national park.

This drive took about 1.5 full days, so we just found some campsite outside Zion to stay at for the night. It was called Zion Ponderosa Park or something like that and was bizarre, the place felt like a summer camp and seemed to be run by high schoolers. Bear in mind, we are still operating with no plans or reservations, and we had been warned by many people that we would be SOL once we arrived. This was never the case, we hadn't been thwarted yet.

We were in awe at the wide expanse of nothing that was Wyoming:



We woke up the next morning and went to the east entrance of Zion, where we were directed to drive through 2 tunnels. One of these tunnels was very small and had been turned into one way traffic, and they directed me to drive down the dead center of it, or else the roof would scrape. We went on the windy, narrow, oversize vehicle-filled roads until we hit Springdale, a small "town" inside Zion. We found a place to stay, again no reservations, right downtown:



This place was right next to the "main street" where you could catch a free bus to the trailheads. There were restaurants and civilization, which was nice, because we weren't really prepared to be in the middle of nowhere.

We went on some nice hikes:





And judging by my hair sticking up on the top of this mountain during a thunderstorm, I was rather unnervingly close to some static being generated by lightning:



We spent 2 nights in Zion which didn't even begin to do it justice. It is right about now we realized, to do this trip right, we would need 6 months, not 6 weeks. We were still happy to do what we had done though.

Next stop? VEGAS.
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Old 08-20-2015, 07:44 PM   #359
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Coachwork: Thomas Built
Chassis: Saf-T-Liner MVP ER
Engine: CAT 3126b Rotella-Chugger
Rated Cap: 72
Vegas isn't too far from Zion. This was nice, as most of our drives thus far on the trip had been 500+ miles in one shot, and since I was the only one driving, it was pretty hard on me. Unfortunately, it was hot as hell once again and the bus was running hot again, even with the radiator door removed. Especially as we got closer to Vegas, the bus just felt like a convection oven. It is so fcking hot there. I had to pull over 3 times on the 3 hour drive there for the motor to cool, and it was still running hot the whole way.

We finally got there though, and stayed at the Stratosphere hotel in Vegas. We met up with a friend from Maryland who flew out to see us, which was a convenient excuse for him to go to Vegas. He is big into poker, so it is definitely his scene. So these 3 nights we didn't stay in the bus, for a few reasons:

-It was $50 a night for a hotel at the stratosphere, with free oversize vehicle parking across the street. $50 a night over 4 people is CHEAP.
-Cheapest RV park is $65 a night
-Our A/C would never be able to keep us comfortable in the absurd heat that Vegas has.

So we had a good time there.



Saw the Pawn Stars pawn shop (just as underwhelming and overpriced as we thought it would be):



At the Venetian, where we encountered the best bartender we ever had:



Indoor rivers in the desert, because why not:



And we could keep an eye on the bus from the top of the Stratosphere tower!



A couple of days there is all we needed. I don't gamble, so it was pretty cheap to stay there. We went to a buffet at Caesar's Palace that cost more per person than our hotel room did in total. I thought I was going to leave on a stretcher I was so full. Our friend who flew out actually won some decent money in poker, so I think we were all content with our visit.

Next stop: SoCal.
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Old 08-20-2015, 08:09 PM   #360
Bus Nut
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Maryland / Boulder
Posts: 347
Year: 1999
Coachwork: Thomas Built
Chassis: Saf-T-Liner MVP ER
Engine: CAT 3126b Rotella-Chugger
Rated Cap: 72
From Vegas to SoCal. We had looked at the route, and were worried about temperatures, for our bodies and the bus engine, as we were going through some of the Mojave desert. Weirdly, the day we left Vegas it was a balmy 85 degrees, and once we got to California, it was almost sweater weather in the desert! High 60's. So despite the long periods of upward climbing, the bus did fine on the way.

I had a place in mind for us to stay in SoCal along route 1, as I had been there earlier that year with my family. There is a small-ish town called Ventura, CA which is rather wealthy, but not in a flashy fashion. There was an area on the Pacific Coastal Highway just north of Ventura where there were 500+ motorhomes parked along the road. We naively were hoping to snag a spot along there, but 100% of it was full. So we found a few parks nearby, but all were full. We were about to give up, but I searched my GPS for parks and found this place called Emma Wood State Beach, which was even closer to Ventura than the spot I had in mind.







It was right on the ocean. No hookups or anything, and in typical CA fashion was expensive - $40 a night for a parking space on the Pacific. The only facilities were VERY old port-a-johns that hadn't been emptied in who knows how long. But it was such a beautiful location, we spent 3 nights there. We finally used our air-cooled, gas Subaru generator, which is just about as loud as you can imagine, to charge our batteries and keep our fridge going.

Got clever with some ratchet straps going into town for a beer run:



We were looking forever for a beer and wine store, when we remembered in places other than Maryland, you buy that sh!t at a grocery store like a sensible person. So we went into a Von's (aka Safeway) and used our Club Cards to get some fat discounts.

We had a very relaxing 3 nights here. Doing nothing in particular, which was awesome. We cooked some great meals on our camp stove, which took forever because the BTU output is kind of low and the wind gave the flame a hard time, but it worked out.

Eventually, we knew we had to keep going, so despite how much we loved chilling out in SoCal. The plan was to continue up the PCH; route 1 / 101 North. We left the Ventura area around noon, and headed North, with no particular destination in mind. Not only was PCH / Route 1 a journey of beautiful sights, it was also a journey of smells. We drove through a lot of farm land where spices and aromatic crops were being grown and it was very nice. We kept going until about 10 PM, where we hit a road closure, and had to turn around and camp on the side of the road until morning. Which I am glad we did, otherwise we would have missed these views:











I had gotten into a habit of driving at night to avoid the heat, and forgot that I didn't need to do that in CA anymore

We continued up PCH, dodging rental RV's bombing down the center of the narrow roads, up to Monterey, CA, where my friend's aunt's place (same aunt we stayed with in Colo Springs) has a condo.
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