Introducing Dazzling Blue

[Drew Bru]

Thank you! We're still tweaking it a bit but it's worked out well the couple of times we've gotten to use it.
We're thinking about moving the fridge next to the table. It doesn't look as good, but that way we'll have access to the door and all the ventilation it will provide in the summer. Plus, it gives us an out of the way place for a dog bed (when we decide we're ready for another dog). We could also add another 2 feet of counter top if we did that.
It's hard to know what we're doing until we're living in it. Hopefully it won't be too much longer.

[Drew Bru]

It's been about 18 months since we started the journey of our bus conversion. We never did create a build thread, so I thought I'd update this one.


We have been living in the bus in a Cook County (right outside of Chicago) forest preserve campground since last Friday while we finished getting the house ready for it's new owners. We closed on the sale this morning and will be taking off for the first leg of our indefinite travels tomorrow morning.



It's been easy camping this week, with electric plug in, and so far all of the systems have been working as we hoped. We're finding the bus very comfortable and have been cooking our meals as though we were still in a sticks and bricks house. We couldn't be more tickled.

[Sleddgracer]

Originally Posted by Drew Bru

It's been about 18 months since we started the journey of our bus conversion. We never did create a build thread, so I thought I'd update this one.


We have been living in the bus in a Cook County (right outside of Chicago) forest preserve campground since last Friday while we finished getting the house ready for it's new owners. We closed on the sale this morning and will be taking off for the first leg of our indefinite travels tomorrow morning.



It's been easy camping this week, with electric plug in, and so far all of the systems have been working as we hoped. We're finding the bus very comfortable and have been cooking our meals as though we were still in a sticks and bricks house. We couldn't be more tickled.

looks very nice - should be little problem living in that pleasant space

[Drew Bru]

Originally Posted by Sleddgracer

looks very nice - should be little problem living in that pleasant space

Thanks! So far, so good. It's very pleasant place to live, very homey.

[plfking]

Originally Posted by Drew Bru

We never did create a build thread, so I thought I'd update this one.


We closed on the sale this morning and will be taking off for the first leg of our indefinite travels tomorrow morning.

I'll bet you're stoked to finally be starting out.....best of luck in your travels. Since you slacked on the build thread, a travel thread will suffice.

[Drew Bru]

Originally Posted by plfking

I'll bet you're stoked to finally be starting out.....best of luck in your travels. Since you slacked on the build thread, a travel thread will suffice.

Thanks, Don. It's one week today and it still feels like a dream.



We're in the Manistee National Forest in Michigan now. It's a primitive campground, no one else is around. Wonderful fishing for Drew and the North Country Trail for Kristen. The sun is shining, the coffee is hot, and we are happy.

[leadsled01]

Drew that think is fantastic , just the right amount of natural wood and white paint.

[Drew Bru]

Thanks Leadsled!


Here's a shot of the campsite and one of a pond a short hike behind our site. We'll explore it with our canoes while we're here.

[EastCoastCB]

Funny how your bus is blue but your Nissan is school bus yellow!

[Mountain Gnome]

Originally Posted by Drew Bru

We have been living in the bus in a Cook County (right outside of Chicago) forest preserve campground since last Friday

Some of my earliest memories are of my grandfather taking me to the forest preserves there (near Calumet City). Some of the best memories.

I went back when I first got a car, and within 30 seconds of parking, I had a gay guy walk up to my car hitting on me. The whole lot was full of gay guys looking for a pickup. I never got to see the forest...I just left.
Just drove my bus past them last September...didn't stop. But noticed the new campgrounds....

[Drew Bru]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

Funny how your bus is blue but your Nissan is school bus yellow!

We've always been a little off

[Drew Bru]

Originally Posted by Mountain Gnome

Some of my earliest memories are of my grandfather taking me to the forest preserves there (near Calumet City). Some of the best memories.

I went back when I first got a car, and within 30 seconds of parking, I had a gay guy walk up to my car hitting on me. The whole lot was full of gay guys looking for a pickup. I never got to see the forest...I just left.
Just drove my bus past them last September...didn't stop. But noticed the new campgrounds....

Ha! For that minute you got to experience what every somewhat attractive female deals with where ever she goes from puberty to menopause. At least they were just horny, not scary.

My dog and I hiked those trails for almost 15 years. She was a 75lb black dog who was fiercely protective of me, I never had a problem with anyone. Once she died men would stop me on the trail to talk, or I'd notice one behind me keeping pace. It really took the joy out of my love of nature. Being seen as prey gets old fast.
Kristen

[HazMatt]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

Funny how your bus is blue but your Nissan is school bus yellow!

I smiled at that combination too.

[Drew Bru]

We've been slowly inching our way across the midwest for the past month. Started outside of Chicago, then up to western/central Michigan where we spent a couple weeks dry camping for 5 bucks a night.
After our stint in Michigan, we decided to take the bus, the Xterra, and ourselves across Lake Michigan on the S.S. Badger. It's the last coal fired steam ferry operating on the Great Lakes. There's a long and storied history of carferries moving goods between Wisconsin and Michigan.....originally loading railroad cars. Now it's automobiles and semi-trucks.
Shown is our bus parked next to the S.S. Spartan, the decommissioned sister ship of the S.S. Badger.


We then spent a couple of weeks in Wisconsin, on the western edge of Lake Michigan. Wanted to have a place to call home for Memorial Day weekend. It was a nice state park, nice facilities. We had no hookups and mostly no neighbors, aside from the holiday weekend.
We left out of Wisconsin, booked it across the state and stayed at a couple of Harvest Host wineries in southern Minnesota near the Iowa border.

We're done with the Midwest though, so we drove straight through our new domicile of South Dakota to the Badlands, outside of Wall, SD. Boondocking at the edge of the park right now, so I've attached a pic out our front door. We've not been on hookups for a month and the solar is performing wonderfully and (touch wood) I think we're starting to get the hang of this lifestyle.

[invictus28]

A lovely bus! I'd like to hear about your wood stove.
e

[Drew Bru]

Originally Posted by invictus28

A lovely bus! I'd like to hear about your wood stove.
e

Ah, the Cubic Grizzly woodstove. It can be finicky and needs almost constant tending, but it serves its purpose. It provides a nice dry heat, so we use our propane Buddy heater to take the chill off in the morning then fire up the woodstove to take over from there. It needs tending it's not a load-and-forget-it type of deal. It does a great job of heating things up 25-30 degrees above the outside temp, but it takes small pieces of wood and burns through them quickly.

[invictus28]

Thanks for the perspective. Would seem like a nice addition . . . and you've got a clever work around to keep from having to hop up and down all night long.

I'm still in blue-sky imagining stages of what I can do with my Bloodmobile. Please check out my photos and let me know if you have any thoughts/imaginings.

e

[Drew Bru]

Originally Posted by invictus28

Thanks for the perspective. Would seem like a nice addition . . . and you've got a clever work around to keep from having to hop up and down all night long.

I'm still in blue-sky imagining stages of what I can do with my Bloodmobile. Please check out my photos and let me know if you have any thoughts/imaginings.

e

Our "clever workaround", at night anyways, is blankets. Lots of blankets!

There's a lot of potential in that Bloodmobile! A lot of the interior finish is already done, insulated and electric installed. That's pretty huge. Once you start building it out it'll start taking shape the way that you need it to. That's how it was with us anyway....we fine-tuned the build along the way and that worked wonderfully for us.
Check out the various build threads and some youtube videos and you'll get ideas as to what's possible in such a small space.

[The bus stops here]

Your bus looks beautiful!

[Drew Bru]

Thanks, we're really enjoying it!