A new bus...

[the_experience03]

Talk me out of one. It's just a passing thought right now, but I learned a lot from my first bus and really miss the lady Havoc on the Highway. I don't have that burning desire for another bus just yet, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thinking about it. It certainly would afford us more camper than we could buy commercially being young professionals starting out. I don't really have the space at home to keep it and a wedding is going to consume a lot of time and money this summer...but you can't put out the skoolie fire. I would really like to build a well-finished bus with a raised roof that would be comfortable for say 4 people. The emphasis on the last one was as a party bus that some early-20's people could live in for a week. Now I want something that my fiance would be excited to jump into for a weekend.

Cliffs Notes for those that don't know: I had a bus that was my dream growing up. We had GREAT times in that bus and I learned a ton from this community and from actually doing it. Then I went back to school which was an incredibly positive move on my part, but I met a lady and life got in the way. I graduated school and have worked a few jobs, but am very comfortable where I'm at now. Unfortunately, the bus and some other things got traded for a piece of expensive carbon along the way. Talk me out of another bus.

 

[somewhereinusa]

Welcome back, I think if you're looking here for someone to talk you out of a Skoolie, you're looking in the wrong place.

 

[lornaschinske]

I'm the type of person who would rather take the wedding money and buy the bus. But then I also only had the "church" wedding for my Mom. If it had really been up to me, David & I would have simply dropped in on my retired pastor and gotten married in his living room! It is something I always regretted not doing. I would have been happier with my own choice of wedding. I have told my daughters that they can have the kind of wedding THEY want. After much arguing we still ended up doing a frugal wedding. Cost was only $500. We put together the luncheon buffet platters ourselves (included those tiny deviled banty eggs also from another caterer friend), my wedding cake was a wedding gift from a caterer friend and I found my wedding dress on sale for $75... it was the same dress as the $2500 dress (can you say "markup"?) at the photographer's studio which then made my mother happy. We made the wedding veil ourselves. Why would I pay $200 for a simple mantilla style veil that I could make myself with a hot glue gun. I wish we had a Hobby Lobby in our town back then. I could have pulled the wedding off for even less. Even if we did have over 500 folks attend.


BTW, today is our 33rd wedding anniversary. Most of the folks we knew who got married around the same time we did (1980) were divorced within 5-10 years. The ones who are still married, I wonder why. A big expensive wedding does not guarantee a successful marriage.

 

[lornaschinske]

BTW, today is our 33rd wedding anniversary.

Congratulations! It takes a lot of determination, commitment and love to stay together in a world that thinks marriage is disposable. Have a blessed day.

Rich

No. It takes a lot of patience, definite rules of behavior (cheating is not a thing to be forgiven by either) and willingness to change what we do. We came very close to divorce back when David was working in NC and I was living in TN with the furkids and the soul-sucking house. We had the choice of divorce (I was "single" anyways most of the time) or buy an RV to live in fulltime. After very little discussion (mostly where are we going to put all our accumulated "stuff"), we opted to keep the marriage going in an RV and lose the "American Dream" aka the soul-sucking house. The kids, who were working in NC living in the cabin with their Dad, had finished up their homeschool high school and were cut loose on the world by that time. So we really did not NEED a house in no way, shape or form. The decision to move into an RV was very freeing for us. We no longer had the weight of keeping two places in two states going. We were no longer having double bills to pay and we had more money to do things with. Money problems are a real drag on a marriage. Compounded with the soul-sucking house there was just never enough to go around. I never want another soul-sucking house in my life! I have my "home" and it's on wheels! We've been in one spot for far too long. Some days the urge to go is almost unbearable.

I need to walk down the beach just for a couple of hours, then I will be fine for a few more months. I really need to go... somewhere, anywhere, warmish. Tonight we eat seafood and I can pretend we are someplace warmish, near a beach, just not here.

 

[Elliot Naess]

Now I want something that my fiance would be excited to jump into for a weekend.

One word: Huge-luxuriant-bathroom.

Also, go three feet up on the roof, so you have room for upper bunks that nobody bonks their head on.

Get a pusher and add lots of sound-deadening.

This, when you are both ready, in two or three years.

Good to "see" you again, Andrew. Congrats with the bride!

 

[the_experience03]

Why thank you. A roof raise is not optional, but a requirement. I am still 6'5" and can tolerate having to bend over as I did in Havoc, but she is 5' 14" (it's less awkward when stated that way) and deserves to be comfortable. Truthfully, the idea of a coach has crossed my mind...

 

[Elliot Naess]

Sounds like a match made in heaven!

Remember to raise the door also.

 

[lornaschinske]

... she is 5' 14"...

Oh she is so lucky. I wish I were taller. I'm a disgustedly short 5'5". EVERYTHING is either where I can just barely reach it by stretching as far as I can stretch or just beyond. Do you have any idea how tiresome it is to have to climb up the shelving in store to get what I want to buy???? I'm 52 yo, that's too old to be climbing up the shelving at Wal-Mart!!!! My kids have it even worse. One is 5 ft even. The other is 4"10". And they blame me & their father (5'6"). I keep telling them to blame their great grand mother (4'10"). Even though I have a few tall folks scattered in my side of the family (my Dad was 6'5", my grandfather was 6"6"), I ended up on the short side as did my kids. On the other hand, skoolies tend to be great for us "vertically challenged" folk. Might be why my 4"10" daughter wants a skoolie conversion so badly. The Class C is still a tad tall for her but still suits her height much better than a regular house.

 

[inkblots84]

Congrats on the engagement and coming wedding!

I hear where you're coming from but I still vote bus. Sell that hunk of carbon, get a prettier and much cheaper replacement and put the funds towards a bus and the wedding! We didn't spend a ton of money on an engagement ring because we didn't have it, the "what happens if it gets lost" scenario, and we want to use that money for other things, like building our bus and life together. Our wedding is planned for maybe 2 years from now so we have time to get some stuff done and save some money. It won't be a big flashy affair, but we're going to do it right. We most likely will still be living in a bus but no idea where.

If it's only to be a weekend thing then you won't have to put a ton of money into it, and if you have a place to keep it..

Oh wait you wanted to be talked OUT of buying another bus? in that case, don't buy a bus because of reasons.

 

[the_experience03]

The problem with a small bus is it is going to have one of the smaller engines that I am more comfortable working with and I just can't leave well enough alone. I would become more interested in pull that small block chevy out and turning it into a "research project" by building an engine designed to run on ethanol or something silly like that.

 

[Hex]

How about a six-window full-size bus?

(Like the one here?)

Still a nice big diesel engine and clearance, but much more manageable ...

 

[keith-SKO]

just remember its a northern bus so u may have a lot of under rust,as know to be in mass

 

[the_experience03]

I think the direction we will be going for now is probably building a teardrop trailer. It fits our budget, time, and storage requirements a little better. It will probably be a while before I start on it, but I plan to chronicle the build here because everything people do here applies about the same to a teardrop. Besides...I know and like this forum. I don't want to have to go try and be the n00b on a teardrop forum.

 

[schoolmarm-SKO]

This is a good site for teardrops:

http://www.tnttt.com/

They are as helpful as Skoolies.