New Paltz

We've enjoyed our weekend in New Paltz. Coffee shops in the morning, $1.95 breakfast specials for brunch, filling up on oil later and a hike. Slowly headed south next. If you think you might be on our bus route, ie you live in Maryland, Virginia, or North Carolina, expect a phone call or email shortly....

So, you think you want to build a skoolie?

In preparation for building our bus, Zach and I spent a lot of time researching what other people had done to transform their old school busses into skoolies, (visit www.skoolie.net, it will blow your mind), and combined their info with our own ideas to create Expect Delays. I was really proud of all the work that Zach had put into figuring out how each component would fit in and function in our skoolie, and it felt good that we had discovered another group of people who were experiencing the same triumphs and setbacks as us. And we did have setbacks. So, if you think you want to build a skoolie, you should know a few things: 1)you will need mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and construction skills, or enough spunk to convince your girlfriend that you have these skills even if you technically don't. 2)you will need a lot of freetime and you will have to be flexible about your schedule because things will take, on average, three times longer than you thought they would. For instance, you will often use the phrase, "it'll take an hour, max," and then have to explain to your girlfriend that yes, ideally it would have taken an hour, but in reality it took four, and that's just the way it is. 3)you will need to be prepared to weather a whole lot of conversations that go something like this:

boyfriend: *drops something heavy on foot* "grrr, I thought this was supposed to be fun. Are you having fun?"

girlfriend: *crawls out from under bus seat* "Do I look like I'm having fun?"

boyfriend: "I don't know"

girlfriend: "Well, I'm not. Are you having fun?"

boyfriend: "Obviously I'm not having fun. Why are you asking ridiculous questions?"

girlfriend: *voice now one octave higher* "You asked me first!"

boyfriend: "Whatever, we need a break, I'm going to get food."

...but, in the end, you will have an amazing cabin on wheels, and you'll sit inside it and start up your woodstove, and laugh about all those times you wanted to do away with your boyfriend/girlfriend, but how in the end you're really happy about where you ended up. Except then it'll be 3am and you have to pee, and it's really cold, so you'll just lie awake for awhile and contemplate why you did this, but eventually, you'll get over it, and find your gratitude once more.

On the Road!

We did it! On November 27, 2010, Zach and I hit the road in Expect Delays. With Mom and Matt as our witnesses, we busted my beautiful money bank against the bus bumper for good luck as a send off (we couldn't afford a bottle of champagne, and besides, it was way more cool for money to explode out of the container). We'll use the money for tolls.Our first stop is in New Paltz, NY, for food with friends and the hiking trip we always meant to take but never did.

Plan B

So, for those of you who weren't around to hear all about our oil woes (and for those who were, we apologize, but really appreciate that you listened so patiently), let's just say we had a few issues, all of which are now, thankfully, resolved, thanks to a new pump, and our realization that we had the pump and filter housing hooked in the wrong sequence (say nothing, anyone could have made that mistake). Now the oil just pours through the pump and our 1 micron filter in moments. But...for a little while, we had to resort to some alternative methods...also known as gravity.



P.S. check out the shadow cast against the house of Zach's muppet hairdo.

Tiny Cabin on Wheels

We did it, we finally finished out the inside of the bus, and it looks beautiful, and so snug. We only have a few photos at the moment but there will be plenty more to come. And look at our tiny woodstove! It's a Jotul that we found on Craigslist for quite cheap, and the guy selling it to us also drove around the county in a school bus with a tiny wood stove. It has kept us nice and toasty warm at night, although occasionally it gets a bit cold around 6am and Zach and I have a small battle for who will have to get out from under the covers and stoke the fire. The smokestack is just on the inside of the bus for traveling purposes, and we reattach it to the outside once we've set up camp for the evening. Our first long drive with the bus was a huge success, meaning that only a couple of spices fell off the rack. My favorite part of the bus right now is the little kitchen area. More photos to come!

Oh, and we stopped by the Bourbons' to show Jaco the bus. We're not quite sure how he felt about it.

Have you seen our counter top?

It's granite! A beautiful black granite mosaic that Zach and I created thanks to some left-over tiles at the Haroth household. It's so shiny!

...and, the title officially has been added to the bus.

Pink!

We found a friend!