Dueling Buses

Andrew has pulled his magical green VW bus out of the bushes and is working on it as well in the driveway and I couldn't resist a shot of the two buses side by side. We've been so lucky to get to park our shortbus in the Bourbons' driveway. Most people frown when they find out that our second vehicle is a small schoolbus that we are overhauling. The Bourbons, however, offered us the security code to their garage door. And Andrew has every tool ever made, ever. Thank you Bourbon family, you've been more help to us than you know.

An Unexpected Visitor

So, as I was doing a little cleaning in the bus the other day, I made a startling discovery. Some bird had built quite an impressive nest in the back of the bus! I had to reach my arm in between the ceiling panels and the back wall to pull out all of the twigs and leaves that had been assembled. Although we are huge fans of animals, we are just not willing to share our bus, so this little bird's nest was removed. However, I felt so guilty that we were forcing out our new friend that I relocated the nest to a large bush next to the bus, but I don't think the bird is really all that interested in his new home.

Doors and Seats and Windows, Oh My!

Zach and I did some digging in a local salvage yard, called Handlers, and found two great new seats for the bus. We were so excited when we went into the shop to ask if they had any spare seats and they asked if we would just like to wander around the yard and check it out for ourselves. We spent at least an hour climbing through old and wrecked cars, and Zach had to make another trip back, but we found our seats! We already have the new driver's seat bolted down and we just need to get our new seatbelts and we will be back in business! And we finally put on a new front door too. We were lucky enough to find a beautiful old, wooden door in my parents' basement that they graciously donated to the cause. It has a great red-orange tinge to the wood and matches the interior wonderfully. And then we put a window in it! And it looks fantastic.

Filters and Stuff

We ordered several filters offline along with a small pump and external filter for pumping the waste vegetable oil from oil dumpsters across the country into our beautiful new oil tank. We really wanted to do things the old fashioned way and get a manual pump, but we were advised by the Golden Fuel experts that with a manual pump you can do a whole lot of pumping and not get that much oil for your efforts, so we've sprung for the technology. We started unpacking and assembling all of our fuel kit accessories, and Jaco the cat helped out too by trying out each of the boxes that all the equipment had been shipped in.

Titled

Our new title arrived in the mail today, and it's beautiful!

The Oil Kit Has Landed

The oil kit that we had been longing for went on sale! So we quick, snapped one up and were able to get the conversion kit of our dreams from Golden Fuel Systems. We bought the really big tank, 60 Gallons, and it sure takes up a lot of space, but it will let us drive for a long time before we need to refill. And we'll just build a big table over it inside the bus. When the system finally arrived, we were so excited we ripped open all the packages right in the driveway. And the box was really big, so I made a temporary little fort.

All aboard!

For our last night in Saratoga we stuffed a few friends in the back of the bus before loading it with all of our furniture for the move. We'll miss everyone so much, but hope to bump into all of our friends again during our big adventure. See you in California Katie and Nick! You too, please, Dorothy.