the Streets of Bakersfield

No, we're not back in Hollywood, we're in the hometown of Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick. We are in Bakersfield, California. We checked into a very nice park called Bakersfield Palms. We are luxuriating with full hookups, a heated pool & spa and yes they do have palm trees! Lots of them. But the real draw is the citrus trees. I just can't believe how people in the south don't eat the grapfruit and oranges ripended in their own back yard. So we've taken it on ourselves to not let good food go to waste. The kids just love going to the trees and coming back with bags full of fruit. We all love eating them, too!

Some of you may not have been following our saga from the very beginning. I guess I'm just not sure where it started, either. It may have been when we started homeschooling. More likely it was when I just got tired of struggling through the long and bitter Wisconsin winters. We talked about relocating somewhere south but we had no idea where to start. Thats when we had the idea to travel first.

But how do we do it? Do we just travel for a while and come back? or make a clean break? Time to get educated. I found that if we were to become full-timers, we would not be alone. In this country there are probably over two million people who choose to make an RV of some sort their only home. And modern technology like e-mail and cell phones have only made it so much easier. Plus I should be able to find work along the way to pay the bills.

Finally we made the decision to go for it. We decided on a timeline that allowed for Hannah to graduate (she wanted nothing to do with the idea), to save some money and to put ogether some sort of rig to travel in.

But what kind of rig? It needed to be big enough for four people to live in comfortably. And definitely not too expensive. We didn't want to start out with debt. My first idea was a fifth wheel. They can be pretty roomy and the tow vehicle can be used by itself when the trailer is parked. Plus I found that second hand they can be pretty reasonably priced. The big problem is that while sometimes you may be able to ride in the trailer it's just not the same as traveling together in a motorhome.

But a class A motorhome big enough for two bedrooms (if you could find such a floorplan) would be way out of our little ballpark. Shoot, even the smaller class B's we saw were far too much. Plus they drink fuel like a sailor on furlough.

That's when I saw something that changed everything. On e-bay there was a converted bus. Not the hippie-jesus-freak school bus with peace signs and flowers painted on it (although many I've seen are really beautiful and school buses do make great conversions), this was full-blown highway coach. And it was beautiful and REALLY roomy. The whole idea of building our own RV really appealed to me, too. Those of you who've known me a while would probably understand that.

So I learned all I could about converting a bus, especially about which type would work for us. Unable to find any in the area (or even the state), I started shopping ebay. We found one in Des Moines and went to look at it:

It was a Setra from Colorado. It looked pretty good so we started bidding on it just before the closing. Just when it looked like we had it, though we were outbid at the very last second. (The guy later offered it to us at a small profit) We later found out that Setras really made poor conversions so it worked out.

Looking at all the models and talking with poeple who knew buses the one model they agreed was the best was the Eagle. They also commanded a premium even though they weren't made anymore. But in their day they were the Cadillac of buses. All the entertainers had to have them. They had a different suspension called torsilastic suspension. All other models use air bag suspension which give a kind of squishy ride and leans badly in corners. The Eagles corner flat and are legendary for their smooth ride. But I figured an old MCI would be cheaper and good enough for us.

Then one day I checked ebay and saw an Eagle that I thought might go cheap. It was a 1982 Model 10 with a recently rebuilt Detroit 6V92T and Allison 4-speed automatic transmission. It looked to be in really good shape, was in San Antonio, TX (no rust, I thought), had almost new tires (worth $500 each), THREE roof airs and even came with a diesel generator. So we bid on it just before closing and were the high bidder but we found that we were under the reserve. Next day though, the guy e-mailed me and said that we could have it for our bid. A cashier's check and a one-way ticket later I found myself in San Antonio.

Turns out the gentleman really needed the cash to save his house from foreclosure. His daughter is a Tejano singer (like Selena) and had a Sony Record deal, but her career wasn't taking off and she had gone back to her day job. He had gotten it from a Baptist church down by Houston and had only taken some of the seats out. The lettering, including the verse from Isaiah was still on it. As a bonus, he had already titled it as a motorhome. Which was a good thing, I later found, as otherwise I would have needed a CDL "B" to drive it home.

So after a mile-long driving lesson I drove the thing up to La Crosse.

I didn't learn until I got home that I had driven the entire trip without BRAKE LIGHTS!

LATER: The beast under the beauty's skin