It seems like the older we get, the more “lifetimes” we have lived. We live through stages, or seasons, of life and in each of those seasons, we have certain hobbies, careers, pets, living spaces, family (living and not), etc. During one of those stages, my husband and I decided to purchase a diesel pusher bus (think Greyhound) and renovate it into a motorhome so that we could operate our business and travel to the many required venues throughout each year without having to go from hotel to hotel.

It was hard work and took a lot of time, but was well worth it all. While we were living through this season, I kept a blog that is long since gone. The content and photos are not, though, so if you would like to come along for the ride, I think I am going to dig into that content and try to post them here as time goes by for posterity and for their potential humorous value.

Are you ready? Let’s go…

The following journal entry is from 2001

After the quilt show in Fort Lauderdale (February 2001) we headed for Heartland Motor Coach in Ocala, FL (update: they are no longer in business) to look at a few buses they would have that might be suitable for our new bus conversion project (or our traveling home). They had two or three that we were interested in. Scott had been discussing the various ones available and prices with Ron, the salesman there, through email and now we were actually going to see them up close. We had never owned a large motorhome before and had no idea what we were doing, but somehow we felt led to go and so we did.

When we arrived Ron showed us around the property and pointed out the few buses he thought we might be interested in. Then he turned us loose and we were able to roam freely around the property checking out the various bus conversions in the “graveyard” and also inspecting the ones that were for sale.
Deborah checking out the buses

One of the buses that was on our list was painted completely black on the inside, was without seats and was originally intended to be a coach for a band of some sort. We quickly passed on that one. The next one was trashed and not, we thought, worth what they wanted for it. That left just one final bus to consider. This bus was burgundy, not my first color choice. It was a repossession from a church and the coach company was motivated to sell. We looked it over on the outside as best we could and then went inside.

The interior had a strong musty smell and it really needed cleaning bad. We quickly realized that this was not a problem, because we were going to gut it anyway. On the dashboard sat Willie’s Bible. We don’t know who Willie is; probably a youth group member from the church that previously owned the bus. There were additional remnants of youth group activities, hat, jacket, candy wrappers, an old church cassette tape, etc. Other than that the bus was acceptable to us. We thought that we could probably handle this project after all.

Then Ron asked Scott if he would like to test drive it…. We spent three or four days in the Roadtrek camper on the property while the windows and seats were being removed and the paperwork was finalized.

Then we headed for Pittsview Alabama… now we will start the long process of turning this bus into a home for us to be able to travel to the quilt shows and conventions we vendor with each year.  Should be fun.