What a wonderful birthday I had this year! Thirty nine is not so bad when you have people around you that love you and a Father in heaven who guides you.
Scott and I celebrated my birthday this year by installing a new washer and dryer in the bus. They work like a dream! No more laundr-o-mats for us! Yipee =0)
Here is a picture of Scott watching the washer spin:
Then we went to dinner at a little steak house here in town. They are small in size only. There are no menus and the chef/cook comes out from the back (if it is your first time dining there) with a huge slab of meat on a very large cutting board. He explains their dining selections (steak or chicken) and then retreats to the back to prepare what you ask for. The sides were baked potato or sweet potato and salad bar. The dinner was wonderful, but $50 for the two of us was quite steep. Oh well, it was our first (and probably last) time dining there.
At dinner Scott surprised me with a new camera. I have been wanting one for some time now so that I can take pictures for this blog and other group stuff.
So since I have the camera now I can take a picture of the gift my wonderful friend Cathy sent me. She is such a wonderful blessing and truly a gift from God. Here is what she sent.
She sent me a wonderful book and a really neat scarf that she knitted for me.
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This is the 5th of May and it is supposed to be 58 degrees tomorrow for a high with 30 mph winds. Right now it is raining, cold and windy outside. ARRRRGGGGHHHH. I am not sure spring/summer is ever going to get here. Well, maybe I can get some knitting done anyway. You would think we wouldn’t get cabin fever in a bus, but perhaps being cramped into a 40 foot by 8 foot space makes 58* feel like -30* sometimes. I still love it, but can’t wait for some warmer weather so show up out here.
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Yesterday my husband took pictures of me and our dogs to send to our family members. This is a photo of me with our Cocker Spaniel “Aubie”.
Here is another one with our Bassett Hound “Blazer”. Do you see the pretty flowers?
Blazer saw the pretty flowers too and decided that they would probably taste pretty good.
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The first of two AC units are now installed and working. It is really really hot here, I am sure we will use this AC for all its worth. This was actually an amazing amount of work to get these two A/C units on the top of the bus, cut the holes in the steel, run the electrical wiring, and actually have them work without having killed ourselves, but, it worked. This is going in reverse order that one would normally go in on a bus conversion but it is too hot not to install them right now.
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We now finished the painting on the side of the bus where the windows were taken out. You can’t see to much from the photo but I think Scott would rather the photo be taken from this far away being that this was his first paint job on a vehicle.
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After the quilt show in Fort Lauderdale 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 motor home before and had no idea what we were doing, but somehow we felt led to go and so we did.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
