Looking back

I have realized over the past three years,that my life has changed a lot. The bus has been sold, and I am no longer in possession of a motorized vehicle. Nor do I live in the United States of America. I almost wish I chosen I different name so I could continue writing about my adventures, if not for others to read, but for me to have as memoirs. Revisiting this blog I have noticed that I was missing some excellent interior shots, which I took in preparation for the sale of the bus. I must say that as much as we make efforts to try and free ourselves we can end up tying ourselves down more. The bus was an amazing adventure, but the financial responsibility did not allow me to be free. As I think I am still paying off part of the trip, two years later. This is moment in my life combined with my move to Europe have given me the insight that less can often times be more, true I still have expenses, but my bike is a drop in the bucket. In fact one oil in the bus would have bought me my bicycle. I am now gearing up for a 600km long bike trip on The Camino de Santiago here in Spain. I wish I had several months like I did in the bus, but I should get an idea of the difference in traveling around. If I enjoy myself who knows, maybe Europe to Asia. That would be cool.

So here you go, anyone who may com e across this blog, or still get notices.

Long time coming, but slow going

It has been a long time since my last update! Not much has happened in the way of Wander Bus travels; for now anyway.

The bus is currently in the repair shop. It has been sick for a long time. In fact it has not run correctly since it was fixed in Oregon, almost one year ago. If my calculations are correct it was running at about 80% efficiency for power/gas mileage.But who cares about getting up hills and the bus only gets 8mpg, my not 6 or 7? According to the new mechanic he found at least one problem relating to that repair, a bad part. Since then the bus has been worked on twice, without solving the problem. Grrrrrrrrr. Don't worry folks, it was just my money. Needless to say Amanda was disappointed to find out that the repair was faulty, or rather the part was. It caused us a lot of worry, since we had a hard time trusting the bus. In fact the bus may go up for sale next year considering all the problems that I have dealt with. Last week I rebuilt the head. A 250lb chunk of steal, that need to be removed by had from the top of the engine.

I hope to have at-least one or two more adventures before she goes.
I'll update after the repair.



Tonight I do have a big event with the bus. Although she'll only be driving 35mph to get there. It is a big event a The Paradise rock club in Boston, formerly the Boston Tea Party. The bus will be used for interviews and as general eye candy. I should get a lot of publicity out of the deal. The gentleman who contacted me for the event was a former big shot a WBCN radio in Boston. He got my name from a friend who saw my bus parked in front of a house in Lexington. Good thing I had the banner. If nothing else tonight will be a new adventure, then off to the common ground fair in Abigail's Mercury Sable. We have been looking forward to this fair for months. It is filled with great lectures on plants, sustainable living...... Abigail is very excited considering she is on her way to becoming an herbologist and starting her own garden/medicinal herb business. Website coming soon at www.abigailsgarden.com hopefully in the next week. This fair should provide her with a significant amount of knowledge. Not to mention we are going to sell soap that we made by hand.

http://www.mofga.org/TheFair/tabid/135/Default.aspx

In the words of my father "s... happens, then you die" Nobody ever said it was good s**t or bad s**t. In the words of my zen master "it is what it is"

What ever happened to us?

The Wanderbus has been dormant for most of the winter; keep a far distance from the salt and sand. I am currently reconstructing many components of the bus, based on certain problems we encountered on the trip. I am looking forward to this paddling season, increasing Panda Paddles sales and a new job that can help support me while the paddle company is still young: leading trips to Spain and selling tours. With that said, the Wanderbus may be going on an East coast tour. Not to mention the East coast is much friendlier for paddlers-- a far cry from the steep cliffs and jagged coast in the West.

Remember the cold spell that February? I was driving in that. I stayed one night at a Virginia rest area. The water tank was frozen, I was frozen and my food turned into a solid brick. The waste water did not, mostly because of the salt content in the urine. The mattress I slept on was also frozen solid like a week old piece of toast. I will remedy the problems for next winter. Now’s the time to purchase winter products, maybe a nice wood or propane stove? The bus is running on grease again after 3,000 miles of diesel. Amanda is pursuing her own plans. I will stay in the bus. The parting was rough but these things happen. We are both doing what is right in our destiny. I would like to quote a poem I wrote about this sort of life changing/altering plan. I am very proud of the poem and think it speaks to all of us who follow our dreams, or should.


Reverse Metamorphosis

It all came back to me
The voice that had beckoned was now being heard
The path turned round destiny changed
A tangible forced had touched me,
My old being came back to me in a rush of words and memories
How could I have forgotten?
What foolishness could I have posed?
Could I really have let myself waste away in the void
Until all had been sucked dry
I know now where to go
Thank you, my soul has been found


Keep on keeping on,

Justin

Slab City

In our search for places to boondock on this trip eastward, we encountered Slab City. Boondocking is the art of finding a strategic free camping site where your presence will not bother the neighbors or attract attention. This is not always an easy task when few places are both legal and free to camp, or when you drive a big red bus. Slab City is near the Salton Sea in the California desert, hidden behind a rundown town on an old military base where only concrete slabs from the buildings remain. The entrance, an old checkpoint booth, boldly states “slab city, the last free place”.

Past the booth is the largest piece of folk art we have ever seen, Salvation Mountain. It’s a shrine to Jesus Christ and to Love. “Jesus I’m a sinner please come upon my soul and into my heart” is painted on the side of a handcrafted adobe hillside, next to a scene that depicts among other things a waterfall and a yellow brick road which leads to an enormous cross at the top of the hill. This was all crafted by a now 77 year old man, Leonard Knight. Leonard broke down in 1984 and planned to spend only two weeks building the shrine. Twenty five years later he is still going strong and giving tours to over 100 visitors daily. He showed us the adobe cave he built to live in and the adobe balloon he still works on. The balloon interior towers above at over two stories. Old automotive glass windows allow the light to penetrate into the interior, illuminating artificial trees. The trees are made from old tires filled with sticks and covered with painted adobe, just like the rest of the interior. “Currently the bill is in the Senate to have this dedicated as a national treasure”, he gleams with pride. Not in a cocky way, more out of contentment for what he has accomplished out of love for humankind and Jesus.

Two young men were standing around offering help to the elderly gentleman as he spryly scooted around. We started talking and they commented on our bus, which is always open for tours. “You gave us a tour, now it’s our turn”, Justin said with glee. As it turns out these two clean cut young men were best friends from Boston, recent graduates who couldn’t find any work in these hard times. They packed what they needed and drove out west to the Slabs, having heard about it from the movie “Into the Wild”. They had spent the past several months helping the old man at times and enjoying free life within the community. They gave us a few pointers and a general idea of what things were like: most of the slabs were accounted for, but there was plenty of space to stay on, and no time limit. The talent shows on Saturday were the highlight, but we would be long gone somewhere in Arizona. “Sometimes valley girls from LA come out here to get the whole experience, like from the movie. They only last five minutes and then go home”. They told us about the natural hot spring, so we got our towels and suits and walked down the road. Military vehicles whizzed past us blowing sand in our faces. Apparently the loud booms we had been hearing were coming from a bomb test site out in the desert. At the hot spring we encountered other bathers, older men in their fifties washing themselves with shampoo. It was gross to imagine swimming in used shampoo, but one guy told us the spring pumped 7,000 gallons an hour, so we decided to go in. All three men had been living at the Slabs for several months out of the radar of the federal government, or so they thought. They seemed like normal folks, just tired of the same day to day life.

On our way back to the bus we discussed the day and decided to see Slab City for ourselves. After crossing the hill we could see a sea of RV’s ranging from old broken-down school buses to hundred thousand dollar motor homes, amidst scattered shrubs and the rare tree for shade. We pulled over at what looked like an information booth, but we found it was the 16th Annual Solar Potluck-- just our luck since we had not eaten since early in the day. We cautiously approached the crowd of 40 people ranging in size, shape and age, and an organizer invited us to eat. It was one of the more eclectic groups we have ever seen. The most surprising of all was that everyone looked clean. The hot spring and outdoor shower must help. After some consideration we decided that it didn’t make sense to just spend one night at the Slabs; it was more a place to spend several days and get to know people and their stories, but we didn’t have the time.

We drove through the edge of the abandoned town north toward the Salton Sea and Joshua Tree National Park. We started ascending a beautiful canyon and noticed people parked off to the side, and it was BLM land. We decided to stop there for the night and hike to the top of one of the hills while we still had an hour of light. Our spot was a good ways from the road and had its own fire pit. We sat around a fire that night for the first time on our trip, enjoying the beautiful glow and smell of burning wood.

San Diego

Monday we left LA after a two month attempt to find work. What we managed to find was meager and sporadic. We are sad to say goodbye to our new friends Pierre, Lindsay, Ryan, Chris, and Jordan and my old friend Colin. You will be missed, and your kindness will not be soon forgotten. We gave our farewells, closed out our P.O. box and filled our water tank for the next part of our journey. We met with the last few kayak shops on the West Coast along our route to San Diego, the last major city in California. Our hopes of driving to Central America had been long forgotten after our struggle to find work and our high cost vehicle repairs, not to mention me losing my passport right before we came to LA. Some things are not meant to be, at least not now. In San Diego, we had Mexican food in Old Town and then crashed for the night next to the Department of Transportation. In the morning we took the time to explore the area and go paddling. It’s disappointing that most of the Southern Coast is overdeveloped or cliff. I look forward to my summer paddles on Cape Cod. Our plan to spend another night in the city changed once we had biked around Ocean Beach, ate delicious lunch at Cass St. and checked out some other areas, and we started our journey to our next stop, Slab City. We only made it 100 miles before we needed to eat and sleep. We pulled off the highway and parked on a back road overlooking the desert and Mexican border. We could even see the fabled wall dividing the two countries. I thought it was just a myth. That night we were visited twice by the border patrol. “You just camping?” the officer asked. “Yes sir”, I responded. “Okay, right on” and he was off. This was much less of an ordeal than other encounters with law enforcement officers. In LA we were pulled over for the Panda Paddles sign on the back of our bus. The officer claimed that we needed proper permits to hang a sign on our bus and he asked if it was commercial. This seemed suspect to me; more like, let me see if I can get the punks for something while I have them pulled over. He even went as far as entering our vehicle without permission.

The build

For this posting I am going to discuss the basic construction process for building a RV from a bus. Let us start by going through my thought process for finding a vehicle. I started first my choosing a vehicle based on three major factors, size, condition and price. I spent a good portion of the build looking to find a bus that was a good size, weight, height etc. For those of you thinking to build and RV use this as a guideline, and remember some facts are based on government regulations, please check with your local DMV for current regulations.
First determine how much you would like to carry in the vehicle such as couches, storage, size of kitchen, beds and other. Another thing to consider is what sort of storage you will need for water, grey water tank, black water tank, extra batteries, generator, AC, hot water heater, and air heater. RV furniture is not that much different from regular furniture so if you measure household items this can give you a good idea about layout. A vehicle over 30 feet is going to have many limitations, on street parking, turning, parks and campground etc. Vehicle height and width is also a concern. Width is fairly standard at around 9ft; over that width you need a permit. Height limits are 13.5ft without a permit, I would recommend building/buying no more than 12.5 feet or less, as this will help insure clearing most all brides and trees in the road. The final and most important limitation would be weight. Special CDL (commercial drivers licenses), are needed for vehicles over 26,000 GVW. This license is available to anyone who applies and takes the tests.
Now we must determine what type of needs we have for electricity, water etc. This stage of the game may even take you longer than the build especially if you purchase a smaller vehicle.
First determine water needs since this is the bulkiest. If you plan on staying places that have a lot of hookups then please keep that in mind. For my needs I have a fifteen gallon tank which last around 4-7 days for two people. My gray water tank is 25gallons, since it should be larger than the fresh water tank. I do not have a black water tank since I have a composting toilet. If you have a shower you will need much larger tanks if you plan to go more than one or two days without a refill.
Remember that if you plan to be at a place with hookups that you have not need solar or a generator. For places with now hookups you need to determine your power needs. This can be done by adding the watts each item you plan to use will require and multiply by how many hours a day they will be used. If you are planning to add a generator then just add the total number of watts to determine the size of your generator. You may need to get a conversion chart to figure out the demands on your system, and other things I do not explain here. Once you determine your total electrical needs it will become clear what your best choice is for creating power.
I am currently in the process of refinement. I have one deep cycle battery currently which lasts for two days before I need to run the engine. Two batteries would be better since I run the engine about once every few days. I do not have an AC or high usage appliances so I do not really need a generator. I plan to acquire solar panels for most of my needs and supplement with a small portable generator. The biggest demands I have are my laptop, lights and fan for the composting toilet, which needs to run 24/7. I have a cooler which I fill with ice every other day, with a total cost of about 8 dollars a week. Please remember that energy costs money, solar panels can pay for themselves, generators may not because of gas costs. Large appliances have a hard time running on solar without large battery banks and large panels. Solar is a great choice for supplemental power such as lights, pumps, cell phones and more. My vehicle could easily run on solar.
After you have determined what you require for the above needs please take into consideration where you will put the tanks etc. Some can be mounted under the vehicle, but smaller vehicles can hold less. It may be necessary to have compartments installed or other things welded onto the vehicle. Propane gas is dangerous and needs to be installed in a safe location outside the vehicle.
Good sources of appliances are RV stores and junkyards. Often time appliances can be reused saving you a lot of money and time. I built most of my items from scratch which was unnecessary. I had limited space and could not find a good source of used components. This is something you should keep in mind; used parts may not always be available. Appliance can be purchased new as well as furniture; the rest is up to you.

San Fransisco

We left Eureka, CA, on a gray day, much like most of our days in the Northwest. We drove through redwood forest along rocky coast toward wine country. The scenery was much like Spanish countryside with its green rolling hills, Eucalyptus trees and vineyards. Our first stop for meeting with kayak outfitters was in Point Reyes, a beautiful piece of countryside surrounded by forest and sloughs, which are like estuaries. The weather started to turn to our favor boasting temperatures in the high 60’s-- a welcome change and what we had been looking forward to. We drove further south to Oakland where we would spend the next week, parked on a quiet, hilly cul-de-sac (gracias, Armando!). Our bus attracted a lot of attention from the locals and we gave several tours of our little home and explained the journey we had started almost two months ago. We spent the next several days exploring the surroundings areas, working around the bus, and Amanda visited several schools in the area that specialize in Somatic Psychology. We made some new friends which we hope to keep in touch with. Armando’s neighbor Stephanie invited us out Friday night and we biked several miles to a late night art walk. Much to our surprise we found ourselves fading at about 9 o’clock; we had forgotten about the time change. At the moment time had slipped to the wayside, freeing us from much of what confines us to our daily routine. We work when we can and play just as often. Amanda had a mini Rice University reunion with Jeff, Rene and Leif in San Francisco. I spent one Saturday with a friend from a semester in Spain. It was great to see her again, a much overdue visit. The night before our departure south I went on a beautiful full moon kayak in the bay with folks from California Canoe and Kayak, a premier outfitter and guide service. Needless to say I brought the paddle along which got a good review. That same evening a dear friend from high school called to have dinner, a pleasant surprise since both of us were leaving for extended trips in the morning.

The following day we awoke early and continued our journey south to LA, where we plan to have our winter stay and replenish our bank accounts. The journey has brought us through some of the most breathtaking landscapes we have seen on the West coast. Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing was one of these places. We spent the night on the water, falling asleep to the barking of seals and the ocean surf. In the morning we took our kayaks off the bus for a morning paddle. Let me describe the procedure of removing a 16 foot boat from atop a 10 foot high roof rack. This involves two people, one on the roof and the other on the ground. The person on the ground catches the boat as it slides delicately off the back, becoming almost vertical. The one on the roof then lowers the 50 pound boat over the edge with a rope. While this may seem a simple task there are certain risks such as crushing a $3,000 boat, slipping off the edge of the slanted roof or dropping the boat on someone’s head. The paddle was full of sea life such as sea otters, seals, loons, pelicans and the standard seagull. The seals follow the boats and playfully dance in the water beside you, sometimes for miles. The sea otters bob their head out of the water like the whack-a-mole game at Chuck E. Cheese. Watching them play chase and wrestle in the water, as well as watching one momma sea otter cross the river on her back with her furry baby asleep on her belly, was one of Amanda’s favorite things.

The journey to Monterey was my biggy on the notorious Route 1, but south for the next sixty miles we would be in for a surprise. The road has many treacherous curves and with steep cliffs on either side. Signs warn of landslides and fires every few hundred yards. The guard rail would be nothing more than a speed bump if we lost control. White knuckled I drove 15 miles an hour for the next sixty miles. That didn't stop from us enjoying the beauty of the landscapes and the breath taking contours of the shoreline. I puttered along at my slow pace, yet even if I had wanted to drive faster it would have been futile because the road was so winding that our bus would have had a hard time staying on the road. I could just imagine how thrilled the traffic behind us must have been, yet none of them beeped or gave us the finger. Every so often I would stop to look at the GPS. "I can't believe we have only been seventy miles, at least we only have thirty to go." Well after dark we managed to pull over and find safe parking. Only eighty five miles from where we had started that morning.