All Good Things... Part 2

Encase any one still checks this blog anymore, I am pleased to announce that our beloved bus has been sold!! The bus went for $2600, a little bit less than what we here hoping. Apparently more repairs were needed which brought down the price. So on the off chance that anyone is going to Burning Man, keep an eye out for Silver!

All Good Things... Part 1

As I write this, I sit at the Portland airport waiting for my plane to board. That's right ladies and gentlemen, the road trip is at an end. As soon as Collin manages to sell the bus, I may make the last post. But until then, STORIES!

Yesterday's journey took us to OMSI, or the Oregon Museum of Science. It was jam-packed with interactive science exhibits. While not all the information was new, we still had fun doing fun little educational games. They also had one of the most complete skeletons of a T-Rex(you missed out Scott). After enjoying the entire museum, we headed out to Fred Myers(think Walmart). As some of the readers may know, I had collected two years worth of spare change from my room at school. Well we finally figured out how much it was. The grand total came out to (drum roll please), a large 72 dollars and 1 cent! Yeah, it was more than we thought. Still have the wad of $1 bills though. Then the rest of the night was spent playing Sins of a solar empire.

Today we had a late start, we didn't leave Collin's house till noon. We headed out to the coast, but not before stopping at a cheese factory. Cheese is delicious, free cheese is better. We eventually made it to the beach, Collin immediately broke out the shovel and made a sand castle. We then walked on the beach until it was time to leave. After stopping to get the last dinner we would be having as a group, we made our way to Fry's. Now if you never heard of Fry's, shame on you. Imagine all of new egg in store form, now your imagining Fry's. Needless to say it was awesome. Sadly it was then time to say our good bye's at the airport.

And there you have it, the end of the road trip. Its was fun and I hope that we can get the group together relatively soon.

P.S. I haven't heard from Matt, but hopefully his job interview went well.

Insanity of today

So we started our day by heading to the Portland airport to drop of James. From there we headed to Mt. St Helens. After a few hours of driving, we found out that we had been driving up the wrong side of the mountain and that the only way to get to where we wanted to be was to back track for an hour then head up the correct side of the mountain. Yeah, that was fun. We finally made it to the observatory we wanted to be at and gazed at the magnificence that was the mountain. Unfortuanly I forgot to bring my camera(don't worry Jessie took pictures, when they will be posted is a completely different story) and as such I am unable to share the shear beauty that we saw. Thankfully via the magic of microsoft paint, I have painstakingly recreated the view for your enjoyment.
That's right ladies and gentlemen, Mt. St Helens is pure white! Well not really, but the observatory was cloudy and we couldn't see anything.

Next we headed to Seattle. We wondered for a bit and got dinner. Since we where there, we decided we needed to get coffee. The weird part was that all the shops in the area we were in all closed. Apparently the majority of the cafes and shops all close at 6. After we finally found a place, we headed to the Space Needle and took a couple of pictures then headed to the airport to drop off Jessie. The rest of our day was spent driving back to Portland.

So lessons learned for today, 1. Check to see if you have the correct driving directions and 2. check the weather for outside activities.

And then there where 3

Encase you haven't been paying attention, Kurtz has been trying to get a job at GE waters. He finally had a conformation of the second interview this morning. As such, he is flying out of Portland tonight. Then tomorrow, James leaves in the morning and the rest of us will then head out to Seattle WA, where Jessie will later take flight to where ever she is heading(I think its Orlando). This leaves just Anne, Collin and yours truly(oh no, I'm the awkward third wheel!!). Lastly, Collin has gotten emails asking about the bus, so hopefully it will sell soon!

WINDSURFING IS FUN!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, title says it all. Would have been better if the wind hadn't picked up so much, but it was still awesome. And yes, that was all we did today, well aside from the pancakes this morning.

Parades, soccer, and proposals, oh my!

Today was an interesting day, that started with half of us knowing when we were planning to leave for the day, and the other half being confused. After everything was sorted out, we made our way to the Rose Parade in Portland. That was a fun time and we watched until 11, then those of us who have our priorities straight made our way to the Widmer brewery to watch the USA vs. England soccer match. Eventually everyone met up and we enjoyed the rest of the game. Afterward we made our way to down town Portland and checked out this very large book store where we wondered for a bit. During this excursion, Jessie split from the group to get an iced coffee. During her purchase, she walked into this random guy, who out of no where, proposed to marry her! Fortunately for Kurtz, she declined. After this little shocker, we made our way to the train station and took the train back to White Salmon. The plan for tomorrow is to learn how to wind surf, which should be fun.

Captain's Log, Star Date 63906.3

We have lost part of our group who have decided to start a colony on the strange planet known as Utah. We will miss Ensign Scott and Lieutenant Carolyn and we wish them the best of luck at their new home. After parting ways with our friends, we made our way to Chief Engineer Collin's home Star Base in White Salmon, WA. The journey was long and exhausting, but way made it and are currently resting from the trip. Star Fleet has given us orders to make our way to the uncharted planet named Portland after we have refueled and are ready to go.

-Captain Chris

Supplementary: You know I had to do at least one posting like this.

We now know what it feels like to be a floater

Yes, we are still alive. We have been staying at Carolyn's aunt and uncle's house who have been nice in letting us stay at their house for the last few days. During our few days in Salt Lake, we have thus far gone to the Mormon temple, well at least the outside of it, and some places down town. Today we went to the Great Salt Lake and swam for a while. Swiming in the lake is an unique experience as you will float with out trying. The downside is that if you have any cuts, they sting like no tomorrow. Tomorrow the plan is to go on a hike while Scott and Carolyn continue the hunt for an apartment.

Close Enounter of the Third Kind/ Crazy mountain

Today was filled with mostly driving, but we were able to stop at two famous mountains. The first stop was at the Crazy Horse memorial. Just encase you dont know about it, the memorial is a mountain carving of a famous Native American named Crazy Horse.Later in the day we made our way to Devils Tower, while not a mountain it was impressive non the less. The tower is made out of volcanic rock and is considered a national monument. Along the bottom we drove along a large colony of prairie dogs which we enjoyed(especially Collin).

And yes, this is the mountain in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, no we didn't find any aliens(this time).

Worst Case Scenario

We are so wet right now.
We hiked 22 miles.
Everybody fell in the river.
We got really high and found a mountain goat.
We saw a chipmunk fight a bird while feeding the mountain goat
Start: mt. rushmore
Camp: intersection of Horsethief and Grizzly creek trails
Summit: Harney Peak Elevation 7242ft
End: Spokane Creek Campground

Mt. Rushmore

Half of us are in Spokane Creek, half are unaccounted for. Some of us wanted to drop some stuff off at the campground, so we took off. Our bus does not do well on these black hills roads, so we decided to have the other people hike the 10 miles to meet up with us. They plan on arriving in the next few hours. Hope the get here safely!

On a lighter note, last night we hit Wall Drug. Wall is a super touristy town... Well, I guess more of a town build as a rest stop? We ended up staying the night at Arrow Campground in Wall, which was quite empty (read: privacy!!!) and nice. We saw Mt. Rushmore, with mixed reactions. I thought it was like the Mona Lisa: pretty, but much smaller than I thought it was going to be. Matt thought it was spectacular; Chris thought, "It was fine. Exactly what I expected. Needs more lasers." We all think Lincoln looks unfinished, but Scott thinks it looks very cool if you pretend Lincoln is bashing his head through the mountain.

Pictures and Update

Figure 1: Pretty much what all of South Dakota looks like so far

Figure 2: The crew with Yogi Bear. Can you spot James?

Figure 3: Super - Pillow.

Figure 4: Our esteemed loadmaster at Sioux Falls

Figure 5: The crew at the international SPAM museum

Figure 6: Matt riding a pig

Blog update:
Pictures are in reverse chronological order.
Installed new fan clutch, bus can go faster and not overheat.
Collin got pooped on by a bird
We're at Wall Drug right now
Before that we went to Yogi Bear campground in Sioux Falls
Before that we saw the SPAM museum
Average trip MPG: 10.1 (.1 better than projections)
Next stop(s) Black hills national forest, Crazy horse, Mt. Rushmore.

Have a great day!

Another update with Chris/ Message to Kyle

We are currently heading towards Mt. Rushmore, after spending a night at the Yogi Bear camp site. We had a blast there, even though it wasn't real camping and we managed to made many children happy by bouncing them really high on a moon bounce like contraption. Yesterday we also went to the Spam Museum(SPAM!!!) and due to its influence a few of us decided to have spam salad for dinner. And yes it was delicious. Since I am not the one taking pictures, hopefully the people who are will post them soon.

P.S. Kyle, we hope you are having fun and make it home safely. We already miss your comic relief.

Next Up...

Just wanted to fill everyone in on our plans. We are taking it easy today and are just covering Wisconsin. We stopped at another fab cheese place for a lunch of cheese, meat, and wine samples. We are going to stop and play on the Mississippi later today. Tom we are going to go Sioux Falls, followed by a couple days in Mt. Rushmore, 2 days later we expect to be in Yellowstone then down to SLC. See you SLC people shortly!

Hello I-90

We have now been on the road one week. We have seen a lot of ups and downs (courtesy of the Appalachian Mtns) but have made it a full week! We have been camping since DC, staying at campgrounds of varying quality.


First we stayed at Mt. Morris campground outside of Morgantown WV, where we met some awesome people who had moved there from Texas. It was right next to the road which was noisy, but we were privileged enough to see a great firefly display. We got in late and left early, so we really don't have much to say.

Next we stayed at East Harbor State Park near Cedar Point. Our budget doesn't allow a day at rollercoaster central, but it was cool oogling them anyway! This campground had nice showers and a beautiful view of Lake Eerie. We also met some really friendly people who helped us with our bus. We took advantage of their firepit to make s'mores and hotdogs. Yum! We also stopped at Cheese Haven, where they sell over 125 types of cheese and a large variety of smoked meats (and some nice wine).

Last night we stayed Bigfoot Beach. It had some beautiful woods and some great lakes. Most people got in a good night's sleep and a nice walk in the morning. On our way there we stopped by Chicago and got some Chicago-style pizza. :) We also scared a lot of Amish people's horses.

At this second we are driving down I-90. Jessie is talking about stopping by the world's biggest ball of twine, Matt is playing online, Anne and James are reading, Chris is sleeping, Collin and Kyle are keeping the driver awake, and Scott is driving. More updates soon!

Greetings from Ohio

After leaving after leaving yesterday, we promptly set out west. This meant that we had to travel through a mountain range, the bus did not like this. Due to our large quantity of luggage, the engine can not take the strain of going up hill at highway speeds for too long. This is more of an inconvenience than a problem, as we now have to stop every hour or so to cool the engine down.

Yesterday we managed to find a camp site that would let us stay the night. Thankfully there were showers and we took advantage of those. Also on the way up the mountain we saw a few trucks carrying tanks :-D

500 miles down; 8,000 to go

Hello!
Yesterday we safely arrived in DC to a grand reception! We partied like Cubans (think pork, fried platanos, swimming, and flan) and enjoyed a great night's sleep at the lovely Nolan residence.

It was scary leaving the bus, but today we managed to do some sightseeing. We split into 3-4 groups and went out on the town. We saw the Natural History Museum, the new American Indian Museum, and the Air and Space Museum; a pan-american festival filled with music, good food, and dancing; and fed a squirrel. We eventually regrouped and had a lovely chicken dinner with the Nolans. Tonight we plan on relaxing and planning the next stage of our journey.

We would also like to thank Anne's parents for the wonderful travel ideas! We appreciate everyone's help and support!
Omnomnom! Kurtz-i-pooh ate a raccoon and caught rabies.

Quick update from the road

Since our last post, we have left Worcester and have safely managed to arive at Kurtz's family workshop. We decided that it was a good idea to sleep in CT than to drive all the way to MD and get no sleep. We also did some minor beefing up of the belly tanks this morning since we had access to the necessary tools. We are just about to head out and hopefully will make in time for the party that my family is throwing for us.

P.S Kurtz has some awesome cars!

Snow Delay!

OK, maybe its not snowing but we are a bit delayed! We are exhausted and dirty but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel! We still have a bit of building, packing and cleaning to do but we are taking a break due to a noise complaint. We will be on the road for sure tomorrow! First we will make a quick stop in CT and then strait to Washington D.C.!

Watch for us in a city near you soon!

Almost on the road....

Things are moving along here a little slower than we had planned but we just wanted to give you a quick update of where we are at!

We have been building, packing and cleaning literally around the clock but unfortunately we didn't meet our 1pm departure goal. Things are however, moving along and we do still plan to head out later this evening.

Providence is a possible destination for the evening followed by camping somewhere.
Tomorrow we have plans for brunch in CT provided by the Kurtz family! After that we hope to stop in Philadelphia for some Philly cheese steak and then head strait to Washington DC to stay with the Nolan family! Hopefully we will have a clean apartment soon and all of these plans will be possible!

Thanks for your support! Hopefully we will have some interesting stories from the road soon!

Update with Chris

Since our last post, we have completed the platform and have secured all the furniture. In fact today was our first field test! Some of us took the bus to Salem MA. Needless to say most of us made it back in one piece. We also learned a few valuable lessons: did you know that diesel engines do not work correctly if they aren't warmed up first? We still have a little bit more work to do, but that will have to wait since tomorrow is commencement. Congratulations Graduates!!!!

We would also like to extend our thanks to Collin's mom and Scott's grandparents for lunch and their undying support!

Stripped

Our bus is naked! We no longer have seats, rubber floors, or a radio. We dismantled the seats as well :)
We have also finalized our floor plans. We will have the driver's seat, 2 chairs behind them, 2 love seats facing each other with a table in between, 2 recliners behind that, a storage area which includes the bed, and some seating in the back facing the lovely road.

We currently have all our furniture and are building the platforms for everything to go on. Here are a couple of pictures - check facebook if you want to see more ;)

Renovations

Now that the bus is finally in our possession (both legally and physically) we have begun "making it our own." We decided to paint it silver so it will be cooler (pun attempted). We figured out we have amazing talent painting (by painting I mean spilling paint).

After some intense scrubbing (and many tin man comments) we began taking out all the seats. They are all detached, but we are not sure what to do with them. If we scrap them we would get real (read: comfy) couches, which might or might not result in a net furniture profit depending on how much we pay for furniture. On the other hand, we can reuse them to make our own metal furniture.

We have also decided to rip up the rubber flooring. It smells and is really dirty and gross. Since we are putting storage under most of our furniture anyway, we will only have a small area to paint.

We would also like to extend our congratulations to Anne for being the first woman to ever complete the Cadillac Challenge!

The bus is here!

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that the bus has been fixed and is now currently sitting outside our apartment. Work on the bus will commence tomorrow, and pictures will (hopefully) be posted later.

Dontations are being accepted!

Do you have junk in your garage? We have a wish list of things we want to borrow for the trip:

8+ ton bottle or floor jack
Generator
Tarp
Angle Grinder - for grinding off some stuck bolts on seats
Rafts/Inflatables
Air pump for inflatables -hand powered or 12v
Car batteries/Deep cycle batteries
12vdc to 120vac inverter (we have a couple but need a few more)
Coolers
Recommendations for mobile internet providers - any wisdom is appreciated
Outdoor safe folding chairs
Any hinges - we're building storage bins


If you have any innovative suggestions for entertainment or survival, please post your ideas.

Q&A with Scott

We got a bus! For real this time. We own it and everything. No, really, we can prove it.
Anyway, now that that is over we thought we would answer some of those burning questions that you may have.

Is this legal?
Yes.

No, seriously. Is this legal?
Mostly.

How can this be legal?
Alright, this bus falls into a legal grey area. Technically speaking, it won’t be a bus. As soon as we get it, we are ripping out all of the chairs and painting it which makes it a privately owned recreational vehicle. As a privately owned recreational vehicle, we can register it, insure it, and drive* it like any other vehicle. The fact that this is not a commercial bus helps a lot.

So what happens when your breaks fail and you crash headfirst into a real bus full of children?
Hopefully we will be going faster than them.

So you are just going to drive fast? That’s convincing…
The bus is registered, licensed, and insured. To top it off, it is currently being checked out with small problems being fixed by a mechanic. So, yes, we will be driving very fast.

So, what color are you going to paint it?
Silver…with flames**.

What amenities do you anticipate having?
For furniture we’re going to work in a couple of couches, maybe a few easy chairs, a table, and some captain’s chairs from some RVs. We also may get a generator so we can power our laptops and charge our cell phones when we break down in the middle of Wyoming with nothing around.

What happens when you breakdown in the middle of Wyoming?
We’ll probably die.

You’re crazy.
That isn’t a question.

Why are you so crazy?
No comment.


*Assuming that your state does not have weight limits or length limits on private vehicles that you drive, you can do this too!
**The flames make it go faster.

Pwnd!

Just a quick update for today: we now OWN the second bus. No take-backs, no tradesies, no returns. Hopefully everything turns out well!
We also registered the bus as an rv, allowing us to legally drive it once it passes inspection. This means we have finally finished with the bureaucracy, which was a big worry! Fingers crossed we did it right ;)
We have decided on a couple of modifications. We are going to raise at least some of the couches and the bed higher than where the original seats sat, which will give us more storage and a nicer view out the window. We are also going to put belly tanks on this thing, which will give us more storage as well. Other than that, we really have no clue!
In order to continue procrastinating on his school work, Collin negotiated a stunning defeat (he claims it's a victory) for team Magik Skool Bus. There is now a large amount of rusty (s)crap metal sitting in the boys' living room which will eventually become belly tanks. Some of them are even rectangular-ish! This will certainly be a high quality renovation...

The 2nd Bus

Today we finally got our second bus. After 6 trips down 114, we finally have vehicle in (mostly) decent shape. We still have some repairs to do to make it drivable. These repairs* seem much more minor, and we are (probably) able to afford them** without resorting to using duct tape and our own homemade repairs. This bus is looking to be in much better shape than the last one :)
In related news, we still can't work on the bus because it needs to be fixed. This means our time line for getting it renovated is extremely short :( We are hoping to leave by May 22nd, which between graduation and the repairs will give us just under 3 weeks to work on the bus. We don't want to waste any time once we get the bus, so we took some measurements and are designing the interior as much as possible. We will hopefully have some pics of the plans up soon!
If you have any ideas on how we should customize our bus (psychedelic lavalamps, disco ball, vanity plates, etc.) feel free to post a comment!

*The problems are a leaky oil seal and a corroded pin
**Donations are gladly accepted

We bought a bus!

Yesterday we finally bought a bus! After an exciting morning of driving to and around Goffstown (aka Stars Hollow ala Gilmore Girls), we finally arrived at Bus and Chassis. They were as eager as us to get this road trip started :) After a million, "OMG we have a bus"s, we finally got on the road.
After some wonderful driving by Collin and some wonderful leading by Jessie, we finally made it to the mechanic. They were busy and we were hungry, so we grabbed some food with Jessie's wonderful parents. They came back to the mechanic's to check out our bus. We'd like to send out a huge thanks to the Donovans for their support!
Unfortunately, the mechanic saw what we missed: the worn out tires, the leaky seals, and the rusty radiator. We were heartbroken. We were looking at another 3,000 - 5,000 in repairs, which was no where near in the budget. We caught a small break with Mr.Gee's tire shop. Mike Gee found some tires which would definitely work for about 1/4 what we thought we were going to have to pay. Unfortunately, 2,000 was still not in the budget. We began looking for alternatives.
Luckily, Bus and Chassis lept to the rescue! While we were calling our friends trying to arrange some additional financing, they did some searching of their own and found another bus which they are sure will be able to make the trip. We are exchanging our bus on Monday for a better one. We are extremely optimistic that everything will turn out great!

TLDR: We got a bus, it didn't pass inspection, we are getting a new one on Monday.

The First Post

So a bunch of crazy tech school kids and a couple awesome comrades are embarking on a journey in a few weeks to drive an old school bus across the country. This is in celebration of our upcoming graduation. Tomorrow we're buying said bus and plan to modify it to suit our needs as we move at least eight people and a crap load of stuff from central MA to Salt Lake City, UT.

We have a budget and an approximate time frame - we want to leave around the middle of May and we have really not much of an idea how long this will take, possibly until mid-June. We're driving down south first and then hitting the West Coast. No real idea of the route home.

This blog will track our post-graduation adventure before we settle down and attempt to become real adults. Here we will record our planning and bus modifications and after we leave, our whereabouts and hopefully how we avoid staying out of too much trouble.

More news on the purchase of this bus later. Party bus coming soon to a town near you!