&%&^*!!@&%@@!!

For the THIRD time, I worked long and hard on a blog only to have my system crash went I tried to save/publish the bastard. So here's the replacement blog for today's two-hour loss:

We painted. We planned. We shopped.

We're painting today.

This sux.

Floor Plan

Time for me to share my floor plan with the many who have requested same. There's a three-way swinging bookcase included that is noted as "see separate drawing." The three bookcases are on casters and poles, and *can* swing out when the bus is stationery, then fold back into place and lockdown for travel. The three bookcases/cabinets have the following dimensions (in feet and inches): 3'x1'x5', 2'x1'x5'6", and 2'6"x1'x6', with the six footer being nearest the center arc, of course. When folded and secured, the three bookcases take up a total of 9 square feet - not bad for 41 sf of storage space. There's even space when closed for a set of stacking stools! I have made a pretty good drawing of the various states of open and closed, and will post it as soon as I get it scanned.

As these cabinets are built and installed, there will doubtless be some modifications to the design, but overall, I believe this is a terrific scheme, and one that Ron offered the basic seed from which it grew. Thank you yet aGAIN, mon frere...

Have been working on curtains the last couple of days. Have some reasonably good fabric that will work for the purpose and the necessary dimensions, but am still trying to come up with a solid way to secure the curtains in place - both when stopped and they're closed, and when in motion and they HAVE to be open (especially the ones in the front and back of the bus). Vascillating between magnets and velcro; bungie cord and dowelling; blinds and curtains. What to do what to do...?

Late in the day, after a refreshing nap :-) I came up with an idea for sun and privacy shades up front! A few years ago, I installed some bubble-wrap style insulation in my attic, and had a roll left over. Would that work, I wondered? So I retrieved the stuff and ran out to the bus, thinking it would probably have to be pieced together to get good coverage. But I was WRONG! The stuff is 25" wide and the windows in the front are 24" - a PERFECT fit! So I now have a wonderful insulated reflective shade across the front and even around over the driver side window! If all this great insulating work continues, I'm gonna hafta think about a heater instead of an air conditioner! Yeah, RIGHT...

We planned to paint again today, but rain is in the forcast, so we wait. There's always plenty of other stuff to do around here, so no biggie, but I'd like to put the painting behind me. Soon, soon...

Meanwhile, here's what is spending its days in the flower bed outside my window...

Sale Day...

Slept wretchedly after a day of hard labour for the garage sale. Kept waking and thinking. Is there anything worse than thinking when you're trying to sleep?

We had agreed that Peter would take the first shift of the day so I could sleep in, but between my fitfulness and his need for my stash of change, I was up at 6. Actually, I figured I needed to get out there and help him set up for the day, anyway, so no great loss.

Everything is damp with dew, but still there, so I guess no thieves got very excited by our "treasures" while driving by during the night.

First sale of day was at 6:45am - a neighbor who bought the two ancient Advent speakers and the PeaPod phone. So far that's 7 whole dollars from mom and dad's estate! Har!

Someone is due here to see the house at 10am, so my morning energy will go into picking up the small mess I made last night and making sure all is shipshape. For now I am sipping coffee and kicking back.

******

MUCH later. Peter spent the enTIRE day out in the heat and we ONLY made a little over $63. Bleak. Monday Salvation Army gets a call to come haul the rest of the stuff away...

The good news? Peter sat IN the bus, reading, when customers weren't about, it stayed an easy ten degrees cooler than outside! The bus was sitting in a FULL Texas sun of almost 100 degrees, and what should have been an overheated metal container simply was NOT! Hurray for the ceramic additive!

Early to bed tonight...

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Yup, there's really a bus somewhere behind that mess. The mega-neighborhood garage sale is this weekend, and as I'm leaving this place JUST as soon as the house sells, shedding many layers of stuff I absolutely don't need and gaining a little cash at the same time sounds like a SPLENDID idea!

So no work done on the bus today, but hopefully this sale will net us some ready cash to spend on lovely bus improvements next week!

I confess that I'm thinking of charging a dime to enter and walk around in Towanda, as EVERYONE is fascinated with the project and simply begs to go inside her. Love the idea, anyway...

Time for Doctor Who, so time for me to say g'night....

Night and Day

Much has been done in the past few days, but little time has been available to update this log. The house is shown at LEAST once a day, which means we have to run around in a mad scramble for ten minutes a day to get the place staged properly, then disappear into the bus until everyone leaves. Of course we get busy out there, which means we often end up working until twilight, then we slog back inside, fix some food, and flop down in front of the telly (or read) for an hour or so before bed. There's some other stuff going on that gets in the way of progress on the blog, too, but you really don't need to know about that.

The bus interior is fully and completely painted...well, except for the dashboard, and as that's both clean and the treatment is still undecided, I'm not terribly concerned.


The lights and speakers are all back in place, which means the interior no longer looks like a plane that hit a particularly bad air pocket, AND there are no longer frequent expletives issuing forth from inside the bus when one of us whacks our head on the danglers. All in all, it looks really good. Next week we lay flooring!

The outside of the bus has a full coat of primer and Hy-Tech additive. The ceramic additive may be a wonder product in terms of its insulating properties, but it is a BEAR to paint, for it thickens the paint and dries almost on contact with the brush/roller.

I have discovered a few things that make the process a little easier.

First of all, add a little water to your paint. I add about a cup of water per gallon, sometimes more. You don't want the paint drippy, but thin enough to easily paint is essential to a smooth coat. The additive tends to clump, so make sure your brush is well loaded when you stroke, or you can create nasty lumps and thin spots. Same wisdom for multiple strokes over semi-dry areas...only do it if you want a thinner spot you'll have to recoat with fresh paint.

Second, keep a container of water handy, and dip your brush into it just before every fourth or fifth time you reach for paint. Don't swish it around, don't soak the brush, just dip and get out. Basically, you're trying to moisten the brush so it will load easier and brush smoother. Peter doesn't agree with this technique, but he constantly battles the clumping problem, and I don't.

Third, know that paint with this additive dries pretty much as quickly as you lay it down, at least in the conditions with which we were saddled while painting - 90 degrees and humid. A cooler clime may change the behaviour of this stuff for all I know.

And finally, be prepared for how much top coat paint this stuff soaks up. I want Towanda to have a shiny finish, and I planned two coats of high gloss paint atop two coats of primer with additive to accomplish that. EEENNNNKKK! Thank you for PLAYing. NOT! I used both brush and roller inside the bus to get very good coverage on the ceiling, and in spite of that, the finish is semi-gloss at BEST. Turns out I'm happy with that finish INside, but I still want SHINY outside, so I'm examining my options. The plan at this point is to lay on the two coats of high gloss paint, then cover THAT with a final coat of high gloss water-based (because all the paint underneath is latex) polyurethane. Think of it as "Clear Coat."

So we've ALmost gotten a full first coat of primer on the outside of the bus. The roof has two full coats, and the sides and snouth have one coat, but the doors are yet to be done, and then it all gets done again. You can see from the masking job where we are leaving the black of the original paint job, and the band between them will be embelished with a pattern of some kind, TBD. The biggest problem I'm having with the design is in how to deal with the odd segues between various areas of the bus. From the sides around the back, for example, or the sides across the lift and front accordiant doors, or from the sides to the hood and around the front. But I AM an artist, and thus all WILL be figured out and lovely when I'm finished.

The best news in all this is because the bus is mostly green and white now (looks like a Church Bus, doesn't it?), it's no longer the neighborhood eyesore. Woo hoo!

Oh, more news! Because Peter was having some trouble visualising my interior cabinet design, he requested I build a working model out of foamcore. So of COURSE I went straight to the FoamCore Goddess, Pen. My intent was to get her help in building one, but incredibly generous soul that she is (you would not BELIEVE how generous and dear this woman is), she took on the project herself and presented us with a scale model of the bus. Now all I have to do is build little cabinets in it so Peter can use the model to build my dream.

We decided to open the access port from the cabin to the gas tank, just in one more effort to understand the workings of Towanda, AND as part of planning for the installation of flooring. Had to take the cover off the hydralics of the lift in order to access the final screw on the port, so I got to see how all THAT works, too! Pretty cool. An added benefit? More areas get to be DEcrusted from their years of dirt.


Yesterday was a loss due to health problems and Peter's utter lack of interest in dealing with another day of heat and sunburn and painstaking painting with clumping material, but we did manage to get the two headbangers (my term) installed. Today I MAY have time to caulk the floor in preparation for laying substrate next week, but as I have to focus on getting ready for a major garage sale, caulking takes lowest priority.

Creeping Hippie Bus

All my life I have functioned under the apparently mistaken belief that I am living a low-profile existance. "NOT!" scream my friends and coworkers. I've never been sure whether their reaction is a case of THEM not understanding just how much I keep myself reigned in, or of ME not understanding how vanilla the majority of the world truly IS. Peter sez "you vibrate at a higher frequency than other people." *Sigh* True or not, my inTENT is that of a low profile. And so the intent of Towanda's look is low-key. The plan still IS to paint her pale tints of a lovely moss green hue, with white on the roof and hood for practicality's sake (I'm pratical in the extreme, no matter how high my vibrational frequency). The interior was always intended to be white, and indeed the cabin area has already been painted thus.

But...

The cockpit is a clear line of demarkation from front to back, and as such, it didn't get coated with insulating primer OR final white enamel, and is still the basic skoolie interior almond colour. My crazed artist's eye kept looking at that space and seeing - well, shall we say "special" treatments. I kept mentioned one or another to Peter, and after about the fifth different wildass idea, a running joke grew in place. "Creeping Hippie Bus!" Peter will exclaim when I mention another idea clearly borne of another place and time (aka my youth). For example, I said "Wouldn't some Guatemalen fabric look nice as curtains?" "Creeping Hippie Bus!" Or "Look at this cool Talevera Day of the Dead skull on eBay...wouldn't that look cool on the dash?" "Creeping Hippie Bus!" Or "I have this great stencil of a skeleton...I think I'll stencil one on my front bumper for every year I'm on the road...sort of an homage to DeadHeads everywhere (though I'm NOT one, never have been)" Yeah, by now you know the response I got. *deep sigh* But the cockpit...

Well, the cockpit spoke to me, loud and clear, and no matter how I tried to step around the idea with my own internal cries of "Creeping Hippie Bus!" I kept coming face to face with the idea again. So this morning I got up and began mixing a load of paint to my personal spec. I'm writing this while taking a break after masking and then painting the front steps with that colour...when rested, I resume by painting the ceiling next. The colour? An indigo purple, atop which I plan to paint stars in gold and silver. Yeah, I know, but it's REALLY pretty, and the only person who has to live with it is ME. And I LOVE it. Call it "Creeping Hippie Bus Syndrome." Now where did I stash that lovely purple and gold fabric from Guatemala...?

Anti-Inflammatories R Us

Okay, so I'm back from the land of the dead, aka: sleep. I am one whipped puppy this morning, Peter even more so, but with good reason, as he worked longer and harder than me. We are Decrepitude Personified. Time for chemical intervention...

Towanda got two coats of primer + Hy-Tech ceramic additive yesterday, and the white is SUCH an improvement over the stand skoolie yellow. I know I've raved on about the additive product before, but I can't stop myself...this stuff is GREAT! TOTALLY environmentally friendly - from the way it reduces energy needs through increased insulation to the fact that it simply isn't caustic on ANY level. This stuff is fabulous, and I want stock in the company!

Peter'd like to impart some wisdom here...when removing the sticky stuff under the reflective material, Peter sez "thank GOD for Goo-Gone..best product on the planet!" He would also like folks to know that if you brush one coat on the edges, then roll two coats, the job is easier and gets a far better look than if just brushed or rolled.


One set of miserable mishaps the last couple of days...Peter repeated WHACKED his head on the bus, and I have confirmed from the itchy contact dermatitis that I am indeed allergic/sensitive to the HIGHLY caustic product, TSP. Great stuff in that it totally strips away any grease or dirt, prior to painting, but it does NOT agree with my system at ALL. After a bad experience in the house a year ago, I thought I would be okay around it if outside, but that's just not the case. I will NOT be having contact with TSP ever again.

Today, I mask the outside trim, start painting the inside with final gloss white, and Peter starts painting the lower parts of the bus with primer and you-know-what. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, but next week more good weather is predicted, so we'll finish up our painting sometime then. Tomorrow I REST...

Towanda gets a brand new hat...

!


Like omigawd, I swear2gawd that I did-dent know this was on the engine when I named Towanda! Peter called me over and had me climb the ladder to "look at another of your buses synchronicities," and there was "Tonawanda." I swan, I got a serious case of the goosebumps when I saw that. CLEARLY, I was honed in on Towanda's Spirit when I so named her. wow...

Another curious sliver (very thin) of synchronicity is that there's a "Towanda, KS" not far from the place my Towanda did her years as a public servant. Give me break, I SAID it was a sliver...

BTW, for those of you who might not understand the origins of the name "Towanda," you really owe it to yourself to read "Fried Green Tomatoes At the Whistle Stop Cafe" by Fannie Flagg. Ms. Flagg was one of my mother's favourite stand-up commedienes, but as an author, she's simply brilliant. Although the book is (of course) far better than the film, the movie's worth your time, too. How can you go wrong with Jessica Tandy, Kathy Bates, Mary Louise Parker, and Mary Stuart Masterson...not to mention the amazing Cecily Tyson!?! Yowsa!

The last couple of days have been frantic, as we've been racing to get as much painting done on the bus as possible in the alotted window of opportunity. Peter is running as fast as he can to keep his eBay biz generating enough income to keep us afloat, and we've had absolutely perfect weather in place for a few days, so Thursday and Friday were dedicated to the bus renewal project. We got a LOT accomplished in two days.

First we gave the interior ceiling and walls two coats of white primer mixed with the Magic Pixie Dust (the ceramic insulating additive, for the unitiated). That stuff dries just about as fast as it hits the brush, but I figured out that if I dipped my brush in water every fourth time I reached for paint, the paint flowed a little easier. Masking and painting the interior took us all day, along with prep work on the floor and Peter thoroughly scraping the SCHOOL BUS signs off front and back, outside, so the very last thing we did was to lay down our floor coating. First the floor was patched with Liquid Nails and wood plugs where needed, then painted with a layer of latex flooring primer I had on hand and figured we might as well use, then coated with the elastomeric goo used to seal mobile home roofs. The goo went down pretty much in the last of the dying light of the day, so we could only hope it looked good the next morning.

Our rationale in using that product in such a way was that it would stay flexible and thus not crack with the movement of the bus, and it would provide both a vapor barrier and a method of sealing in the dirt I couldn't get to under the plywood substrate. The plan is now to put in a layer of hard insultation, then a slim layer of BC plywood, atop which will go padding and carpet between the two rows of cabinetry.

This morning we got up to discover a great looking interior
So the day was dedicated to cleaning (again), prepping, and painting the exterior. As I write this, it's late, the photos are still in the camera, Peter's outside cleaning up, and I'm trying to muster the strength to get up and go flop on the couch until bedtime. More in the morning...

Painting Express

Last night a cool front arrived, bringing with it a lovely dry line. So we're supposed to have perfect weather for about three days, then another small front comes through, and then MORE dry and cooler than usual weather. Hurray! Knowing this was on the way, Peter and I decided the time had arrived to paint Towanda.

Started out for the Tractor Supply Store to buy paint, but missed my turn and found myself driving past the Kelly-Moore store instead. I hung a quick u-ey and decided to see if THEY might have what I needed.

When I walked in and didn't immediately asked for a specific product, the young guy behind the counter was CERTAIN I didn't know anything (no tubby ol' middle-aged FEmale could know nuthin'...), but when HE didn't have the answers to any of MY questions and hadda get the manager (who "got me" the minute I used the terms "elastomeric" and "neoprene flashing sealant"), the kid did a solid 180 and we got along fine after that.

So I got some paintable rubbery goo to use as a vapor barrier (the stuff folks use on Mobile Home roofs to seal them and as radiant barriers), two gallons of primer to mix with the Magic Pixie Dust, a tube of urethane elastomeric sealant for caulking all joins in the floor, a quart of my chosen olive-green hue, and two gallons of gloss white high-test exterior latex (the current bus paint is latex). The kid was alarmed when I told him the bus was painted with latex, and wanted me to understand that using latex paint on a vehicle would "cause it to rust, 'cause it holds moisture IN," and I just smiled and nodded. Actually, I'm somewhat surprised he doesn't know any more than he does about paint products, given his place of employment. Paint has CHANGED the last decade. Oil used to be the product of choice in extreme conditions, but the new water-based alkyds have been converting even the most fierce defender of oil-based paints. And hurrah for water clean-up instead of mineral spirits!

The plan this lovely morning is to get everything masked and paint the cabin, finishing the day with a coat of floor sealer. Tomorrow we get up and do it again...(did you just hear Jackson Browne waft through...?) Anyway, tomorrow we give the inside floor another coat and start on the outside, finishing up with the base coats for the outside on Saturday. Sunday we rest. And MAYBE Monday we get back to the job.

So here's the plan for the outside:
Mask.
Paint insulating primer, dry.
Paint second coat of primer, dry.
Paint high gloss coat of final colour on roof and sides, dry.
Paint second coat of gloss, dry.
Embelish with hand painted pattern work where planned, dry.
Paint final coat of polyurethane on all surfaces, dry.
Paint second coat of polyurethane, dry.
Unmask.
Cleanup oops.
Stand back and have strong drink while admiring new paint job.

I think the thing that's most interesting and great fun about this bus conversion is the tremendous number of different ways there are to solve problems. Coming up with new ideas that are more efficient, cheaper, and just plain BETTER is half the fun of this project.

Well, writing about the painting isn't getting it done. Stay tuned...

Cody Found in Montana?!?

A friend searched the Net and found a Cody Gillespie of the about the right age. He's now a member of the Montana State University Northern Lights teams, and was the pass and punt winner! I feel like a proud parent somehow, and I can certainly see why someone wanted HIM for a Valentine! Good lookin' dude...

So today was pretty much a non-work day. In a lot of pain, so I needed rest. A nice man FINALLY came by and picked up the bus seats, so the driveway looks a little less trashy. Another tremendous storm last night, there are trees down and other evidence of microbursts all over the place. This time the hatches and windows of the bus were all WIDE open in an attempt to dry her out after the power washing episode. Surprisingly little moisture in the bus, which was a relief, and the very wet plywood in the corners was actually drier. I heard the storm, but was too tired and asleep to care.

Peter and I wandered up later this afternoon to do a little measuring and figuring, as he's trying very hard to understand my vision of the interior. Peter's one heck of a fine construction engineer, but visionary he ain't. I have to take some of the blame and say that I probably don't communicate my vision as well as I might, and I KNOW I get frustrated and impatient when he doesn't understand what seems so obvious to me.

The measuring and noodling while sitting in the bus resulted in a net gain of 6 inches off the bed, which is WAY cool. Peter came up with a terrific idea for another cabinet/bookcase.

I made contact with a welder who is willing to weld in trade for "anything of value." Not sure we can reach an accord yet, but I feel sure we can. Trouble is, one person's thing of value is another person's trash...or as Kliban put it, "One man's wife is another man's lover." Whatever happened to Kliban, anyway?

Tomorrow is another day.

To Cody Gillespie, wherever you are...

Found another scrap of paper in a heater crevice...this one is a Valentine to one Cody Gillespie. Valentine's Day is the only holiday I ever gave a rat's patootey about, and seeing this little thing reminded me of how my heart would race at the thought of getting valentines in the little pouch attached to my desk that I had so carefully crafted from doilies, red construction paper, glue and gold glitter. I wonder if Cody has children of his own now, if he has a good life, if he was in a wheelchair... So Cody, wherever you are, you have a RAD day, 'kay?

Peter finished up the heater removal job. I'm going to do my best to avoid asking him to help with ANYTHING for a couple days, 'cause he is pretty fed up with filth and crawling under the bus right now. I'm not exactly thrilled, either, but my tolerance is higher as I haven't been doing the really awful stuff with the exception of the hand-scraping of the floor and old caulk removal...which IS pretty nasty.

Once Peter and all the tools, hardware, etc. were out of the way, I fired up the power washer and went to town on the floor in the BACK (not the front where all the electronics, etc. are located) of the bus. As I reached the very back of the bus, some of the rubber matting started flapping up, loose from the bottom. Lifting it to see exactly what was underneath, I found the Motherlode of Filth. The mat HAD to go, so I began pulling up what turned out to be fairly brittle and easy-to-remove VERY gross black rubber. I left a patch in the front under the driver's seat and in the cockpit area, but the rest of it is GONE.


Of course I managed to injure myself in the process...it isn't really a real project of mine unless my blood is spilled. *sigh* I was trimming the rubber from around the lift and slipped with the razor blade. Simple enough. Deep cut and it'll be sore as can be tomorrow, but the work was mostly finished anyway, so no regrets. I let it bleed, washed it well, then put antibacterial ointment on it and some bandages. Good as new...well, almost.

No, seriously, this is just a picture of my bandaged finger, not a comment about the day...

Wisdom for the day? Boy is THIS old stuff that I know too well - never use a cutting tool late in the day, when you're tired, or if you're distracted. Better to wait until you have what's needed to give the process your FULL attention. No idea when I will actually, finally learn that lesson.

The bus looks GOOD, though the geese think the mess behind it is appalling!

A Penny For Your Dreams....

After a night of thunderstorms and much rain, I entered the bus with some concern, as I had left the two vents open overnight, and the windows cracked. Would I find I had suddenly become a U-Boat Captain? The interior was certainly a tad wet, but nothing dramatic. Sleeping there wouldn't have been much fun, nor would I have liked to find it so wet were there fixtures within, but being emptied, all was hunky dorey.

I offered the bus seats for free on Craig's List, and was deluged with acceptance. They're scheduled to disappear Sunday morning, but if they don't there are a BUNCH of folks waiting in the wings to snag them. As usual, I'm worried (I worry, therefore I am.) no one will want them once they see there aren't two full sets of legs per seat, but rather one set - the other side being attached to the wall bar as it was.

The central task for the day was to get those miserable heaters disconnected and outta the bus so I could clean and mask without Peter's assist in preparation for painting.

Still not 100% certain of how to disconnect them without either screwing something up or making a world-class mess and enviro-hazard, we consulted a neighbor with a lot of automobile and mechanical experience to see if he concurred with Peter's plan. Peter's plan? 1. Close all forward valves (one in the cockpit and one in the engine). 2. Remove all the metal flashing covering the hoses and wiring inside the bus. 3. Terminate all 12 volt power up to the cockpit. 4. Open the hoses under the bus and drain the secondary (post-cockpit)lines of antifreeze. 5. Remove heaters, hosing, and wiring in the bus. 6. Clean up residual mess.

After a discussion with Ron in South Africa, we decided Peter's plan would work fine. Yep, I'm serious, I really was having an internet conversation with South Africa. We are using a GREAT piece of software to converse called "Skype" (skype.com) that allows actual voice communication between any two points in the world with internet access - for FREE! You can either use a headset or a computer with a microphone and speakers, the incoming voice comes through the speakers, outgoing via the mic. The delay was about 40 seconds from South Africa to Austin, Texas, USA and back, but we quickly figured out reverting to the old talk and release by saying "over" worked just fine. What a slick arrangement!

After a half dozen different people called to arrange showings of the house, we decided it would be easiest to just launch ourselves into Heater removal mode than to just work on the bus whenever people showed up to see the house. Back and forth doesn't really work well in terms of focused work. So we threw ourselves at the heaters, planning the have the job complete by end of day, or to quote Larry the Cable Guy, "Get 'er done!"

Peter took the drill and phillips head bit to the screws on the metal strips on the floor, I terminated the wires, as I have a good relationship with Mr. Electricity, and Peter doesn't speak that language. Peter then crawled BACK under the bus and began the process of opening the hoses in such a way that they wouldn't spew antifreeze all over him AND the driveway. Feeling pretty cruddy, I disappeared for awhile to a neighbor's house so people could wander my home freely and Peter could work without my constant "help."

Allow me to rathole for a minute here. I believe everyone has an inborn talent. Peter's talent is standing in the light. No matter where I am or what I'm working on, no matter how hard I have tried to assure nothing could come between the light and my work, Peter somehow manages to block the necessary light with his body. There can be only one TINY area out of 100 square feet that he would need to stand in to accomplish the task of blocking the light, and somehow he is drawn to that exact spot. It's his Talent. My talent is equally frustrating. When someone is working on something - it doesn't matter what it is - I have the talent of needing to work on something that is precisely in the way of what the other person is working on. I tell you, it's my inborn Talent.

So to get back to the tale of heater removal, I was exhibiting a tremendous amount of my talent, getting RIGHT in the way at every turn. Thus my disappearing act when Peter was struggling most. I just didn't want you thinking I was bailing on him...I wasn't, I was giving him the space to work without interference.

When I came back, Peter had a 5 gallon bucket half full of green antifreeze, and had removed one of the two heaters. Of course a little antifreeze was still in the heater itself, and that spilled on the bus floor.



All this took about four hours to accomplish, far longer than expected or hoped. I am so TIRED of everything taking longer than expected all the time! GRRRRRR!

One nice thing that happened was finding a penny next to one of the heaters. It's a 1979, the year I moved to Texas, and was minted in Denver, where I was born. Guess I'll frame it, a la "my first dollar made."

Peter and I sat and discussed the flooring options for awhile, since we had the metal joining strips up and thus could see what we had to work with. The black flooring is a rubber piece atop plywood substrate, with a ribbed piece of rubber down the center aisle.


Because this is a bus equipped for wheelchairs, there are a few anchor plates that need to be addressed, as they're in the way of future cabinetry AND/OR a lump that can't be comfortably covered by flooring.



The longer of the two can be removed in a similar fashion to that of the seat bolts, but the one of square silver jobs is attached directly above the gas tank, so there's no way to access it without dropping the tank. No thanks, d'ruther not.

I have long lived by the maxim "There're always more than two solutions to any problem," and that clearly applies here.

Our original plan was to lay a plywood substrate, then a layer of hard foam insulation, and then the final flooring - a float cork or laminate wood floor being my preference. Turns out we HAVE a plywood substrate already in place, plus a rubber layer that would act nicely as a layer of padding and insulation. A couple of things come into play here. First is the inside height of the bus, which is 6'2" at the apex of the roof arc, and 5'3" at the point above the window where the arc begins. I'm actually pretty thrilled with the 6'2", as that's 2" more than I expected. Peter can't stand up, of course, but he's too used to that as the world is not built for the very large or the very small. Anyway, every layer of flooring or ceiling installed is living and walking space gone, so I've grown profoundly conservative about what I am willing to put into the bus, top and bottom. The other issue Peter and I both have, in spades, is that of living with the 13 years of accumulated crud that IS an ingrained part of this bus.

Parameters outlined, we have tenatively decided to lay some type of pad with carpet atop. Peter had the brilliant idea of coating the current rubber flooring with the flexible sealer made for painting mobile home roofs, thus sealing the dreaded crud into the floor. I am going to investigate the cost and viability of installing the interlocking rubber tiles that are sold in bundles at Home Despot, etc. Seems like that would be a terrific pad AND insulator under carpet. NOW our big concern is in how much off-gassing these products produce. Sheesh...

7 o'clock Central Daylight Savings, and it was time for a shower, some dinner and Little People, Big World on the telly as brain relaxation.

Well Done

Okay okay...so this morning I am so tired I can barely see to write this. Am I too blasted old and decrepit to attempt this project? My mind sez no, but my body sez lay down and contemplate the situation. :-/

Yesterday was another day of good progress. Peter was busy with eBay most of the day, so I worked on everything I could manage without The Big Dude. Scrub brush and solvents in hand, deep cleaning of the entrance and cockpit area ensued. Understand, Peter and I are seriously messy people. But because we're being forced to keep a VERY tight ship in the house due to it being on the market, I am in CLEAN! mode. Besides, I cannot abide the idea of eating and sleeping in a space where 13 years of a zillion stranger's filth has accumulated. Brrr...

First I pulled all the nasty old "black" (grey with filth) rubber caulking out from the front steps, and used a scraping tool to loosen a bunch of hideous stuff I couldn't begin to identify. Then I cleaned, cleaned, and cleaned some more. It STILL isn't "clean," and may never be, but by gum it'll be as clean as I can get it without suffering heat stroke!

In the process of deep cleaning, many small things made themselves known to me, such as how the accordian door is actually made, where the gasket leak is that causes two windows to hold moisture between the thermal panes, the deer whistles on the front. And then I had an idea about a very bad noise in the bus I encounted a couple of days ago. Nothing like mindless cleaning to allow the mind to disengage and thus actually THINK. That kind of thing.

I couldn't figure out what was clearly an alarm of some sort that only sounded when the key was turned in the ignition. I was afraid I had dropped some screw or something into the blower system while cleaning, and THAT was making the sound. Nope, definitely coming from the back of the bus. I figured it was one of the roof hatches not soundly latched. I checked the hatches. They were fully secured, so that wasn't the source of the horrible screeching alarm. As I said, as I was cleaning, it occurred to me the alarm was sounding because I hadn't shut the rear exit door before turning the key. Well, DUH. So I closed and locked the door, then went back and turned the key. The horrible alarm STILL shrieked in anger at me. Oh, I was CERTAIN I had seriously screwed something up. But then I realised that this was a safety measure, and as such, was telling me that the exit door could NOT be locked while in motion. Ahhhhh....so I unlocked the bastard, went back, turned the key again, and was greeted with the blissful sound of nothing. *deep sigh of relief* Guess I can sleep in the bus with the rear door unlocked and the key turned in the lock, cause there ain't NUTHIN' getting past that sound. Seriously, I have GOT to disable those dratted alarms soon.

After taking a break from the heat, I went back out and began crawling around on the floor, undoing the screws holding the seat bottoms in place. I figured that if I could get those out, Peter could get further along once he was available. And indeed, that was precisely what happened. About 4ish, Peter was finished with his "real" work and arrived to start tearing into the seats.

Now you will remember that we had decided to leave the bolts in the floor and simply cut the bolt heads off, because of a desire not to have a bunch of holes in the floor open to the ground. Common bus-nut wisdom has it that cutting them off is the easier method to unbolting them, and I believe that's certainly true if you either alone or smaller than Peter's mass. However, we TRIED using a cut-off wheel where needed (more on THAT in a minute), and frankly, Peter found it a LOT more efficient to simply use a hacksaw. As I've mentioned, he's one big, strong dude. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Peter is NOT a fan of electric tools, and avoids them whenever possible. I'm inclined to agree, but I haven't the mass to back up my preferences. Anyway, I could clearly sense a distinct reluctance in Peter toward the use of an angle grinder or other tool in removing the seats, so I asked him what he'd prefer to do. "I'd rather just unbolt them," he said. I didn't care about anything beyond just getting the blasting things out, method be damned.

With two people, one under and one up top, the bolts came apart fairly easily. I suggested that we could unscrew them just far enough to access the heads for cut off, thinking it would allow the holes to remain filled with the cut bolts as previously planned. After all the bolts were prepped, Peter emerged from under the bus and proceeded to use the hacksaw to cut off the heads. As I have said before and will say again, it pays to be beefy.

With the bolt heads gone, we pulled all but the two seats with heaters OUT! Woo hoo! With a seriously tired back, I suddenly realised I had no place to sit down any longer! Ha! Plastic chairs to the rescue!

Really ready to stop for the day, we still had two seats to remove. Trouble is, they still had the heaters attached, and we had been warned that the heaters were filled with antifreeze that would spill everywhere once we cut the hoses. Not willing to deal with that kind of mess, we decided to use our brains instead of our brawn. Peter had thoroughly examined the underside of the bus while dealing with the bolts earlier in the day, and explained that there were two hoses - input and outtake - that went between the two rear heaters, fed by a similar set from the front heater and engine. Peter decided, rather than disconnecting the heaters, to cut the brackets holding them to the seats.


Once the brackets were severed, the last seats were gone. I happened to notice a small scrap of paper down in a hole the seat had previously covered, and reaching down I came up with a sticker that said "WELL DONE!" Satisfied with the sign that the bus was happy with our progress towards making her new and loved again, we were ready to shut down for the day.


Wisdom of the day comes from Greg, Bus God to the Masses. "A bus is a pretty simple thing, it's just not complicated." Amen, Uncle Greg, simple and STURDY...all you need is beef to get the job done. Wanna convert a bus? More brawns than brains are needed for the task.

Our grateful bodies slogged off to the promise of food, a hot bath, and early bed.

First Day of Work

Yesterday we made good progress on getting Towanda ready for fresh paint.

Peter THOROUGHLY cleaned her, using Crud Cutter and a tool that a friend of mine invented; The T-Scrub (more info at www.vrhel.com). This device is powered by the water it uses to scrub...and it did a GREAT job on the bus.

Here's Peter's advice of the day: "A bus gets dirty like a car does. However a bus is a really LARGE vehicle, and takes a long time to wash, partly on account of all the corrugated ridgy bits. THINK about that, when choosing your paint color."

I worked, too, scrubbing my girl thoroughly on the inside with water (I used a hose with high pressure nozzle in the back), and orange cleaner in the front. I wouldn't exactly eat off the floor, but now when I step out of the bus I don't feel the immediate need for a shower.

I removed all the screws and plates from the ceiling and wall fixtures as part of the prep work required to get Towanda ready for painting. Much more to do on that score...

Late in the day, Peter decided to see what was involved in removing the seats. The aisle set of legs are bolted through the floor with four bolts, and the window legs are bolted to a metal rail. We have chosen NOT to unbolt the floor bolts, but rather to just cut the bolt heads off so we don't end up with a bunch of holes open to the ground that will later need to be sealed. Phooey on that!

Did I mention we opted for The Easy Button with this project? Whenever and wherever possible, that is. Why make life any harder than it has to be?

The window bolts were a tad devilish to access, but Peter finally figured out that he could easily get to them if the seat bottoms were gone, so four phillips head screws later, Peter was moving forward with the seat removal. Of course, feeling good about his progress was the cue for the Cosmos to thrown ye olde spanner in the works. Actually, Peter simply did his Dark Trick - he overpowered the tool, shredding the socket. Peter is a 6' 4", 220 lb Dane (I call him The Oak), and he has a long history of killing tools. We have a 6 foot crowbar that has a nice bend in the middle...yup, Peter used it to pry. Whenever possible, we try to buy tools that are bigger and heavier than usual, but they're few and far between. Peter's loppers are 4 feet long, and I can barely lift them. He's already broken two of the smaller kind. *sigh* The world simply isn't built for the under or oversized.

Broken tool and twilight = time to stop. Tomorrow is another day.

Towanda, I don't believe that we're in Kansas anymore...

Towanda has arrived and work has begun to turn her into a rolling studio and sometime home!

I have become sudden friends with the school bus drivers who pass my house four times a day. I grin and wave, and they cheerfully smile and wave back. Who knew I would become kindred spirits with the neighborhood bus drivers?

Now the neighborhood is a different matter entirely. The trouble all started when the nice couple across the street moved in. Larry owns a demolition company, which makes zero difference but for all the HEAVY equipment he has suddenly acquired - and by "heavy equipment" I mean a couple of semis WITH trailers, a full-sized caterpillar, bobcats, etc. Not only does Larry park these beasts in his yard and in the woods behind his house, he pretty constantly works on the LOUD diesel engines in his driveway, with the wretched trailers sticking half out into the street.

As if the industrial machinery weren't enough, Larry likes to rebuild old cars, boats, motorcycles, etc., etc., ETC. Shortly after he moved in, three cars arrived in his driveway - one avocado green, one primer grey, and one ORANGE (scream intended). The green one had no wheels, plus it had the cut-off roof from anOTHER car of some kind upside down on the hood. Ack! I whined pretty thoroughly to Larry about how I was about to sell my house, and I am happy to say he moved that lot to the woods beside his house...where I can still catch a glimpse of orange on a bad day.

And then there are all the other vehicles in, around, and in front of his garage. A sizeable speedboat, two jetskis, two or three buzzbombs (the NON-street legal dunebuggies with the unmuffled engines), at least two mini-cycles, a full-sized and loud bike, two pick ups, a sedan, and I think there's something else, but I can't quite remember what right now.

Now this is a REALLY nice guy, and I like him a lot. But his vehicles are a real problem. Especially given this neighborhood, which is supposed to be a quiet place in the suburbs where we can all repose in bucolic peace. Hard to focus on peaceful thoughts with the constant idle of diesel and generators rhythmically rumbling in the background. I like to drink my coffee outside on occasion, and one morning, after the ceaseless and ear-pressing roar of diesel engines, I threw my head back and yelled at the heavens "If I'd WANTED to live in a truck stop, I would've bought a place on the freeway!" Grrr...

The Neighborhood Nazi has apparently been 'round to address this issue with Larry, as our deed restrictions don't allow for industry - light or heavy. Larry's response? "If you pay my mortage, I'll move the trucks." Hmmm...sure doesn't sound like the nice guy I've encountered, but then I haven't challenged him on the issue of his truck-a-rama.

The neighbors on either side of me compound the problem. On one side is a small driveway that holds a Suburban, a sedan, a 25 foot travel trailer and a 30 foot stakebed trailer. There's a jetski on the side of that house, too. On the other side of us, Victor's adult son has moved home aGAIN and with him comes his job - driving a semi, so THAT's frequently parked out front, next to the driveway with two pickups and a sedan. Victor just sold his 57 Chevy out of his garage, so there're only THREE cars and a boat in there...not to mention the 1932 tractor! *sigh* We have a SINGLE sedan in our driveway, and now a 30 foot YELLOW (scream intended) bus, too.

Needless to say, I was worried about how the neighborhood would react to a school bus parked in the driveway since the local quotient of strange vehicles has clearly already been exceeded. I have been getting some very fierce stares, but until someone stops and talks to me, I'm going to try hard to assume that those stares aren't malevolent. I'm working hard and fast to get Towanda looking like something other than a school bus. I figure getting the YELLOW (you know the drill by now) replaced with white will be a definite plus and will hopefully sooth a lot of ruffled feathers. I don't plan some great pile of junk issuing forth in the driveway, either, for there are ONLY 8 seats that need to be removed, and that many can be easily removed and hauled away within 24 hours.

Towanda arrived on Wednesday, so I've been busting some records trying to get her clean and ready to paint by the weekend. At least with her clean, I can invite folks in for a look around. Everyone is curious about schoolbuses. Most of us have at least one memory of riding the bus to school, and there's a certain curiosity that expresses itself at the idea of private ownership of such a thing. Our house is currently up for sale, and once prospective buyers have made the circuit, they ALL have come out to the bus to talk about what I'm doing and for a look inside. Funny, isn't it? Going to school was SUCH a pain, but the idea of owning a school bus as an adult is pretty cool.

The ongoing expectation amongst my friends and even from strangers, btw, is that I will be painting Towanda with some kind of psychedelic mural. *sigh* Sorry, neither a Deadhead nor a fan of tie-die.