A tour of our Bus

A lot of people have been wanting a tour of the bus. Well here ya go. This is the bus, what we call the Club House. Or Bessie when we are encouraging her up steep hills or quick turns

When you walk in the bus through the main door directly on the left side of the bus you have the diner tables. The table is plywood and is covered in a white board material so we can draw on it, mainly used for Spanish lessons for Emily. The diner tables can be droped down to create more sleeping space. The bench seating open up to hold storage in them too- which is very nice. In this picture you also see the nice curtains made of lovely plaid sown by my friend Molly. (thanks molly!)


Of course directly in front of the door on the right side of the bus is the driver seat. It is one of the only things in the bus that remains from its original bus use. It is quite intense to drive. Not only is it over 30 feet long and 9 feet wide and only make WIDE turns, there are also tons of buttons that do random things and whole procedure of buttons and waiting to get the bus started and later parked.





Behind the driver is the couch. It is oh so comfy, and where i normally make my bed. It has direct access to the stereo controls, room for laying out, and space underneath to keep things. It was donated for free from one of our sponsoring organizations. You can see the frount part of the bus in this pic to the left. It might seem cramped in the pics... but its not. its really spacious and wonderful for traveling in.



Behind the couch is the bar. The bar is our put stuff place and our main counter space. It also holds the sink. The sink is something Mercedes and I are very proud of, having worked really hard to get the plumbing to work. It has a hand pump for pumping fresh water from the 20 gallon tank suspended below the bus. And the right drainage to collect the gray water back under the bus in another suspended 20 gallon tank. The tanks were bought from craigslist for way cheap and the sink is stainless steal found at a junk yard. The bar was designed by Dave and Marcos. Dave is an incredible builder who, with the help of Kate's dad, put in a book shelf up a above it, shelves below, space for the sterio and the kegerater. It's fantastic. Thanks guys


Behind the bar is the toilet. It's really just a pisser as you can only go #1 in it. Its 2 buckets with a tubing system that keeps the urine in a 5 gallon container below the bus. We have to empty it about once a week in a RV urine dump tank, it's not the funnest job, but not too bad. The bathroom has lights, hand sanitizer, a lid on the toilet to keep the smell contained, latches for the door, and funny quotes on the wall left from friends back in atlanta.

Behind the latrine is the kitchen area. On the right is counter space where we use a camping stove and propane bottle to cook. The fridge is below that along with a trash can. and up above is shelving where we keep our plates, bowls, utensils and the likes. On the left side across from that is the pantry holding all our food. We try to keep it organized and full- because as we all know a full pantry is a happy one.







Behind the kitchen area, in the back 8 feet of the bus, are the bunks. There are 4 of them. Made with basic plywood and 2 x 4s, we use lots of sleeping pads to make sure they are comfy at night. This back room has become the boys room. It tends to have all the boys stuff scattered everywhere and have an "interesting" smell back there. The girls tend to stay more to the front of the bus.


and that's our bus. Its home these days and I love it. It really is the best way to travel around the country. It holds all our equipment, all our food, all our stuff, gives us a place to sleep at night, music to sing to, rock back/ movies when we want, a place to cook our food, a place to sit on top of to catch some rays or to star gaze, a blaze to get out the elements when its raining or snowing for too long, and its our transportation. The Club House really is something else.