I had had my eye on one of Union School's buses for a long time, since about 2000. The auction got postponed a number of times, it seemed to take forever. I got married in January of 2003 and the Bus Auctiion came up in April of 2003. I told my lovely wife that I was going to buy a used school bus, but she dismissed the comment as Beer Talking. So, I bought it, and drove it to her work. She had a total, unrestrained Cow! But she got over it. She's a good woman. She just went from a life where the most exciting thing she did was walk into a church supper on an icy night with a dish in her hand, to standing on the bank of the Colorado River looking at a rapid that was full of big waves, huge holes and very nasty rocks, demanding a big move left to make it, and wondering if she would ever see her mop again.

The neighbors, on the other hand, didn't get over it. They howled and cried and called out the Yard Police. So progress stopped on the bus.

My son, who worked in Alaska, came home and decided he'd like to complete the conversion (I had done enough to make it classify as an RV in the eyes of the Yard Police), so we went to work. I provided the tools and engineering and some labor, he provided the consumables and accessories and some labor. We made a great team, I was thrilled at the chance to work with him. He made so many good engineering decisions on the project that I was a little bit ashamed. But not enough to admit it to him.

We got the bus outfitted with 360 watts of solar panels, a 2500 watt sine-wave inverter, a 92-gallon fresh water tank, black water tank, grey water tank, pressurized water system, on-demand hot water, 5-burner stove, 30-gallon propane tank, kitchen sink, microwave, shore-power, shower (Ha! Shower! You should only know! Ha!) and settee. I had done some work on the engine (a re-do on the exhaust manifold - not a small thing on a 105,000 mile 5-liter diesel), the thing was in pretty good shape.

My son took it to Alaska and lived in it for 2-years. But not before I did a Colorado - Utah - Oklahoma Grand Tour myself, with stops in Moab and the Manti La Sal mtns in eastern Utah.

Check out the pics, more stories will follow. The views with snowy mountains and water (salt-water - can't you tell?) were taken by Greg, from vantages in Seward.