A Trip to the Mountains

I grew up in Colorado and have missed the Rocky Mountains ever since I left. So when it comes to choosing between a trip to the beach or a trip to the mountains here in North Carolina, the mountains win out just about every time. One of our favorite mountain destinations is Asheville, NC. Filled with history and good restaurants, what's not to like?

We have been traveling to Asheville every autumn for several years and have traditionally stayed in one of the downtown hotels. Now that we have the bus we thought it would be nice have our own digs while we visited. There are several campgrounds within a few miles of Asheville and after researching them online, I chose one called Mama Gerties in Swannanoa. From the user comments it looked like everyone enjoyed the accommodations and although a few people commented about the steep access road, most said it was no big problem. I made our reservations and started preparing the coach for another trip.

A few weeks before we were heading out, I received a call from a prior employer and they offered me a 5-week project. Since I had been out of work for 20+ weeks I jumped at the chance. The prospect of seeing the bank balance increase for a change did not seem like a bad thing. The only problem was that the scheduled Asheville trip fell during the second of the five weeks. I talked it over with my project manager and we agreed that because the nature of the work did not require me to go in to the office every day, I could pretty much do the work from anywhere; so it was all set.

Flora did her usual great job of planning all of the meals and laying in supplies and before we knew it it was time to head out. I got the car loaded on the dolly and we were on the road by about 10:00 as planned. As usual, I pulled off at the first rest area on I-40 and checked the car only to find out that the tie-down straps had loosened a bit and the car had shifted some on the dolly. I tightened everything up and we got back on the road.

I-40 between Chapel Hill and Asheville is somewhat hilly but when you get within a few miles of Old Fort there is one part in particular over which you climb for a few miles at a 6% grade. In our bus that requires second gear, which limits the speed to 39 MPH. We climbed that with no problems but I kept an eye on the heat gauge; the engine temperature climbed about ten degrees but then held steady at about 170 degrees.

We exited I-40 and headed for the campground access road. The grade got steeper but the engine was pulling fine in second gear when we rounded a sharp corner and the grade went to something like 15%. By that time my RPMs had fallen well below where I usually downshift and in the blink of an eye we were stopped in the middle of the narrow road on the steepest hill I had ever driven up. We were now officially in what could easily be termed "a pickle". With a 25,000 pound vehicle and a standard transmission it is not possible to start from a stop on a steep hill. The two-lane road was paved but the lanes were barely a foot or two wider than my coach, which meant that backing down the hill towing a car was not a possibility.

I attempted backing up anyway and all too quickly I literally ran into a brick wall (with the side of my coach). Trying to get away from the wall, which was grinding into my bus, I ended up blocking the traffic going both directions, a steady procession of school buses and people trying to get home from work. About this time a guy from the campground showed up on a golf cart. Together we tried to back up farther but it became clear that it was a losing battle and that the only way to back up effectively meant first uncoupling the car.

One issue with that process is that there is no way to hold a 25,000 pound vehicle on a steep hill with the emergency brake. Fortunately I was able to engage the air brakes with the fast-idle switch, but the idea of trusting it while I crawled under the tow dolly to unhook things was not sitting too well with me. So I had Flora sit in the driver's seat just in case the bus started to move and I got out and started to unload the car. I got the straps off of the wheels but when I crawled underneath to remove the safety chains that were wrapped around the car axles, I found that when the car had shifted slightly earlier in the day it had pull those chains tight and there was no way to loosen them. I was lucky to have a hacksaw in my toolbox and so I got it out, got back under the car, and proceeded to saw through the chains. I was then able to back the car off the dolly and out of the way. Tom and I then removed the dolly and rolled it into a nearby driveway.

At that point, with Tom guiding me and directing traffic, I was able to roll the bus back down the hill for about a quarter mile to a spot that was not level but was not nearly as steep as where I had gotten stuck. I was then able to start back up the hill, and let me tell you I did not slow down to enjoy the view. The bus pulled the hill fine in first gear and I cruised on up to campground registration. Tom showed up a while later towing the dolly behind his golf cart. I could then see that the entire campground was built into a steep hillside with steps carved out for each RV site so I knew I had some more work to do.

I was still a bit on edge as I signed in and paid my money for the week. When I was done we started back up the hill and with the mighty 8v71 cranking out the horsepower we negotiated the hill and pulled into our space. I could see that when it was time to leave, making the turn and getting up enough momentum to pull the hill but not so fast that I could not make the tight corner was going to be tricky, and there would be no second chances; with that we unpacked and hooked up the utilities. I lost sleep all week dreading our exit form that space.

We got there on a Monday and would be staying through Friday morning. I was hoping to be able to work everyday and enjoy the evenings. Fall in the mountains is a glorious thing and this place was situated in middle of a gorgeous forest with leaves of every hue. During our stay the people were friendly and the campground was kept spotless. Flora had a multi-day seminar to attend and while she was gone I set up my workstation and spent my time converting a MS Word formatted 200-page book into DITA XML. The work went well, the bus was comfy, and I got to camp with my family (Flora, Diezel, and Opal) for the week. Each day Diezel and I took a nice walk into the surrounding hills and enjoyed the spector of it all. Each evening we enjoyed each other's company and the joy of camping in such a place.

At night the temperatures were falling into the lower 30s but a small electric heater kept us toasty and in the mornings we could quickly heat the place up with our propane furnace. We ate well (as always) and twice during the week we traveled up to Asheville to dine at Doc Chey's Noodle House, one of our favorites. Before we knew it the week was over and it was time to head back home. After dreading the exit all week long we were able to accomplish it with no big problems. Back on I-40 the only worry left was that of going back down the long 6% hill. I followed the advice I had been given, which was to go down a hill in the same gear you go up in, and so we went back down at 39 MPH and made it down just barely having to use the brakes. I was careful because that is one of the maintenance tasks I have yet to do: replacing the front brake pads. The drive home was easy; I have now driven the bus over 5000 miles and am pretty comfortable with driving it except on steep hills.

Our next trip will be to the Bussin 11 rally in Florida around the holidays and after my 5 week job is done I will have to complete the dashboard conversion and replace the front brakes. With a 50 year old bus there is always one more thing that needs to be done.

The Trip Back Home

The Trip Back

It was a beautiful morning and although we had intended to get up early and be out at a reasonable hour, the bed felt too nice so we slept in until after 8:00 AM. It took a while to get the car loaded on the dolly, fill the water tank, and say our goodbyes and we ended up not getting on the road until after 10:00. The drive to Moncton was uneventful. We hit a little rain near Halifax and had a little bit of sunshine, but for the most part the skies were overcast, which is what I prefer. Just like two weeks earlier there were seven other RVs at the Wal-mart where we stopped, but this time even though we pulled into the exact same spot as before, the rest of them stayed on the opposite side of the parking lot, which was fine with us and allowed us to run our generator guilt-free.

The next morning we got up at 5:00 AM, an unheard of hour for us, but it allowed us to be on the road early so that we could get to Scarborough Maine by mid-afternoon. It was a tough drive of about 400 miles with a lot of heavy fog in the morning and then down in Maine we were buffeted by gusty winds all afternoon. I am sure that only the old geezers among us remember how driving a vehicle with loose steering used to back before modern power steering took all the slop out of it, but this old vintage bus still has the old style steering and with probably more than a million miles of wear on the components and the huge flat sides of the bus, the winds push the thing all over the lane and kept me busy trying to keep from drifting into the constant stream of 18-wheelers passing us.

After an 8-hour drive, I was happy to finally pull into the Cabela’s parking lot where we would be staying for the night. We were now traveling toward the west and these 61 year-old eyes do not handle driving toward the sun as well as they once did. In my youth I could drive over 12 hours straight with few problems but that was then and this is now. We finished the day with a dinner of Pad Thai, a drink, and a final Cabela’s shopping spree and we turned in early. I wanted to get an early start again in the morning but when I looked at the clock and it said 5:00 AM I just could not make myself get out of bed. For once the cat had not jumped on the bed in the wee hours hoping to be fed. The next time I checked the clock it was 6:00 AM, so we got up. The funny thing was though that Flora had forgotten to set the time forward when we had crossed back into the Eastern Time zone so we really had gotten up at 5:00!

We were on the road by shortly after 6:00 and hoped to make good time, but first I had to refuel in New Hampshire. I should have gone to the same truck stop I visited a couple of weeks earlier but that one was located several miles off of I-95 and was a little tough to get into so I queried the GPS for a different place; that was my first mistake. The GPS said that the place I chose was 1.8 miles from I-95. That is one shortcoming with our GPS unit; buses don’t fly the way crows do. The other problems are that it does not give you any indication of whether a particular gas station has diesel, whether I can get this 55 foot long “train” in and out of the place, or what the access roads are like. We ended up heading down a little country road, into a subdivision that had a “no vehicles over 5 tons” sign posted (we weigh in closer to 13 tons), through the middle of some town with very narrow streets, and then another 10 miles through more subdivisions. We ended up at a convenience store with no way to access the single diesel pump. I stopped and got out and walked around and decided that if I could drive out, cross the street and enter a parking lot on the other side, and then turn around and drive back into the pump area I could probably get close enough to the pump to fuel up. So I started the thing up and made my move but by the time I had turned around and pulled back in, an old man had pulled his car up to the pump I needed so that he could gas up, and of course he was having trouble with his credit card. It would not have been so bad but when I pulled in behind him, the car I was towing was blocking the exit to the store. He fiddled with the pump, washed his windshield, went inside to pay, and after what seemed like an eternity I was finally able to pull up to the pump and fuel up. Of course it took several minutes longer than it should have because I had to do 4 separate transactions since the credit card companies limit each purchase to $75. Each time, I had to remove the hose, shut down the machine, answer some questions, wait for a receipt, and then re-insert my credit card and go through the whole process again.

The way the convenience store exit was structured I could see that there was no way to pull out without backing up. The tow dolly instructions had explicitly said (and the guy who sold it to me re-iterated) never to attempt to back up with the dolly attached, but here I was with no other option except uncoupling the car and the dolly, a half hour procedure. I finished my business, started the bus, put her in reverse, and hoped the world would not end as I started to back up. Everything went fine and we got out without ruining anything, and after retracing our steps we got back on I-95 having wasted an hour and a half and driving an extra 30 miles. New Hampshire apparently has strict laws forbidding many kinds of signs on their highways, which sure makes it tough to find anything. In retrospect I would have been better off to have paid the extra fifteen cents a gallon gas tax while I was in Maine and been done with it – lesson learned.

At long last we were back on the road with very heavy traffic and constant stoppages on the Massachusetts Turnpike; it was already a very long day. In the late afternoon we finally decided to pass by the Wal-marts at both Fishkill NY and Newburg NY and aim for the one in Pittston PA, where we had stopped on the way up. We knew that the parking lot was not very level and that there would be truck noise, but it was at least a known quantity so we drove until we got there at the end of a 10-hour day, the longest so far.

For the first time in over two weeks we had to use the air conditioning and tomorrow was forecast to be much hotter. After two weeks of highs below 70 we were not sure we were ready to re-enter the blast furnace that this year had been in the south. We stopped at a rest area in Virginia and I changed into some shorts and we were back on the road with another hour and a half to drive before our stop for the night in Staunton.

I was very happy to stop, pull the blinds, and sit in the cool air conditioned air for a while. 95 degrees in late September is just plain wrong and we still had a few things to learn about cooling the bus. For one thing, I had turned off the defroster hot water and assumed that the hot water that fed it would therefore be cut off, but there was one helluva lot of hot air blowing from under the dash, which did not help a bit. Additionally, it took some doing before we figured out how to close the rear-facing air conditioner vents, which were at the time directing at least half of the cold air toward the back of the bus rather than toward us in the front. After we parked I double checked the valve and yes, it was turned off, but I did find a little door under the dash that directed warm air toward the driver, which would be nice in the winter but not so nice when it is 95 degrees outside. As for why hot water is presumably still going into the defroster, I need to add that to the list of questions for the mechanic when we get back.

This proved to be the most aggravating of our Wal-mart overnight experiences. Because we cannot back up, I always try to park with enough room that I can pull straight out in the morning. Maybe I need to also get some parking cones to put in front on the bus because it seems that there is always some jackass who wants to park right on my front bumper. This time some guy pulled in a parked in front of us for about 6 hours while he used his cell phone; this was apparently his traveling office. Additionally, we were wedged between a guy with a very loud generator that ran all night on one side, and an 18-wheeler with a generator that ran all night on the other side. The weather cooled down enough to open the vents by about 9:00 PM and the generator sounds lulled us to sleep.

We got up at 6:00 AM and left early to beat the heat, not wanting a repeat of yesterday’s baking performance. The settings I made to the defroster and air conditioner seemed make a big difference as we powered on toward home. I had one final stop to dump our tank at a Flying J in Graham but after having trouble negotiating the parking lot and with tempers wearing thin, we left without accomplishing our goal and headed for home after topping off our fuel. It was 95 degrees as we pulled up out front and began unloading the car, which was again liberally coated with engine oil from the bus. Pulling into the parking spot I high-centered the bus when a front wheel rolled into a depression and I added filling the hole to my to-do list for the upcoming week. We were happy to be home even with the intense heat.

Camping for a Week in Nova Scotia

Camping for a Week

After relaxing for an afternoon and evening, the next morning I was ready to work on some items from my maintenance checklist. The first thing I did was to caulk the molding around the driver’s window frame. During a downpour in Moncton we must have been parked at just the right angle to funnel the water from the roof down and around that window, because we ended up with a pretty large gusher at the corner of the window. I hoped that caulking this molding would cure that problem. Also, while getting out my tools for that job, I was poking around the inverter and saw that the breaker on the side of the inverter appeared to have been tripped. I re-set it and it appeared to start charging the batteries again. If that permanently cures the charging problem then I will be pleased, although I still suspect that I will eventually need to replace my 3 – 4D house batteries with 4 – 6 volt golf cart batteries before I am happy with their capacity. This will mean building a new air-tight battery box for them (since the old one will probably not hold the new configuration) and buying all new cabling, so it will be fairly expensive ($1000+) and a big enough job that I don’t want to rush into it if it will not be necessary. The performance of the current system on the trip back should tell me what I need to know.

In most ways I was really glad that I bought a smaller (35’) bus rather than one of the larger newer models. In 1998 we had lived in a 26’ class A motorhome with relatively little storage space for nearly a year and by comparison we have what seems like all the space in the world. The GM PD4106’s from the early 1960’s were manufactured mostly from lightweight aluminum using aircraft technology and were propelled by powerful 2-stroke Detroit Diesel 8v71 engines. Coupled with the 4 speed Spicer transmission, this relatively lightweight bus (about 22,500 pounds empty) had few corrosion issues and could get better than 10 mpg, good for such a large vehicle. By comparison, our old 26’ motorhome had seldom gotten more than 6-8 mpg and mileage for the newer larger 40’ buses is usually in that same range. Sure, we have a big Rottweiler to stumble over daily, but I don’t think that would be any different no matter how large the bus since all buses are only 8 to 8 ½’ wide and slide-outs are an expensive option. The difference in length would get us room for a desk, which would be nice, and maybe a slightly larger kitchen, but the relative cost in fuel consumption is just too high for me.

When I mention to people that we travel to Nova Scotia just about every summer, most have only a vague idea where Nova Scotia is and fewer know anything about it. I have found it a wonderful destination if relaxation during a vacation is the goal; if you are looking for big cities, night life, and amusement parks, then this is not it. Most of Nova Scotia lies on a peninsula located directly east of Maine. Since it is surrounded by water, the climate is somewhat more moderate than Maine, but maybe foggier and wetter. Nova Scotia means “New Scotland” and the weather is somewhat similar. Summer days occasionally reach the mid 80’s but seldom higher, and nights are always cool. The area is dotted with lakes (more even than in Minnesota) and most of the province is covered in coniferous forest. Halifax, located on the east coast is built around a big natural harbor and is where the majority of Nova Scotia’s population lives. The Clare region that we visit is on the opposite coast, on the Bay of Fundy with its famous 20’ plus tides, directly across from Maine. The coast is dotted with colorful fishing communities and I always say it is like stepping back in time since most big corporate chains have chosen to ignore the place with their McDonalds and strip malls. Popular summer activities include walks on the beach, clamming, and camping. The local cold water fish is among the best I have ever found, especially the lobster. If I used s single word to describe the Nova Scotia experience it would be “quiet”. I can relax for a whole week here while camped in someone’s yard and not hear a plane, a helicopter, or a car horn, or experience a traffic jam of more than 3 cars.

The Clare area of Nova Scotia is the other French-speaking part of Canada (aside from Quebec). Since I speak not a word of French, I would be totally lost except for the fact that people here are mostly equally conversant in English. Conversations automatically change over to English once I say something in English. I am probably at least as comfortable here as I am back in North Carolina and we own land here where we intend to settle once we are both retired. Because the area is still a bit off the beaten path, a nice house can still be purchased for less than $100,000. I have not yet experienced a Nova Scotia winter and I understand they can be brutal as compared to our relatively mild North Carolina winters. The ideal lifestyle then, as long as we are able, will be to spend much of each summer here and the rest of the year, including winters, back in Chapel Hill. That is the main reason we bought the bus.

We camped in Kim and Gaston's yard for most of our stay. They have 3 big dogs and we were not quite sure how Diezel would interact with them. Ted is an aging Golden Retriever and I didn't anticipate any problems with him since he is pretty mellow. He and Diezel sniffed each other and that was about it until Diezel decided to try to mount him and Ted was quick to let him know who was the boss (and it was not Diezel for a change). Aside from that, those two go along fine for the rest of our stay. Kim also has a pair of Bernese Mountain Dogs and while the make of the pair turned out to be just as mellow as Ted, the female seemed to not appreciate having another big male dog in her yard and she gave Diezel holy hell every time he went near her. All in all it went very smoothly and I was glad I had spent time socializing Diezel before the trip; having him eat the dog of a family member would not be good etiquette.

One thing we enjoy here a lot is the music, as the area seems to have more than its share of talented musicians. This week we sat in on a rehearsal by the local Neil Diamond tribute band, which is composed of 8 very talented musicians (3 from Flora’s family). We had a great time watching and listening. We also enjoy the frequent family jam sessions where everyone gets to play their favorites in an intimate home setting after a supper of rappie pie, the favorite local delicacy.

Day 8 in Nova Scotia: This was the day I was to move the bus back over to Janice and Eric’s and reconnect the car dolly for the trip back home. On the way there I stopped and dumped the waste tank and got drenched in a driving rainstorm while I did it. Afterward I stopped by an RV repair shop to have them take a look at the propane burner on the fridge, which had stopped cooling on the trip up to NS. I had taken it apart the day before and seen that it had a flame, but apparently it was not enough flame to do the job. We had frozen fish to take back so it was essential to have a fridge the keeps things cold. All it took was a blast of compressed air to clean out the burner and the thing was back working normally. Thirty two dollars and I was back on the road.

Friday night was a big family get-together with rappie pie, music, and way too many beers. We played music and partied late into the night and finally I had my designated driver deliver me back to the bus. After the previous day’s rain, the weather was warm (for Nova Scotia) and not a cloud in the sky. I was hoping that the weather would hold for our departure early the next morning. We planned to take the same route back down that we had followed on the way up, and hopefully we would be stopping for the night in the same places. Since it was our final day in Clare we used it to tie up the loose ends. I had wanted to take Diezel back to the beach. He and I had gone there once a few days earlier but it had been nearly high tide (meaning that most of the beach was covered with water) plus our time was limited. Today Flora had some errands to run and agreed to drop us at the ocean on her way. The first time I took him there was the day after he had been washed and I knew that if I let him run free he would be rolling in all kinds of awful stuff and would end up smelling of it all week. This time though, right after we got there I cut him loose. What a place for a dog this beach was. There were dead smelly things and big patches of seaweed and it was right next to the fish plant with smells that could only appeal to a dog continually in our faces. Naturally he had an absolutely splendid time. He ran and he sniffed and he rolled in God only knows what kinds of things and by the end of it he was as playful as I have ever seen him. He has a good life with us, but because of where we live he practically never gets to run loose so he took full advantage of this opportunity. On top of that he even got to ride back home with his head out the window, another thing he never gets to do at home. In the evening Flora got her lobster dinner, something she had been looking forward to all week. We each had 2 – 2 pound lobsters, which is way too much for me (I ended up eating only the claws) but not too much for the lobster queen, Flora, and since Eric also had a pizza delivered afterward, apparently no one in that family finds lobster as filling as I do.

Nova Scotia Trip 2010

The Trip Up

The final week of preparations for our Nova Scotia trip was flying by and now hurricane Earl was threatening to make a mess of things. In the end the hurricane fizzled for us giving us only clouds and light breezes and a nice break from temperatures in the upper 90s that had been with us since May, but not a single drop of much-needed rain. The photo shows the edge of the approaching hurricane Earl. I had the bus pretty much in shape, having changed the oil and all of the filters the week before; all I had left was to go and pick up the tow dolly in Winston-Salem. Flora had been handling the bulk of the food and accessory preparations and was closing in on her end of the arrangements. We try to get a chance to let Flora go back home every summer to visit her family in Nova Scotia and I was not sure we would get to go this summer, but after I lost my job my schedule was pretty open so we thought it would be a good time for a shakedown cruise in the bus. We had taken one weekend trip to a bus rally in May and a weekend at Jordan Lake in the summer, but nothing that was much more than 100 miles. This trip of closer to 4000 miles would push the limits a little more and give us a chance to thoroughly test not only the systems, but also my knowledge of the bus systems.

Finally the big day arrived. I got up at 4:00 AM to do one final farmer's market and our plan was to leave right after I got home; well, actually right after I got home and loaded the car onto the dolly, as yet an unknown quantity. The dolly had come with a package of straps, chains, and hardware and promises of a video on their Web site that had "everything I needed to know". Oh sure, I had witnessed that song and dance before and had never much enjoyed the outcome. I had already rewired the lights on the dolly the day I brought it home because when I attached it the first time we had problems getting the pigtail on the truck plugged into the one on the dolly. The guy who was showing me how it was done (the expert) had finally jammed the thing together but when I got home and unhooked it, separating the plugs resulted in pulling out some of the wires. But I had repaired it, plugged it into the bus, and tested it so at least that part was behind me. I had also performed the "simple" task of sliding the hitch into the receiver on the bus. It was a good thing that I checked that out a couple of days earlier because it ended up requiring more than an hour of grinding on the hitch bar before I could finally get it to slide in; it was literally a square peg trying to go into a round hole and I had to round off all of the corners to get it to work.

I arrived home from the farmer's market, had some lunch, and was out loading the car by one o'clock. Everything else was ready and that gave me an hour before our anticipated two o'clock departure time. Getting the car on the dolly was simple; I drove it up the ramps with no problems. Then I got out the package of straps and chains and started to figure out how it all attached. After laying the harnesses out on the ground I decided I really did need to look at some pictures. So I had to go into the house and look at them on the computer since it came with no printed instructions. I would then go back outside and see how the pictures related to the pile of hardware that was spread out before me. I must have made at least six trips in to look at the computer and attached and removed the strap assemblies two or three times each before it occurred to me that something was amiss; the pictures and the reality were not lining up. The strap assemblies were each made up of about five pieces, and each one threaded onto a main strap in a particular order, but they seemed to have been assembled incorrectly. I had made the classic mistake of assuming that the manufacturers knew what they were doing or at least knew more about this thing than I did. In the end it was clear that I was right; I took both of them apart and reassembled them the way I thought they should be and bingo, everything worked. Of course by the time I had it all ready to go, we were an hour and a half late leaving.

The first thing I noticed after getting on the road was how much less power we had than when we drive without towing a car, contrary to the "oh, you won't even know it's there" wisdom on the bus boards. Without the car attached the bus would accelerate up through the gears quickly and now, well not so much. I figured even with the late start we should be able to get 200 miles in before stopping, which would get us to Staunton Virginia. That part of the trip went well; it was scenic but the secondary roads we were on were narrow and twisty. As we neared Staunton we had to cross over the Blue Ridge, a climb of a few thousand feet in a few miles making it a steep second gear-only climb. At the top I made the mistake of listening to the GPS, which told me to turn right instead of a left; I should have known better. And so we went right back down the mountain on I-64 with no place to turn around until we got back to the bottom. Technology is great when it works correctly but this is not the first time that listening to the GPS has gotten us into trouble. Note to self: Trust yourself before Garmin and others. We turned around, went back up and then down the other side and merged onto I-81. It would be nothing but interstate highways for the next two days. Staunton was the first exit and we easily navigated into a Wal-mart parking lot where we would spend our first night on the road.

In 1998 we had packed everything we owned into a storage unit and took a tour of America and Canada in our first motorhome. On that trip we drove through about 35 states and throughout the heartland of America we saw firsthand the devastation that Wal-mart had caused. It was the double whammy of their sourcing everything they sold from China (I can remember Sam Walton back in the beginning bragging about Wal-mart selling American-made goods; by 1999 that policy was history). This alone did much to accelerate the downward spiral of American manufacturing. On top of that, most of the small town retail outlets had closed as their customers took their business to Wal-mart. We saw town after town with most of downtown boarded up and witnessed little prosperity anywhere except at the Wal-mart on the edge of town with few of the dollars spent there re-entering the local economies. I honestly think that much of the current recession is the delayed effect of the Walmartization of America and as a result we no longer have those thousands of manufacturing businesses anymore to put people back to work. This might all be good for the Walton family but not so good for the country. Ever since that trip I have boycotted Wal-mart. So now I faced an ethical dilemma. On a trip like this when we drive all day and need nothing at night but a place a park the bus, it seems wasteful to pay the inflated price for a space in a local campground each night, which is usually in the range of $30 - $40 for those with few amenities. Unfortunately, one of the few places that you can park an RV and not be rousted out by security in the middle of the night is Wal-mart. We even went so far as to download a custom point of interest (POI) file to both MS Streets and Trips and to our Garmin, both of which we use to navigate, that show the location of every Wal-mart along our route and whether or not it allows overnight parking (many do not). So at least for this trip we would be parking overnight at truck stops and Wal-marts.

The second day was all spent on I-81. It was Labor Day and for the most part the traffic was light. We traveled through Virginia and into Pennsylvania, refueling before we crossed the border. I had researched fuel taxes before we left home and Virginia’s tax on diesel is significantly lower than any other state we would drive through. The next fuel stop would be in New Hampshire. Having a 140 gallon fuel tank gave us a wide range and the ability to pick and choose our fuel stops. The one place we wanted to buy as little fuel as possible would be in Canada where the price before we left was over $1.00 per liter.

One funny thing that happened in the morning was the result of Flora’s constant checking of the car we were towing. We have a rear-mounted camera on the back of the bus and Flora loves to check and make sure that the car is still there. She has little confidence in the tow dolly and seemed to always expect that the car would somehow fall off and roll over a cliff or something. Sometimes the brightness on the monitor gets a little out of whack from hitting big jarring bumps in the pavement and from the changing angle of the sun, and occasionally I have to adjust the brightness knob to see the image clearly. So after a few such bumps Flora yelled “oh my God, the car is gone!” I had to laugh a little as I adjusted the knob and brought the picture back into focus; there was the car, right where we left it. Aside from that, the day was uneventful and ended in a Wal-mart parking lot at Pittston PA, just past Wilkes-Barre, where we dined on Flora’s famous lobster sandwiches, what a treat!

Tuesday was to be our long day so we intended to leave early. We planned on driving through at least six states and end the day in New Hampshire, where we could also fuel up. The dog and cat were getting into the routine somewhat, but it seems that dogs are always up for most anything; cats on the other hand, maybe not as much. Opal (the cat) mostly slept under the couch while we were rolling and came out only when Flora tempted her with treats. While in a rest stop I had let air out of the air suspension on one side of the bus to level it so that I could accurately check the oil. When we moved on I forgot to air that side back up and did not notice that the bus was leaning to the right a few inches. When we entered New York and started encountering the potholes in their poorly maintained roads, the under-inflated suspension did little to cushion the ride and we were both nearly thrown through the roof. It was only after a few miles of this that I realized what had happened; we re-inflated the air bags and things were back to normal. It is always those lessons that are learned the hard way that stay with me the longest. By the time we pulled into the parking lot in Newington NH at the end of the day, my eyes were about shot; they just don’t hold up as long as they did when I was a pup.

The next morning, after refueling, we drove up to Scarborough ME to visit a huge Cabela’s store. This place is like the mother of all sporting goods stores and I got myself a nice oilskin hat for rainy days in Nova Scotia (there are always at least a few). They also had a free site for dumping our waste tank. After almost three full days on the road the tank was only about a third full, meaning that we could probably get by for a week at a time if we were careful and took only Navy showers. I was also able to refill our fresh water tank, which also holds 100 gallons. The next stop was the LL Bean store in Freeport where we shopped for a while, but I was getting eager to get on up the road so we did not stay long. After being without income for so long, my spending habits have become a bit more conservative. We arrived in Brewer Maine in the late afternoon and as usual we got permission to stay overnight. We met two other couples who were also spending the night, the first other travelers we had actually talked to. It’s interesting to see the diversity of machines that people use on their camping expeditions, everything from minivans to monster buses. When I had researched what kind of machine I wanted to get I had thought about a travel trailer (5^th wheel or bumper mounted), but pulling anything larger than a very minimal trailer the distances that we tend to travel requires a larger pickup than ours and for the price of a new pickup I could have a bus and keep my current truck that is already paid for and that gets better mileage than the larger ones.

The next day we drove over the mountains on Hwy 9 to the border crossing at Calais Maine. The road is a single lane each direction and is mostly steep and curvy. This meant 100 miles in third gear, which allows a maximum speed of only 49 MPH. For the most part the maximum speed limit was only 50 or 55 and every few miles there was a truck lane, so seldom did a line of more than 5 or 6 cars build up behind us. The border crossing was easy; the woman who checked us through was personable and nice and did not nit-pick us as the border agents sometimes do. We have encountered some total jerks through the years and you never know what to expect, so this was a pleasant surprise. Just like the last time we traveled this road up to St. John NB, the fog was thick and I had to hold back some on the speed. We reached our stop at Moncton in the late afternoon and picked our spot in the parking lot. One side of the parking lot was quiet but not at all level and the other side was level but was bordered by a busy street. We chose the level spot and I had enough time to check the water level in the house batteries. The batteries had been giving us some trouble and checking the water level was the first part of the troubleshooting sequence. All of the cells were full so that meant that the problems were elsewhere. By evening eight other RVs had parked around us, the most we have seen on the trip. The Yahoo group that I subscribe to that deals with Wal-mart overnight parking advises keeping a low profile but with this many RVs it is hardly that. It poured rain much of the evening and we spotted a fairly severe leak around one of our windows that I will have to fix once we arrive in Clare.

We arose early (for us) but it was 9:00 (the usual departing time) before we were back on the road. It was about 330 miles to Meteghan and there was not a single rest stop along the way. Since pulling this big rig over requires quite a bit of space, I drove straight through without a stop. I was quite happy to pull into Eric and Janice’s yard where I could finally unhook the car. These Detroit Diesels are famous for slinging oil and so the car that had been towed behind us for 1700 miles was pretty well coated with the stuff. A bucket of suds and a brush made quick work of the mess. I had had to add only three quarts of oil, so the usage was not excessive. I was glad to be back to driving without a tow vehicle again as we drove the ten or so miles over to Gaston and Kim’s where we would be camping for the week. Even with the leaky window and battery issues to deal with I looked forward to relaxing with family and friends for a week before the return trip. Turning into their narrow driveway and making the turn into their yard was quite tricky and I just about tore off my right-hand rear view mirror on a tree while doing it, but eventually we got the bus into the space they had cleared for us and I got the bus fairly level.

Here are the numbers for the trip up from NC to NS:

• Total miles one way: 1700
• Average miles per day: 300
• Top speed: 62 mph
• Oil consumption: 3 quarts
• Fuel used: 190 gallons

Buying the Bus (part 2)

As I mentioned in the last installment, converted buses for sale seem to be spread evenly around the country, which means that seldom will you find many nearby. After two long trips to look at buses I felt close to making a decision and was about ready to settle for less than what I wanted and pay more than I intended. When this quest began I had put together a list of features that I wanted in a bus and later on I removed the non-essentials from the list and ranked the items that were left. Even then, it appeared that I would have to make more compromises on the things I wanted.

Scanning the bus ads had long ago become a daily affair and it was while I was in Orlando on the way home from one of my bus viewing trips that I spotted a GM PD4106 on Craigslist that seemed to have most of the things that I considered essential and it was listed for $20,000, more in line with the range I had been considering. The downside was that the bus was located a long way from home, in Minnesota, and I could see my wife cringe as I dialed the phone to talk to the seller. As During the conversation I was almost disappointed to hear how good everything about the bus sounded and that it contained most of the features on my list, knowing that it could mean one more trip before I could arrive at a decision. One thing I learned early on was how little you can really tell about a coach from a description and pictures. Only by spending a few hours crawling over, under, and through one, taking a test drive, and asking dozens of questions did I ever feel even close to knowing the condition of a given bus.

A Trip to Minnesota

As important as the features of a given bus conversion are, the evaluation is also about the planning that went into all of its systems and how much trouble the owner went to to do the conversion right. Ultimately the buying decision is about how much work you are willing to put in to make a newly acquired coach into the coach of your dreams. I am no spring chicken and at the time I was working a full time job and running a business too and by the end of the day I had but few hours left and even less energy to work on a bus, so for me, finding one that was complete and ready to go was important. All of the conversations about the Minnesota 4106 had sounded positive and I decided that a trip to see it had to be scheduled. Since this coach was priced to sell I wanted to get up to see it as soon as possible, but when I looked at the difference in air fares between flying during the current week or waiting an extra week, I couldn’t justify the extra cost. Additionally, it would cost more to buy a refundable ticket, so I opted for a non-refundable round-trip ticket. Both of those decisions were risky and in retrospect I would recommend paying extra to get a refundable ticket in case the coach you are flying to see sells before you get there, which mine almost did.

I scheduled the trip to take place over a weekend so that I would not miss any workdays. Had I known then that I would be laid off from my job the following week, I would have allowed more time. As it was, I arrived at the seller’s house at 5:00 PM on a Saturday evening and we had only enough time to look over the major systems and take a ride before it got dark, but not enough time to check out the operational status of every single system and appliance. Everything that I saw looked good and since my flight back home was for early the next morning, I told the owners (Sam and Charlet) that if everything on the bus worked I would buy it for the asking price. They agreed and a contract was made. We checked out the rest of the items the next morning and found that the house batteries needed to be replaced. Sam agreed to pay for new batteries. Everything else worked properly and we spent the afternoon filling all of the storage bays with some of the spare parts he had accumulated through the years.

On Monday morning we went to the bank and hit our first snag. Before I had left North Carolina I had gone to my bank to ask how one goes about getting money when in a remote location and I was assured that I could have a wire transfer initiated by the seller’s bank to get money from my account (my bank does not have a branch in Minnesota). This turned out to be an erroneous piece of information. Had I been given the correct information I could have had a cashiers check cut for the amount I needed and then if the sale was not made I could have re-deposited the money back into my account. Unfortunately, from Minnesota my options were limited. My bank offered to place a hold on the funds and fax a letter to the seller stating that the funds would be held, but the hold would be for only seven days and that was not acceptable to the seller who was afraid that it might take longer for the check to clear. Tempers flared, things were said, and finally someone suggested that my wife, who was still back in North Carolina, might be able to go to the bank and initiate a wire transfer from her account if I could get my bank to agree to transfer the money from my account to hers. Within the hour this all happened and the deal was done; I now owned my first bus.

The Trip Home

We installed the new house batteries, I asked at least a hundred more questions about how things worked, and then it was time to leave. I have to admit that sitting there in the driver’s seat with the engine running and a big trip ahead of me was intimidating. I had put about 10,000 miles on my old motorhome so I knew I would eventually get comfortable with everything but at that moment, not only was I on overload with all of the things that I was trying to remember about my new bus, but I also had to learn to shift the thing and quickly. I thanked Sam and Charlet for all the help and for putting me up over the weekend, and was off. Pulling out of their driveway and missing my first shift did not help much but I finally got it into gear. The first order of business was to fill up the fuel tank. I pulled up to the pump and realized that the one thing I had not learned was how to shut off the engine. I placed a quick embarrassing phone call and figured it out about the same time Sam answered the phone. $350 later, I was on I-90 and on my way back home. Unfortunately, it had been more than 35 years since I had shifted a non-synchromesh transmission and that first day I had a tough time making most of my shifts. I had read an article about shifting and had heard several people’s opinions on the topic, but as I quickly learned, it is more of an art than something to be learned from someone else’s instructions. That evening, as I was sharing my experiences with my wife over the phone, she suggested that I get up early and practice shifting in a parking lot before heading out for the day, which turned out to be a great idea. The people working in the stores around that parking lot must have thought I was nuts as I went round and round shifting through the gears and then stopping just to start over again, but after about a half hour I started to get the hang of it. By the end of that day I could at least up-shift through the gears without any grinding but my down-shifting still needed some work and I knew that with mountains ahead I had to improve.

There was a cold front blowing through and the nighttime temperatures were going to be in the mid-30s, so I bought blankets for the bed even though I knew there were some waiting for me when I got home. The furnace fired up several times during the night and I reminded myself to be sure to get the propane tanks filled the next day. I was happy when there was enough propane left in the tanks to get me through the night. Back on the road the next day, I noticed how more comfortable it was to travel these days. Cell phones, Wi-Fi hotspots, and GPS, all things we did not have on our 6-month trip ten years earlier, certainly made navigation and communication easier. I pulled into a crowded mall parking lot so that I could stop for lunch. The parking lot driveway was crowded with cars, making it impossible to turn as wide as I would have liked. I looked in the rearview mirror as I pulled in and saw that I had cleared the car that was waiting to exit, but not by as much as I would have liked. I still had some things to learn about driving a coach that was 11 feet longer than the one I had previously driven. As I pulled through the parking lot I found that each aisle I passed was very narrow and clogged with traffic. I quickly reached the end and had nowhere to go but around the side of the building. I was quickly running out of space and had very little room to turn around. Toward the end of the parking lot I pulled around one of those racks that holds shopping carts and thinking that I had plenty of clearance I continued the U-turn. I glanced in the mirror and quickly locked up the brakes when I saw that I was about to wipe out the side of the coach on the rack. After I stopped I got out to look at the side of the coach. I could have barely fit a piece of paper between the rack and the side of the coach but they never touched. This was another lesson learned and I doubted that it would be the last one.

I knew that I had to cross the mountains somewhere to get back home. I-40 had been closed for months due to a rockslide and I was not sure that it was open yet. I had gone that way before and knew that there were miles of steep grades. I decided that I would try a different route through West Virginia on I-64/I-77 and hoped that I was not making a mistake by doing so as I was still pretty nervous about down-shifting on upgrades. I had found the first day that 62 MPH felt like about the right speed. I have always had a pretty heavy accelerator foot and it took a while to get used to being passed by everything on the road. In eastern Kentucky the hills got steeper and I was happy to have the power of the 8v71. I was routinely passing trucks on uphill grades and being passed by them going down the other side since I was still not as comfortable taking turns at high speed as most of the truckers were. I figured that my center of gravity was higher and that the airbag suspension allowed more leaning. The hills got steeper and the corners got sharper. Doesn’t anyone in this part of the country know how to bank a turn? I was glad to have a towel in my lap because my palms were sweating like crazy. The first time I had to downshift I missed the shift and before I finally got it into third I was down to about 20 MPH, too slow for third so I had to downshift again. This happened several times before I finally figured out that I was better off not using the clutch when downshifting (as Sam had recommended).

It was starting to get dark and I realized that I needed to turn on my headlights, something I had not done before. I thought I remembered that the second round switch controlled the lights and that the first position was for running lights and the second position was for headlights. So while climbing a really steep hill I switched on the running lights (cool!) and then switched to position two and the engine died (not so cool). I quickly turned the switch back off and the engine restarted but by then I had lost all my momentum and was downshifting, still with no headlights, with no idea how to turn them on, and no place to pull over and figure it out. I took the next exit as suggested by my GPS to stop for the night and seemingly mile after mile went by as it got darker and darker and still there was no place to pull over. I finally found a parking lot and found the correct switch, just in time to stop for the night.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful with no catastrophes. I found a place for the bus in my front yard and made some run-up blocks since the slope was a little more extreme than what the leveling system could handle. A few days later Flora asked me “so, is owning the bus as much fun as it was searching for a bus?” This was a very appropriate question. This whole saga had really reinforced the notion that the fun of life is as much in the journey as in achieving a goal. I had to admit that learning about buses, talking to people all over the country, and ultimately traveling to new places to look at buses had been an adventure unto itself. I also quickly tired of looking at the coach sitting in the yard; I wanted to go somewhere!

Lessons Learned

The following list contains a few of the things I recommend for those looking for their first coach.

• Learn as much as you can about buses and the systems they contain. No matter what your previous experiences, these machines are a whole different animal and between the bus systems/components and the support systems that are installed during a conversion, there is a lot to know.
• Take advantage of on-line resources. There are many different forums and groups available, and the people who contribute there know a lot. You can read and you can ask questions and there is hardly a question you can ask that has not been asked before (and is therefore available in the archives).
• Make and refine both a budget and a list of features you want. Separate out those features that are in your opinion essential from those that would be nice but that you can live without. I found that it is unlikely that you will find a coach with everything on your list unless your budget is unlimited.
• Find or create some kind of tool to keep track of coaches you see and the features they have and the contacts you make with their owners. I found that my memory was quickly overwhelmed and had I not created a spreadsheet that contained a checklist of features I was interested in and which coaches had which of them, I would have quickly lost track.
• Consider videotaping when you are looking at a coach. I regret not doing this when Sam spent hours showing me the features of the coach I bought. On trips when my wife was with me I had her take pictures while I asked questions and afterward we were able to better remember what features a coach had. Again, when you are looking a multiple coaches it is easy to forget which one had what.
• Work with an insurance agent and your bank so that you can easily get a policy and the money you need, while in a remote location. And be sure that the bank has given you the correct information; having the money in your account and being unable to access it is a very frustrating situation for both buyer and seller.
• Be patient. Right now there are a lot of wonderful coaches for sale and the selling prices are a fraction of what was being asked a few years back when the economy was better and fuel was cheaper. I certainly was tempted by several coaches along the way and considered settling for coaches that might not have been as good a fit or for paying more than I wanted, but in the end I held out and was rewarded for my patience.