First trip comes to an end

   

  At 5:30 am. I was up and getting us ready to go. At 6 am. I got the kids up and into there seats and we hit the road.  My son had a field trip planed at his summer school and we needed to be there at 8 am.  I had opened the heater valve that I closed last week to help the coolant temperature on the way back and we were able to run 65 most of the way and stay around 200 degrees or less depending on the inclines.  We made good time and the kids napped a little on the way.

     With our first trip over I can see lots of areas that I want to work on to get us through the summer. Starting with finishing the title and registration process. I had attempted to do it earlier on the Friday before our trip but the Texas state office and the regional office didn't seen to agree on what was need to be done.  I  will have to go get one more thing before I can get it finalized.  The gal at the regional office wouldn't accept the factory gross vehicle weight rating and wanted a weight ticket from a certified scale. This I was assured by the state office that I wouldn't need to have until I have actually completed the conversion on the vehicle. Oh well, I can run it by a scale later this week.  

     I have to figure out how to get the headlights to come on only when the light switch is turned on. Right now you can not run anything else with out the headlights being on.  I assume this is a safety feature they planned for the school bus use however all it does for me is run down the battery when you only want to use something like the interior lights.  I also want to build a ice chest air cooler for the short term and get 4 more rows of seating out of the way.

Campground Woes

     

     The second day of camping began with a child needing to go potty.  Of course it did.  After getting everyone up and fed we made our way to the campground showers. 

     I must say that I have seen a lot of less than perfect camp facilities but I had never encountered one this awful.  We had been in there the night before to use the toilets prior to bed but in the dark I did not see what I could see in the daylight.  By far the worst campground shower and toilet facilities I had ever seen.  There was actually a large smear of bodily waste on the wall in several places and the spider webs were cascading down every corner of the shower stalls. You could obviously see the walls had not been cleaned in some time as the black mildew was growing in every crevice available and there were bug carcasses piled up everywhere. The spiders were king in this dump and their webs were in every corner, all over the ceiling and skylight and even under one of the toilets.  It was unbelievable that they charged 20 dollars a night just for a basic site and they let the facilities go so unclean.  I brought the issue up with the Rangers office later that day and they basically said they didn't believe me.  Just based on that experience and interaction I don't think we will return.  The Texas parks campground I stayed at a month earlier was half the price and 3 time as clean.

     We spent a good portion of our morning hanging in the hammocks and my daughter and I took turns reading from genesis.  It was a great moment and after we finished reading both kids were asking questions and we talked about the verses.  I set up a makeshift rope swing and a strap for balancing on and let them play for a while as the temperature was warming up. After lunch we drove down to the marina where they have a swimming area. The kids and I enjoyed the water and they played in the playground area for awhile. 

     Back at camp it was an evening much like the last, diner and just hanging out with each other, except at the end of the night I gathered everything up so what could take off in the morning with out much to do.  I setup the hammocks in the bus and then we made a quick run up to the disgusting shower facilities and attempted to get cleaned up.  It was just as it was earlier with not a single thing attempted to be cleaned other than maybe someone sprayed the floor. We made it quick and went back to the comfort of our bus. The kids piled in to there hammocks and were asleep in no time at all. I quickly fallowed. 

A day of rest!

     Today's the day! Our first road trip.  There's nothing like the excitement you get from kids when they realize they have their very own school bus!  Well little kids any way.  That excitement was certainty not shared by their mother when I pulled up in the bus to pick them up for the camping trip. There's a great many things my ex-wife and I don't see eye to eye on and this is obviously another.  I will likely talk more about that situation some other time but as I said from day one this is about the kids, the memories, nature and adventure and sharing my love of god with them.

     So we have officially embarked on our maiden voyage. Two nights of camping await us at the Oklahoma Lake Murray State park.

     We had been on the road for about an hour when the water/oil light and alarm started going off.  I have been watching over ever thing from the first day and the bus has run pretty good but the temp gauge has done a little dance here and there.  It seems that I can run it as hard as I want to in town and it will stay at about 190 degrees. Open highway at 60 mph and it settles in at about 195 but when pushing her to 65 for 30 minutes or more it will be up to 210 and starts climbing up to 215-220 when we hit inclines.  Within a couple minutes of backing off on the speed or pulling in to a stop it will be right back down to 190 or less.  I'm gonna have to look in to this more next week after we get back to town.

     After a quick stop to cool the engine down and a small speed adjustment we easily made the last leg to the campgrounds.  This is certainly not the kinda camping I grew up on but it will have to do to start.

     Now that we had arrived and finally found a decent spot to camp the first priority was to hang the hammocks. I have a true love of lounging in a hammock and have taken many opportunities over the years to hang one any time and place I could.  I can often even be found sleeping in one daily as my regular bed.  I hope that the kids will enjoy them just as much especially since I didn't bring anything else to sit on. We got our camp set up and had a snack then headed down the short hike to play in the lake.

     The one thing that has been the hardest adjustment for me in the outdoors of the south has been the water. Back home in the mountains and valleys of Montana and the rest of the Pacific Northwest the water is so beautiful.  There's plenty of sandy or rocky shorelines to play on and the water is so clear. You can usually see the bottom of the water till it gets about 10 ft deep and in some places much deeper than that even. I don't know how anyone truly enjoys playing in this muddy soup they call lake water down here.
   
     The kids and I finally found a muddy bank that we could get decent access to the water from and made the best of it.  We did a little swimming and of course caught a few frogs.  My eight year old daughter has been very much like me as a child and is normally full steam ahead for trying new things in the way of the outdoors. My 4 year old son however is a bit more skeptical about trying things that look like there could be consequences.  I cant blame him for being precocious as it is probably a good thing in the long run.  This was really his first true outdoor adventure and I had to work at it some to convince him to hold one of the frogs I had caught.  Once he had it in his hands however he quickly made friends and named him hopper.

     As the evening wound down we made a little fire, cooked up some dinner, roasted a few marshmallows and relaxed in our hammocks.  at the end of the night With a few minutes of work I had our hammocks hung in the bus and a couple of fans running off of my solar setup to help keep us cool.  I tucked the kids in and we called it a night.

Day 5

     Today I took after the back 4 rows of seating. I wasn't going to do anything about the seating for a few weeks but after going up and down the isles a couple times while planing where I was going to put the camping gear I found it was just to tight between the seats.  Taking some rear seating out would give tons of room to accommodate anything I could think of bringing and it would be easy to load in and out from the rear door.

    The seats are bolted down with 8 bolts. 4 through the floor at the base of the legs and 2 where the seating meets the support rail on the wall.  It was really pretty simple to remove the bolts as a few would just break but most easily come loose. I worked from underneath the bus with my Milwaukee cordless impact while using a pair of vise grips inside the bus to brace the bolt heads.  I removed all the bolts in the last 4 rows and I started pulling the seats out. I was surprised as to how light they actually were. A quick clean of the floor and some caulk to fill the bolt holes in the floor so no critters try to stake a claim on the place and it was time to get the camping gear loaded.

     With all the gear loaded and a few hours of daylight left to kill I headed out for a quick bite to eat and then started putting up the ceiling insulation. To line it with the foam I cut the 4x8 sheets down 6 inches to 7 ft 6 inches and literally arched them into place. They stay up by tension and hug the roof line nicely. I have used 6 sheets to do the majority of the ceiling and just have the back foot over the rear door and the area  over the driver to finish.  I left these area undone for now until I decide exactly how I want to finish those areas. It looks pretty good and my daughter is sure to love the pink color. I will live with the pink for now knowing that I will be finishing it with something nice down the road.  It was a productive day and as I finished up I sat down in the rear doorway to watch the sun setting  and the moon which had already risen and enjoy a few minutes at the end of the evening.

     I'm so excited to pick up the kids for our first trip tomorrow. I will be surprising my kids with the bus when I pick them up at 9 a.m. They know where going camping but I haven't said a word to them about the bus.

Day 4

   

     After getting the bus home and resting for a day I decided to pick up some insulation for the roof line and the walls to help cut down the Texas heat from radiating into the inside from the exterior. This will of course also help retain the cool or warm air inside the bus when I get a a/c-heater unit mounted on the roof.  I have opted to use the solid 1" foam board insulation for a few reasons. The first being it's so easy to work with. The R-value 5 should go along way in making the internal temperature easier to manage in the long run and it is much better at sound control than most the other options.  The ceiling in this Amtran body is perforated metal and does already have some insulation in it so this should make for a good cozy setup. With a trip to home Depot and a bit of cash I have 10 sheets to start with. I will need to do a little more measuring and planing on the installation but that will have to wait for tomorrow as it's time to get to work.