Clarence "Sparr" Risher

Some Burning Man stuff took time away from the bus this week, but I still got a few things done.

I got the first half of the bed frame built. The cantilever supports are welded and temporarily installed, and there's a platform on top for my current mattress folded in half. I am no longer sleeping on the floor, which is nice. I'll have to take it apart to grind and paint/powdercoat, and to assemble the second half once I can get the heavy duty slides I'm trying to order. While it's apart I'll try to adjust the fit of the supports so they align a bit better.

I decided to temporarily cannibalize the handrail parts that I removed around the first kitchen location. I used them to add some horizontal members to the overhead rails. Now there are enough pieces to support bunk beds or shelves up there. I went with shelves for the short term, with enough free space around them to still grab the rails.

The new shelves are holding most of the long items that I had crammed under the table and seats previously. Wood stock, ladder, brooms, etc. I didn't put the steel stock up there yet but I will. The space under the bed is a good fit for three big storage bins, and the front folding seats have room underneath for four small storage bins. Between those locations and the rear window, I've gotten a lot of stuff out of the way that was slowing me down previously. I also put the hot air balloon and the fourth solar panel into storage.

I started making cardboard inserts for the windows, for privacy and stealth reasons. They are 100% opaque, obviously, so they should be excellent for both. Unfortunately I'll have to remove and reinstall them if I want sunlight through the windows during the daytime other than through the front window or roof hatch. That won't be so bad once I have LED lighting inside. To go with the window covers, I also need to get blackout curtains hung at the front, and to disconnect the light above the front door. I went with white cardboard so that I could get some artistic friends to decorate them eventually.

Intangible progress... I got 15+ people aboard for mobile social activity while I was giving them all rides after a party, to hotels and after-parties. Swapped stories with a few of them, cards with a few more. This is definitely something I want to do more of, especially once the passenger areas are more hospitable.

That's all for now. Plans and priorities haven't changed, otherwise.

I am seriously reconsidering the placement of the kitchen. I'm glad I went with a rough prototype first; I'd be a lot more pressured to keep the current plan if I'd already done the work in real cabinet+countertop materials. I got it put together last night and ran into a number of concerns that I had previously anticipated but underestimated the impact of.

The current location barely doesn't block the electrical panel door, but it does eat up all the useful storage space that I had closest to that panel, which is where all my 5/12/24V power is coming from. I feel like I'm going to want that space in the future for larger electronics, such as the sound system, video recorder, etc.

I like the sink and drain that I got, but they are nearly/barely too deep for the current location. I can make it work, but the drain and propane hoses and installation would be cleaner in a location with more clearance below.

What if the kitchen goes just ahead of the rear door? This will eat up a little floor space, but also even up the open space depth on both sides up front. The kitchen and door on one side would line up with the dining table and seats on the other side. This would move the sink closer to the bathroom, and the stove closer to the dining room.

What will it feel like if the kitchen is in the bedroom area, next to the shower? Too cramped? Too annoying when someone wants to cook while someone is using the bed? Having the sink next to the shower and toilet would feel good, but having the stove there would feel weird.

Speaking of the bathroom... I still haven't chosen a toilet. I'm pretty sure that I want the toilet to be waterproof so that it can go in the shower, both to save space and to provide a seat while showering. That will be important with the shower having a slanted ceiling with 58-74" of headroom. The hot shower component is entirely portable, so I can erect a curtain and platform outside the bus for showering while camping. The indoor shower will be used in the city and possibly while driving.

I think that what I want to do with the bathroom space is to give it about a 3x4ft footprint, with one solid 5ft wall on the short/window side. The wall will be hinged about 2ft off the ground so that the upper section will fold over like a box lid, being the top of the box whose bottom is defined by the shower pan. This will preserve the open view through the bus when it's closed, as well as provide a table-like platform when the bathroom isn't in use, and avoid the need for the shower curtain to completely surround the shower.

Brainstorming, experimenting, and actually accomplishing things... all continue apace.

Here are my options:

1) Laveo Dry Flush. This toilet works like a Diaper Genie. There's a very long mylar bag bunched up in the seat, with a small section filling a bucket. You do your business into the bucket, then a machine sucks out the air and twists the bag so the waste is sealed in a section, then it extrudes more bag to fill the bucket again. ~15 flushes later you remove all the waste, double-bagged, and incinerate or trash it. $500 for the toilet, $1 per flush. Zero smell. Zero exposure to waste during disposal. Fastest disposal option. https://youtu.be/ia4-U9lZChk?t=204

2) Cassette toilet. Basically a seat and bowl on top of a waste tank. Do your business, flush with a small amount of water, clean the bowl if necessary. Special chemicals deal with odors. Empty the tank every few days of usage by dumping into an RV waste tank or a toilet (multiple flushes) then rinsing and dumping again. $150 for the toilet, $0.05 per flush. Little smell. Exposure to unprocessed waste during disposal. https://youtu.be/5DD4XtHSA9Q?t=111

3) Composting toilet. A seat on top of a larger waste tank, plus a separate bottle for urine. Flip a lever when switching from urinating to defecating. Add sawdust and good-bacteria to tank occasionally, turn a lever to stir the waste after each usage, clean the bowl if necessary. Empty solid waste with a shovel every couple of weeks of usage, preferably into a garden. Empty urine into a toilet or as fertilizer. $500-1000 for the toilet, $0.10 per flush. Little smell, more dirt than poop. Exposure to urine and compost/humanure during disposal. More labor involved in disposal. https://youtu.be/Sq-nfH6bIiA?t=40

The cost comparison is obvious. The ecological impacts are relevant. The comfort of my guests, both in using the toilet and in possibly being tasked with emptying it on longer trips, are relevant. I'd appreciate feedback on these options, especially from anyone who has used one of them before.

It's been 4 days since we got to SF and I'm calling this the end of my first week off the road. I know, 4 days isn't a week, but Friday feels like a good day to summarize. Maybe I'll post twice a week, to separate weekend work from weekday work? TBD.

Last/worst news first... Last night I made my first serious driving mistake. I turned left from a right-curb parking spot too sharply and the tail of the bus got intimate with a nearby tree, leaving both a bit worse for wear. The upper rear corner of the bus lost two running light covers, which will serve as an excuse to take off a good one to measure for spares. Good news, I now know that some of the solid curvy rigid bits of the body are fiberglass. Bad news, I know that because there's now a ~12in section ripped away from the top corner. Good news, Gorilla Tape repairs seem to have been mostly successful, and will probably hold until I get around to sawing out the edges of the rip and patching with a bunch of fiberglass tape.

I installed a security system from Fortress Security Store. It came with motion sensors that I'm using already, and door/window alarms that I'm not yet. It has an audible alarm (currently inside the bus, to be moved to a secure location outside) and also sends me text messages (or calls me). So far I'm mostly liking it. The alarm functionality seems great. I'm minorly confused/annoyed about how the "call the alarm from my phone so I can arm/disarm or use it as an intercom" functions work, but those aren't essential. The backup battery life is a bit low, but that should be easy to rectify with a larger battery. This will be one of the few things on the bus with its own dedicated power backup.

I cut and peeled off a bit of the textual portion of the side decals, near the ground. They all peeled off easily. The one on the front has nice even paint behind it. The ones on the sides, not so much. Also, the sides were longer cuts, which got a little uneven as I went along. I'll probably end up covering those areas with more vinyl to be drawn/painted on. Additionally, removing the vinyl near the ground revealed the bolts that hold the bus skirt panels on. I need to get inside those to see what's behind some of the lower walls inside, as well as to get under the bus for various reasons.

I mostly installed two deadbolts, one on each of the front doors. I say mostly not because I had to use shims to account for the thinness of the doors, which is easy to fix later, but because the bolts don't span the gap between the door and the jamb. This is the first time I've ever had to install a lock in a place where the door doesn't touch *any* of the surfaces around it. There's a 1-2" gap between the door and the floor, jamb, and ceiling, and a 6" gap between the two doors (which is filled with rubber bumpers). I'll soon be making a steel extension for the jamb where the deadbolt is, as well as steel reinforcement for the door and the jamb. Both need to be stronger if someone tries to kick the door in, and that's on top of the need to repair the structural weakening I did by drilling through the door.

I removed almost all of the wheelchair restraint hardware. The parts connected to the divider wall legs and to the floor hardware came out easily. The floor hardware (sideways telescoping steel channel bolted to the floor) did not, due to rusted bolts that I need access to the bottom of. I'll be figuring out how to get under the bus some time soon; that will probably involve parking with two wheels on a high curb. The hardware on the wall of the bus was the best surprise, giving me a peek at the vertical structural members of the body. Apparently the vertical sections between the windows house more aluminum extrusion channel, with more T-nuts for attachment. This is wonderful news.

I took out the five vertical poles that stood alone, which makes the middle section of the bus feel much more spacious. That included removing the stop request buttons from all of them. It also meant getting inside the air/power/etc sections at the top of the bus for the first time, to get to the mounts at the top of two of the poles (one side) so I could remove the stop request wiring for those. Those mounts attach to the extrusion channel in the ceiling, again with T-nuts. One of the mounts, out of the five I checked, is inexplicably wobbly, despite appearing firmly attached. That bears further investigation. The three mounts on the other side still have their wiring wrapped up and tucked in until I get inside the ceiling on that side. I also removed a bunch of the connectors where the poles meet the handles on top of the seats, and discovered they are adjustable for different angles. I'll be keeping a few of the seats, probably mostly with handles, so I've got the option of doing something semi-structural with poles and connectors based on where the remaining seats end up.

Being up in the ceiling gave me a lot of new info as well. I've now seen the climate control ducting, and discovered that *everything* up there outside of the climate control unit itself is coated in a fine black powder/dust. I need to find out if that's intentional or incidental or bad. I've gotten a look at the door actuation mechanism, the coolant hoses to the climate control, the electrical wiring, and the fluorescent ballasts.

I happened upon a queen sized cushion (calling it a mattress would be a stretch, despite its size, due to its thinness and stuffing) at IKEA in the as-is section, 50% off for no reason I can discern. I grabbed it. It might not have a home in the bus in the long term, or it might get deployed across the living room seats for the last few sleeping slots, or it might get cut in half to make two smaller sleeping pads. Regardless, it's my bed for the duration of phase 1 of the build, and much more comfortable than the cheap hammocks I picked up for the trip. It's thin enough to fold in half or thirds, so it isn't much in the way. I also bought a small succulent plant, which is currently living in one of the front corner windows.

I opened up the camp stove that we bought but didn't use on our trip. At first glance, it doesn't look like it will be easy to flip the propane feed to the other side to make it fit in my kitchen space. I'll take a deeper look inside it once I have a sink, and either fix it or replace it before I cut out a countertop to hold them both. That project is on the agenda for this weekend or next.

I have safety/usage certifications scheduled at TechShop for the metal shop and MIG welding next week. Once that happens I can start working on the bed platform, a table for the dining area, hard points for the ceiling and walls, etc. I've got the shape of the bed platform down on paper and just need to lay out a precise design so I can dimension the parts. The table, which I want to be height adjustable to convert seats+table into a bed, is still on the drawing board. The hard points will probably just be 1/4" steel plate for now, with an eye to something more svelte in the future. If I can get certified on the waterjet cutter in time, I'll use that. Otherwise it's all about the band saw, drill press, and grinders.

I've been on the roof a couple of times now, for various reasons. My step ladder is tall enough for a precarious climb out the hatch. I probably need to get something more sturdy and safe eventually. Maybe something that works both inside and outside? I could make an 8ft ladder that attaches to the back of the bus for storage and exterior use, and can be brought inside and hooked into the hatch (protruding past the top) for interior use. That will probably happen around the same time I'm putting vertical bike storage on the back of the bus for travel, which is probably a project for phase 2, in April or May.

I've gotten word from my agent in South Dakota about the requirements to register the bus as an RV. I detailed them in another post. The short version is that there are 7 items on the list, and I need to have 5 of them. I already have 2, and expect to have 3 more in a week or two. At this point I'm waiting for him to send me the paperwork and let me know how I need to prove that I've fulfilled the requirements.

That's about all that's going on so far. I hope to post again on Sunday night or Monday morning with updates from the weekend.

PS: I didn't mention it last post, but I've started uploading photos to Flickr and Facebook. That includes all the investigation and improvements and damage I've done so far.

http://www.facebook.com/sparr0/media_set?set=a.10207678022285382.1073741846.1136933432

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sparr0/albums/72157663356405013

I've been trying and failing to get in touch with anyone at New Flyer, who bought NABI, who bought Optima, who manufactured my bus, who might have access to any sort of documentation on the bus. I posted to a few bus forums and someone pointed me towards an expired ebay auction for an almost-right operator manual. It's off by one year, and possibly wrong in other subtle ways, but I'll take what I can get. I contacted the seller and found they had re-listed it. I bought it, and it was waiting for me when I got back to San Francisco tonight. This post is me live-journaling my discoveries as I peruse it for the first time.

The "Summary of Changes" section of the book describes the revision history of the book. This is good news, as it indicates this book does cover my bus, it just happens to be one year newer than my bus. Better yet, the 2004 revision of the book contains no content changes, just copy editing and formatting, which suggests the Opus bus wasn't changed in 2004, so this book should be an exact match for my bus, barring any custom changes that the RRTA requested.

I am apparently supposed to inflate the tires to 110PSI, so my instructions to the Tire Pass folks to aim for 115 was a bit high. I know better, now.

My turning radius is 31' for the tires, 36' for the body. Ouch.

My bumper to bumper length is 34'5", with a wheelbase of 18'1". The height, probably including the heater, is 10'4", and the outside wall width is 8'3.2" (no idea why this one gets an extra digit of precision).

I am supposed to have a 75 or 90 gallon fuel tank. My estimate based on the fuel gauge and fill-ups was 80, so now I need to actually figure out which it is.

The driver's seat is a Recaro Ergo Metro. Knowing this will allow me to find spare parts! Apparently it's missing a non-optional headrest, which I would love to find. There's also apparently a seat adjustment control that we didn't see and I'll be poking around for when I return to the bus.

The light inside the engine compartment is on an 18ft retracting cord, which is long enough to drag it to the side to see the fuel tank, radiator, tires, etc in the dark. Spiffy!

There is a button on the dash with the engine retarder icon on it, which we couldn't identify before. Apparently my transmission has a built-in retarder, and now I want to get on the highway and check out its function. It claims to augment engine braking for steep downgrades. I wish I'd known that 3000 miles ago.

There are seven electrical system multiplexer nodes. I only found ~4 of them in my initial round of panel-opening. Now I know where to look for the rest of them!

My Allison transmission is apparently a B300 or B300R. That narrows down the possibilities significantly.

The section on the climate control system is a tease. It identifies which system I have, but won't tell me what the mystery buttons/LEDs are!

It may be possible to raise the bus suspension above the normal not-kneeled height temporarily, for crossing things like slope peaks and raised railroad tracks. This requires further investigation of a particularly arcane set of conditions and button pushes.

Apparently I'm not supposed to idle for more than ten minutes. This is probably why there's an automatic shutdown. The suggested failure mode is "overcooling" which will result in carbon buildup in the combustion chambers in unburned fuel in the oil. The internet already told me that unburned fuel in the oil could result in the weird oil levels I've seen. This requires immediate investigation.

Also I'm supposed to idle the engine for a few minutes before shutting it off, to promote even cooling. Good to know.

"CAUTION: Do not allow the vehicle to coast in neutral. This can result in transmission damage."... Also good to know!

I need to learn more about safe amounts of engine braking. I tried to balance load on the transmission and brakes while leaving the Appalachians, Rockies, and Sierra Nevadas. However, the manual suggests that all the way down to first gear is acceptable.

Apparently the broken air hoses in my doors go to some sensors that are supposed to stop the doors from closing on people. I probably want to disable that functionality, for primary and secondary reasons. And I could probably save a bit of wasted vacuum or air pressure by capping those hoses.

For some reason, this bus sold to a transit agency in Pennsylvania apparently doesn't have the optional front defroster modules, which would have been responsible for turning the cold air coming out of the dash and driver vents into warm air. I need to get under the front dash and see if they are installed and just missing the controls. If not, at least I know there's room under there to add them.

Apparently the lit up /!\ button and indicator on my climate control indicate a fault, and I can get it to read an error code out to me. I'm not lucky enough to have a key for those codes, but at least now I know what that does/means.

Apparently my powered windshield defroster (which has such cute tiny wires running through the glass) is coupled with mirror defrosters. I hope I don't ever need that feature again.

I never tried the emergency door release buttons because I didn't know if I'd be able to reset them. The operator manual sheds no additional light on this situation. :/

Along with knowing where all the multiplexers are, I now know where 3 more fuse panels are. I should document them.

Additionally, I now have a pre-flight checklist, most of which I will ignore. I also have a few hints at weekly/monthly maintenance tasks, which I will not ignore. Overall, this is a lot of useful new info. Sadly, there's still missing operational info, such as how to engage the baseboard heaters, the specs on the climate control air filter, etc. Hopefully I can find a service manual some day to fill in the rest of those gaps.

Our trip continues! I am writing this post as we cross Nebraska and Colorado, approaching Denver for a morning hotel stop. A friend of mine from Atlanta met us in Chicago so now we have three drivers. This has led to more night-time driving and making up some lost time. We now have three hammocks hanging up, and have been time-sharing the queen size bed that *perfectly* fits across the front six seats (the inwards facing ones that fold up for wheelchair parking). We picked up the last of our furniture deliveries near Chicago as well, and the first dropoff isn't until Nevada, so our obligated travel is taking a ~2 day break.

We are considering a short detour to Arches National Park, which I saw on my previous trip and recommended for this one. We are slightly considering a longer detour to Zion National Park, which would be more appealing if there were more highways around here rather than having to drive the wrong direction for an hour to backtrack. I'm sure we'll pack a few more stops into the CO/UT/NV section of the trip as well. I'd like to make Eureka NV on Sunday morning, and get to SF on Sunday night, and that's feeling very doable at this point.

In the last few days we've stopped at a bird sanctuary, a gorge full of devonian fossils, a whirlyball court, some botanical gardens, and a couple of other places that have slipped my mind. I took some photos, but haven't posted any (including to go with my previous journal entries) due to mostly having little to no data service on my phone on this trip. Photo uploads will come next week when I'm in San Francisco.

We stopped at a big truck stop with a first-time-free tire inflation service. Their machine couldn't reach two of our six, but it let us know the other four were around 102-117 PSI. I asked to have them all inflated/deflated to 115, and I'll investigate the ideal pressure later (labeled max is 120 cold). Their shop had to get the last two by hand, due to the outer rear tires having their valve stems pointing inwards(!?). I also paid to have us weighed. We're at about ten tons on the back axle and four on the front. I look forward to unloading all my junk and re-weighing it empty; I might have two tons of stuff in here right now between all my books and board games, along with wooden furniture including my own and the stuff we're shipping.

We've continued to fight the air drafts. Even though we are finally reaching some comfy daytime temperatures, the nights are still dangerously chilly, and we'd like it to be comfortable inside rather than alternating hot heater air and freezing drafts, as well as losing less warm air overnight. A few more windows are taped shut, and we've gotten a little better at covering the holes around the doors, but there are still spaces that cold air just blows right in. Any solutions to those problems are just temporary; they will be permanently fixed when I get around to working on the doors and windows more seriously, including weatherstripping, double panes, etc. I did throw together a shop vac hose and some tape to get some heated air down to the driver's feet, which has been the most problematic area.

I got a call back from the company that made the advertising decals covering the bus. Sadly just from someone in sales, who told me to call them back next week to speak to an engineer who knows how to remove them. The spine art is pretty cool, and I'll probably keep it for a while, but the text has to go. Whether that means removing it or putting vinyl or paint over it depends on how hard and/or expensive each of those options will be.

I got an email back from Luminator about paying them to reprogram the sign or for hardware/software to do it myself. They forgot to include the price sheet, though. Hopefully I'll get that soon. I might end up hunting down someone who already has the hardware/software and getting them to do it for me.

I've started to brainstorm how to add locks to the doors, ignition, fuel tank, etc. It's a bit tricky given the existing hardware designs. I'll probably do that roughly quickly, with plans to revisit it later in a prettier fashion. Security against break-ins will also be electronic, in the form of an audible alarm that also sends me text messages. I've got the system, I just need to get a SIM card for it and add a solar charger for the battery so I can keep it running indefinitely.

Someone pointed me towards an expired auction on EBay in Canada for an operators manual for a bus model very similar to mine (1 year newer, different engine from the same manufacturer). I've sent a message to the seller to see if I can get it from them. Even though the engine part will be partially inapplicable, a lot of the other details should be the same. Fingers crossed on that. At least I know what the book looks like now!

We have now driven through enough of a snowstorm to solidly cover the windshield outside of the wiper zone with slush/ice. It behaved just fine, except that the driver's view of the passenger side mirrors is blocked, outside of the wiper zone. That's a serious design wtf, and I'll be considering how to address it for the future. Also some of the front light housings collected enough slush to dim the lights. The headlights kept their housings melted just fine, but the high beams and turn signals were covered due to not being on constantly. Relatedly, the windows are all huge and flat, making them tedious but not difficult to wash and squeegee.

We passed the 2000 mile mark of the trip, bought our fifth tank of fuel, and I finally put my fuel receipts into a spreadsheet. We're doing a little better than 6.5MPG, and I think we've mostly been doing 55-60MPH. Since we're in a hurry I don't want to try it right now, but I'll put a full tank through at 50MPH next time I make a trip and see how that works out. For now, I'm happy with 6.5 on the highway. I don't look forward to finding out just how bad it gets in the city, though. I definitely won't be driving this beast around as much as I did the ambulance, even ignoring the parking concerns.

That's all for now. Next post will probably come Sunday night after we get to SF and I deliver all my passengers to their destinations. At that point I'll have delivered 1-2 of the 3 pieces of furniture we're carrying, with 1-2 left as well as my own stuff to unload into storage. That's probably a job for Monday evening, if I can find a few extra hands and a bigger and more easily accessible storage unit than I have now.

I left Boston on Sunday evening in a UHaul truck full of my stuff. Logistical shenanigans delayed the departure, but we eventually got on the road. With me was Natasha, who is one of my bus copilots, and Ben, a friend in need of a ride. We dropped Ben off elsewhere in Massachusetts and proceeded southwest. I had forgotten that the NYC tolls are mostly one-way, so we got across the bridge without paying the $26 that I recalled from my last trip in the other direction. We did encounter one New Jersey toll that was $1 for autos and $6 for 6-wheel trucks, the largest ratio between those categories I've seen. We picked up A, a friend and road trip companion, along the way, and made it to Lancaster PA after dawn. Some negotiating with the hotel clerk got us a room until 1PM, and we napped away the rest of the morning.

After a refreshingly long nap in the hotel, we proceeded to the bus facility. I had originally planned to pick up the bus in East Petersburg where it was being stored, but the owners moved it back to the Red Rose Transit Authority facility in Lancaster for storage. My trip partners dropped me off and they went to get food and otherwise kill time. I got a glimpse of the bus at a distance on my way in, and there was a minor amount of squee involved there. I met someone in their office to sign over the title and get a bill of sale. With the paperwork in hand I finally got my hands on the bus, escorted by their head of maintenance.

First up, there was much visual inspecting. I poked and prodded a lot of the parts, opened hatches, peered into walls and cavities, and otherwise pretended to know what I was looking at. I took a few exterior photos, for posterity (which is something you should do with *everything* expensive and used that you buy, in case there's a dispute later about the delivery condition). Then we tried to start it. Or, we tried to try to start it. He had showed me the battery cutout switch, and he knew it had started earlier that day, so we didn't think power was a problem. Despite that, we literally could not figure out the order of operations to engage the instrument cluster or the ignition. After a few minutes of being mutually stymied, he went to get one of the hands-on maintenance folks. That guy showed us the arcane ritual required to engage the ignition, which I will not reproduce here because that obscurity is currently the only security I have; installing a key interlock is on my to-do list.

At that point, I had a running engine and a bunch of free time while everyone else was out gallavanting. I flipped all of the switches. I turned the bus off and back on. I took a lot of photos, including every part that looked mechanically interesting and everything with writing on it (hooray for wiring diagrams and part numbers!). I got a couple of videos with audio of the engine running, including stopping and starting it from under the hood. Those photos and video will be online somewhere near this post in the near future.

This is the part of the story where I drive off into the sunset, right? Nope. Having learned the ritual for starting the engine, I found myself stuck on step two, engaging the transmission. I googled. I poked. I combinatorially attemped every one and two push or push+hold combination of the relevant buttons on the transmission controls. Then I gave up and called the guys inside. Once again the head of maintenance couldn't figure it out, and called in a specialist. He immediately recognized that the transmission controller flashing the current gear instead of displaying it steadily indicated an interlock condition; that is, some switch on the bus was open and telling it not to go. He shut it down and walked me through a checklist of about half a dozen things, which I suspect is actually less than half of the real whole interlock checklist. Having done that, it went into gear and he drove it to the far side of the parking lot. I was left with a driveable bus and departed to meet everyone else.

After a short drive we met up at the UHaul facility and spent a few hours cross loading cargo. I removed four of the rear seating benches so we could optimize our luggage tetris and was generally quite pleased at how easily they came out. The floor level bolts had rusted, probably from salty snowy wet passengers' feet. They were tough to start and required a ratchet all the way out, but none of them seemed even close to stripping or otherwise misbehaving. The bolts at butt level, both the cantilever attachment at the wall and the diagonal support on the bottom, came out like butter; none took more than 1/4 turn with the ratchet before coming the rest of the way by hand. The seats stack very densely when the diagonal support is removed.

Having returned the UHaul truck and made a quick thrift shopping trip, we set off westward. It was well after dark, and we were tired from sleep deprivation and moving, so we quit early. We got a hotel due to not having converted enough of the bus interior for sleeping yet. Natasha did get her hammock up, and engaged in some entertaining acrobatics to mount it, but we hadn't cleared enough floor space to put down bedding for myself or A. The hotel was accommodating, and we ended up showered, jacuzzi'd, fed, and comfy in time for a long full night's sleep. I am writing this in the AM of day two, as we are finishing breakfast and preparing to depart westward from Carlisle PA.

PS: This post will eventually have a prequel covering the details of the shopping, auction, and purchase process.

PPS: Carlisle PA is where I spent a couple of weeks in the company of my father in the late 90s as he was dying of lung cancer.