Out of all the places I've been on this trip, I feel a little stupid saying north Carolina is one of my favorites. I don't mean to hate on North Carolina, but when I think of it, I don't necessarily think of rugged, wild, beautiful nature. I hardly even think of beaches, even though it's mostly on the Atlantic coast. Maybe that's because I'm a spoiled little vagabond, but whatever. The only thing I can think of to justify my love for north Carolina is the beach and the sand.
I have always been a sand dune person ever since we went to White Sands, New Mexico. Something about the open space, or the patterns the wind makes in the sand just drew me in. Plus its like a huge sandbox playground, who doesn't love that? The sand just calls you to take off your shoes and let it slip between your toes, to run to the top of the next dune to see how far you can see into the distance, and of course sand sledding on your butt, which comes with some mild consequences like having sand up your crack for a week, but is still awesome. I've also always loved the ocean and beaches for obvious reasons (who doesn't?). Anyway, the outer banks are the perfect mix of both.
The Outer Banks of North Carolina are basically a thin strip of land 20 or so miles away from the mainland. Some kind of natural pattern or force of nature makes it so the strip of land has many sand dunes, not quite as big as the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, but big enough to kick your butt walking up them.
The campground we parked the bus at was a couple miles from the larger sand dunes. We pulled in at night, so we couldn't see very well but we could tell from the silhouettes on the horizon that there were small dunes between us and the beach. We stopped the engine and immediately grabbed our flash lights and put on our shoes to explore (Which was necessary because there were gnarly cacti there). We took a small path that wound through the dunes from our site to the beach, running from dune to dune and smelling the ocean and letting loose after driving all day. We got to the ocean and despite the temptation, definitely didn't get in because the water and air were too cold.
The next morning we were able to explore it in the sunlight, so we went back to the beach and found that the most common seashells on the beach were smooth chunks of thick, light purple shell which we made a goal to fill our pockets full of. We walked for a while and got as much as we could, and then came back to count up our lot. The shells could fill up a Walmart bag so we all insisted we would make some sort of mosaic mural with them on one of the walls in the bus (Which still hasn't happened 6 months later).
The day after that, we decided to visit the larger sand dunes which ended up being even funner. They were like any other orange sand dunes except for the fact that they had swallowed a forest. After climbing and walking around in the hot sun for a while, we discovered that at the south end of the dunes, there was a big slope that fed into a big forest below. There were tree limbs coming out of the sand on the slope so you could tell they had been buried by the dune. There was a path going down into the forest, which we slid down into. The sand was cold under our feet from the shade of the trees as we entered, and it had an eerie feel for some reason, maybe it was the threat of being buried alive like all the trees and plants. I followed the line of sand along the ground, occasionally climbing up onto it to get around a tree, and went deeper into the forest, stepping on dead leaves and crunching twigs with my bare feet. Discovering and exploring the forest was one of my many highlights on the trip.
Atlanta
A week or so after the Outer Banks, sometime in November, we arrived in Atlanta, Georgia, ready to do some volunteering at a nonprofit our friend works at called Atlanta Dream center which helps fight homelessness, poverty, and prostitution in the that area. We were read to get our hands dirty and help out firsthand at the Dream center, like working on some houses for rescued women from human trafficking, or doing some artwork to hang on the walls for the houses, but sadly it got too cold before we had a chance to do those things, so we had to leave. However, we did get a chance to do some other helpful things at the center. Basically, we served the people who serve the people.
Our first job was helping out in a kitchen to feed all the Dream Center workers. We made a couple dishes, like Brussels sprouts and potatoes, or even little things like grinding coffee. Another less fun job was throwing out the spoiled donated food in the warehouse, which I spent a lot of time on. They were short on workers for a couple weeks so most of the fruits and vegetables had expired and were kind of disgusting, so I put on some gloves and got to work. I filled up a good 5 trashcans with moldy watermelons and squashes and apples and eggplants. So it wasn't exactly what I expected but technically I did get my "hands dirty" volunteering.
Then came mid December along with freezing temperatures and suckiness, so we got our butts outta there and headed to Florida.
Monday, May 22, 2017
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Becoming Camp Hosts
The day we left the farm was foggy and cool. You could feel the moisture in the air, and you could only see so far ahead of you before it all turned into white nothingness. It made things seem faded, like an eerie filter that changed the way you saw everything. This might have made it a bit harder to drive, but I loved it for some reason.
We had just left the farm and were still a little queasy, but we were all excited to be on the road again, after being parked for so long. We'd stayed at a truck stop or a Walmart the night before, and we were heading towards a campground on the bay, called Lamoine State Park. Supposedly, it was across the water from Acadia National park, with a nice view of Cadillac Mountain.
When we pulled up, we could smell the ocean. I got out, barefoot, and followed my parents across the parking lot to check into the campground. The women in the little building (we'd later come to know her ) was kind, as she checked us in. We had just received our 'business' cards, which explain who we are and what were doing, so my dad gave her one. She seemed surprised, and said we'd be perfect camp hosts. We jumped at the offer (Free camping!) and asked her more about it. She explained it, and it sounded great. Just put in a couple hours a week cleaning bathrooms and chopping firewood, and we could stay for free and get full hook ups (RV slang for water and electricity).
So, we singed up. We'd put in about 22 hours per week, and the work wasn't that hard. everyone except for dad and Teensie did the bathrooms, which was fine because I got to spray everything down with a hose. We also got to chop and bundle wood with a hydraulic wood splitter that could split wood (or your bones) like a knife through butter, which was fun (dangerous) to use. We ended up staying for month or so, and we all loved it.
A couple of my favorite parts about Lamoine:
1. The Bay
You can smell it when you get in the park, the salty, alive, fish gut smell that, somehow, you like. When you walk down, you can see all the boats anchored there, bobbing alone in the green water. They all have a name written on the back, maybe something clever like "Ship Happens", or "Aquaholic". Most of them are lobster boats, what Maine's famous for. When you're able to see what's under the water, it's even cooler. Purple starfish, anemones, hermit crabs, and more line the sea floor. We were able to see all of it when we went in our kayaks to a place called Googen's Ledge. You can only go during low tide, but if you do, it's worth it. It's brimming with sea life.
2. Cadillac Mountain.
If you walk out to the water and look south right before sunset, you can see little car lights slowly moving up a mountain in the distance. They're all tourists going up to see the sunset from the top, and man what a view it is. It's actually the highest point on the east coast, so if you take a (really) early mourning hike up there, you can be the first person in the U.S. to see the sunrise. Don't get me wrong, I did NOT see the sunrise from the top. I can't even get out of bed before eight to eat breakfast, much less get up at four and hike up a mountain. But I can tell you the sunset is amazing from up their. The mountain itself is an island, so when you're looking out, you can see water all around you. The little islands that surround the big Mt. Desert are spread about, seemingly floating in the shiny blue water that reflects the pink sunset. Sometimes the top is in the clouds, and the wisps fly by you, obstructing your view a little, but it's so pretty, you don't even care. Iv'e been up there 5 times, and each time it took my breath away, and I was left in awe.
3. The Tree House
There's a loop trail that circles the campground (which I hiked many times) that leads to a huge tree house in the middle of the woods. It's about 40 feet high and has got a rope that taunts everyone who goes there. We've tried to climb it a lot, and so have our friends and family that visited, but no one's ever succeeded. It leaves you mad and frustrated and you feel like a wimp and the next day, your arms are real sore and they hurt, and you can feel it in your core, and you're tired, and you know what I take it back, I don't like that tree house.
4. The Trees
I don't know if you've ever been to New England in the fall, but if you have, you'd know how freaking amazing the colors are. It seems like it it happens overnight, almost. All the sudden you wake up and the trees are on fire in this amazing way. All of the greens have been replaced with bright reds, maroons, and deep oranges. Just like the fog, it somehow changes everything, making it all a bit more dramatic.
Finally, it just got too frickin cold to be up there any more. There were nights that were under 32 degrees which doesn't work when you live in a school bus. So we left to spend Halloween in Maryland with our friends.
We had just left the farm and were still a little queasy, but we were all excited to be on the road again, after being parked for so long. We'd stayed at a truck stop or a Walmart the night before, and we were heading towards a campground on the bay, called Lamoine State Park. Supposedly, it was across the water from Acadia National park, with a nice view of Cadillac Mountain.
When we pulled up, we could smell the ocean. I got out, barefoot, and followed my parents across the parking lot to check into the campground. The women in the little building (we'd later come to know her ) was kind, as she checked us in. We had just received our 'business' cards, which explain who we are and what were doing, so my dad gave her one. She seemed surprised, and said we'd be perfect camp hosts. We jumped at the offer (Free camping!) and asked her more about it. She explained it, and it sounded great. Just put in a couple hours a week cleaning bathrooms and chopping firewood, and we could stay for free and get full hook ups (RV slang for water and electricity).
So, we singed up. We'd put in about 22 hours per week, and the work wasn't that hard. everyone except for dad and Teensie did the bathrooms, which was fine because I got to spray everything down with a hose. We also got to chop and bundle wood with a hydraulic wood splitter that could split wood (or your bones) like a knife through butter, which was fun (dangerous) to use. We ended up staying for month or so, and we all loved it.
A couple of my favorite parts about Lamoine:
1. The Bay
You can smell it when you get in the park, the salty, alive, fish gut smell that, somehow, you like. When you walk down, you can see all the boats anchored there, bobbing alone in the green water. They all have a name written on the back, maybe something clever like "Ship Happens", or "Aquaholic". Most of them are lobster boats, what Maine's famous for. When you're able to see what's under the water, it's even cooler. Purple starfish, anemones, hermit crabs, and more line the sea floor. We were able to see all of it when we went in our kayaks to a place called Googen's Ledge. You can only go during low tide, but if you do, it's worth it. It's brimming with sea life.
2. Cadillac Mountain.
If you walk out to the water and look south right before sunset, you can see little car lights slowly moving up a mountain in the distance. They're all tourists going up to see the sunset from the top, and man what a view it is. It's actually the highest point on the east coast, so if you take a (really) early mourning hike up there, you can be the first person in the U.S. to see the sunrise. Don't get me wrong, I did NOT see the sunrise from the top. I can't even get out of bed before eight to eat breakfast, much less get up at four and hike up a mountain. But I can tell you the sunset is amazing from up their. The mountain itself is an island, so when you're looking out, you can see water all around you. The little islands that surround the big Mt. Desert are spread about, seemingly floating in the shiny blue water that reflects the pink sunset. Sometimes the top is in the clouds, and the wisps fly by you, obstructing your view a little, but it's so pretty, you don't even care. Iv'e been up there 5 times, and each time it took my breath away, and I was left in awe.
3. The Tree House
There's a loop trail that circles the campground (which I hiked many times) that leads to a huge tree house in the middle of the woods. It's about 40 feet high and has got a rope that taunts everyone who goes there. We've tried to climb it a lot, and so have our friends and family that visited, but no one's ever succeeded. It leaves you mad and frustrated and you feel like a wimp and the next day, your arms are real sore and they hurt, and you can feel it in your core, and you're tired, and you know what I take it back, I don't like that tree house.
4. The Trees
I don't know if you've ever been to New England in the fall, but if you have, you'd know how freaking amazing the colors are. It seems like it it happens overnight, almost. All the sudden you wake up and the trees are on fire in this amazing way. All of the greens have been replaced with bright reds, maroons, and deep oranges. Just like the fog, it somehow changes everything, making it all a bit more dramatic.
Finally, it just got too frickin cold to be up there any more. There were nights that were under 32 degrees which doesn't work when you live in a school bus. So we left to spend Halloween in Maryland with our friends.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
The Farm Where We Reached Total Hippie Status
After exploring Maine a little, we went to our first farm as WWOOFers. WWOOFing stands for Word Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Basically it works like this: people come to a farm to work on things for while, whether it's carpentry, harvesting, you name it, in exchange for a place to sleep and some fresh food. The whole thing is set up through the internet, they've got a whole website and everything. We found out about it through our friends, and it sounded perfect for our trip.
So after a couple months of searching for farms, we found this little family farm somewhere in central Maine, a couple hours from the coast. I had no idea what to expect. I was keeping an open mind about it, but living at a random person's house for a month sounded, well, a little crazy? But my family was excited about it and it started to rub off on me a little. I loved the idea of being closer to the earth for a while. Helping animals, picking vegetables, and spending hours just doing nothing under the Maine trees and the warm August sun.
I did get to do all of these things. They had a lot of rabbits (for meat, sadly), goats, ducks, and 1 chicken named Peeps. It was the cutest little chicken you've ever seen. But anyway, they also had two gardens with carrots, broccoli, green beans, kale, onions, garlic, a lot of beautiful wildflowers, ect. We'd help out everyday or so with the gardens, harvesting the random little plants they needed help with that day.
Mostly, though, we picked blackberries. a TON of blackberries. A thick, menacing, bush the size of a house was just chocked full of sweet berries that'd leave you with purple lips and fingers. We picked for hours until we couldn't fill our buckets any more. Then, the next day, we'd come back and there were just as many as there were before. I swear that bush was enchanted or something, a never ending berry bush.
Also, every day Ella and I would go to the garden, pull out a couple carrots with their long leafy stems, and go the (very spidery) barn, where they kept the bunnies. At first the bunnies were pretty afraid of us, they would hide and jump away when we came in, and only creep out when we were still. Then when we went enough consecutive times, they got used to us, and it was awesome. They were hardly afraid anymore, just excited when we came with our yummy, dirt covered carrots. We'd sit in there for a while just letting them crawl on us, and chew on their food.
As fun as some jobs were, I cannot ignore the fact that there is a brief, slightly unsettling list of other things we experienced at the farm. Here it is:
So after a couple months of searching for farms, we found this little family farm somewhere in central Maine, a couple hours from the coast. I had no idea what to expect. I was keeping an open mind about it, but living at a random person's house for a month sounded, well, a little crazy? But my family was excited about it and it started to rub off on me a little. I loved the idea of being closer to the earth for a while. Helping animals, picking vegetables, and spending hours just doing nothing under the Maine trees and the warm August sun.
I did get to do all of these things. They had a lot of rabbits (for meat, sadly), goats, ducks, and 1 chicken named Peeps. It was the cutest little chicken you've ever seen. But anyway, they also had two gardens with carrots, broccoli, green beans, kale, onions, garlic, a lot of beautiful wildflowers, ect. We'd help out everyday or so with the gardens, harvesting the random little plants they needed help with that day.
Mostly, though, we picked blackberries. a TON of blackberries. A thick, menacing, bush the size of a house was just chocked full of sweet berries that'd leave you with purple lips and fingers. We picked for hours until we couldn't fill our buckets any more. Then, the next day, we'd come back and there were just as many as there were before. I swear that bush was enchanted or something, a never ending berry bush.
Also, every day Ella and I would go to the garden, pull out a couple carrots with their long leafy stems, and go the (very spidery) barn, where they kept the bunnies. At first the bunnies were pretty afraid of us, they would hide and jump away when we came in, and only creep out when we were still. Then when we went enough consecutive times, they got used to us, and it was awesome. They were hardly afraid anymore, just excited when we came with our yummy, dirt covered carrots. We'd sit in there for a while just letting them crawl on us, and chew on their food.
As fun as some jobs were, I cannot ignore the fact that there is a brief, slightly unsettling list of other things we experienced at the farm. Here it is:
- The farm had no shower. And when I say no shower, I mean NO shower. No bath, no little faucets we could wash our hair under, nothing. So mostly, we just went down to the Lake and used some biodegradable soap whenever we got really stinky.
- Their plumbing was broken, so there was no sewage dump for our bus. And we couldn't let our tank overfull, so we couldn't put much into it. Can you see where this is going? Long story short, we all peed in Taco Bell cups for one month straight.
- We ended up getting sick, and I hate to even think about it, but mom said it was probably a parasite. No barfing, but it wasn't the most pleasant. There are a couple possible causes for this: Due to the plumbing fiasco, there was some fecal matter on an area of the farmland, there was duck crap everywhere, and we didn't really know where our water was coming from. Dad's theory is that it wasn't a parasite, our bodies were just rejecting the water which is totally possible. I like that theory a lot better, so lets just say that. Anyway, we all got better when we left.
Overall, I don't regret going to the farm, though. I think it was a good experience, and a part of our path. And hey, it's where we reached total hippie status.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Beginning The Trip
We left Fort Collins the day school got out. Normally, we wouldn't be in a hurry, but my parents had to attend a wedding in Maryland (note: only my parents, no "kids" allowed at this wedding. Still slightly bitter about that, but I'll get over it). Definitely a bummer that I didn't have any time to have any last summer hangouts with my FoCo friends, but it was exciting to be heading out.
The next day, we heard Sand Beach was cool, and the only real sand you could find in Maine, so we went there (something about the way it's shaped makes the rocks crumble more fine than other places, making sand. Despite what my grandpa says about them shipping it up with trucks). When I first got to the beach, the thing that struck me was the light green water that stretched out between two massive cliffs. It reminded me of the keys, or some place tropical where you can see your feet through the crystal water. It was much more rough than the keys, though. The waves crashed against the rocks and made that sound that makes you want to spread out a blanket, put on some sunscreen and forget about everything for a while. So, that's what we did. Then, after a few hours, we packed up our stuff, drove around that darned one way road around the whole island, and went home.
Our first destination was Westminster, MD, not just for the wedding, but to stay there for a month or so. We have many friends there, and it was my first home, so it was the perfect place for me to go after leaving my favorite place in the world and crying my eyes out for a day. The familiar people and places in Maryland totally made me feel better about leaving, so it was great.
There were other little places we went before and after MD just to visit family, like Ohio, Tennessee, and Vermont and they were great, and I'm so glad I got to see so many people I love, but overall they were pretty uneventful and totally unblogworthy. So let's skip to the real adventure, to the first place we went just cause we wanted to. Maine.
We chose New England because it's gorgeous, there's lots of fun stuff to do there, me and my sister have never been, and LABSTAH. My parents said they loved Acadia National Park, so it's where we went first. Driving into Maine, the woods were thick and the air was warm but crisp, not at all like the muggy, humid air in the more southern states we had been in for so long. The Visitor's center said the Sand Bar to Bar Island right off the town of Bar Harbor was a must do (Man that's a lot of 'Bar's), but there was only a short period of time every day to go, because of the tides, so we left our dog and bus in the parking lot, and headed for Bar Harbor on a shuttle.
Before going to the sand Bar, I'd never really thought about the lunar tides, and I didn't know how drastic they were, or could be. But after we walked down the quaint little streets of Bar Harbor, passing by seaside shops, smelling the fresh caught steamed lobster, and hearing the honks of the ships in the bay, we reached the sand bar and I knew just how much power the moon had over the water.
There was a stretch of land that connected the beach to an island. It was maybe a quarter mile long, and a couple hundred feet wide. The "sand" (whoever named it Sand Bar had a very loose definition of sand) was white because of all the sea shells and little pieces of rock. We walked out on to it, our feet a bit wet. It was weird thinking that all of it would be totally submerged within a matter of hours. As we explored the bar, finding little creatures and seashells, I tried to imagine what it was like under water, to look up at the sun through the murk and the seaweed.
The next day, we heard Sand Beach was cool, and the only real sand you could find in Maine, so we went there (something about the way it's shaped makes the rocks crumble more fine than other places, making sand. Despite what my grandpa says about them shipping it up with trucks). When I first got to the beach, the thing that struck me was the light green water that stretched out between two massive cliffs. It reminded me of the keys, or some place tropical where you can see your feet through the crystal water. It was much more rough than the keys, though. The waves crashed against the rocks and made that sound that makes you want to spread out a blanket, put on some sunscreen and forget about everything for a while. So, that's what we did. Then, after a few hours, we packed up our stuff, drove around that darned one way road around the whole island, and went home.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
From Fort Collins House to Hippie Bus
We first moved to from Maryland/Pennsylvania to Colorado in the summer of 2010. I was only 8 at the time, so I don't remember being too involved in the decision of moving, and I'm sure if it was all up to me, I would have opposed. It sounded pretty scary, as you can imagine, packing up and heading out to a place I've never been to. Basically starting over in life; new house, new friends, new town, new business. But, it was best for the family, my parents had decided. The law was more loose out there, more places to park and sell food. Even though Big Bear's Bus Cafe didn't end up working out, We would all agree that FoCo was a total win.
It's impossible to explain my entire 6 year experience of living in Colorado in one paragraph, but I'll try to sum it all up quick and spare you some boredom. During our time there, we lived at two different houses, and went to two different schools (I guess my sister went to three). We found our people, found new jobs after we moved on from the bus, and found our place there quickly. My parents loved the friendly environment and the general love of biking and beer there. I loved my school, and made good friends. Basically, stuff happened. It was great. By the end of 8th grade, I was really sad to go.
The thing that made me most sad about leaving were the people and my school. The charter school, Polaris Expeditionary learning was, I'm not kidding here, really dope. I called the few awesome teachers I had by their first names, and made student teacher connections like no others. The students there were incredibly accepting of all races, religions, sexuality, gender expressions, and bullying was a very uncommon thing. The schools principle was "Crew not passenger" so you can imagine it was very hands on. We would have field trip weeks called intensives 3 times a year, where we would stop all regular classes and focus on one thing, for instance cooking, painting, hiking, camping in Moab. Students got to pick what they wanted to do. So, I had a real fun time there, and learned more than I would have at any other school. I had been in a class of about 45 students for 3 years, and we had spent so much time together. I made amazing friends through the years and I miss every one of them so much it's hard to describe. But hey, when adventure calls you gotta answer.
The transition from bus to house was hard but in some ways, liberating. I feel like Americans are always consuming. Buy, buy, buy, and fill your house with fancy junk you don't need. When you move onto a 270 square feet school bus, you realize how much of your stuff is junk. Now the clothes, that was hard. I had to fit my dresser and closet filling collection of clothes into two drawers. I got rid of maybe half of what I had before, though, which surprised me and my family. I also went from a queen sized bed to a... uh... very tiny sized custom couch cushion bed in a VW, which wasn't easy either. We all had to sacrifice to move on to the bus, but it was stress relieving.
Overall, leaving Fort Collins was the hardest thing I've ever done, but the opportunity to travel America and do what I love to do on life is impossible to pass up.
It's impossible to explain my entire 6 year experience of living in Colorado in one paragraph, but I'll try to sum it all up quick and spare you some boredom. During our time there, we lived at two different houses, and went to two different schools (I guess my sister went to three). We found our people, found new jobs after we moved on from the bus, and found our place there quickly. My parents loved the friendly environment and the general love of biking and beer there. I loved my school, and made good friends. Basically, stuff happened. It was great. By the end of 8th grade, I was really sad to go.
The thing that made me most sad about leaving were the people and my school. The charter school, Polaris Expeditionary learning was, I'm not kidding here, really dope. I called the few awesome teachers I had by their first names, and made student teacher connections like no others. The students there were incredibly accepting of all races, religions, sexuality, gender expressions, and bullying was a very uncommon thing. The schools principle was "Crew not passenger" so you can imagine it was very hands on. We would have field trip weeks called intensives 3 times a year, where we would stop all regular classes and focus on one thing, for instance cooking, painting, hiking, camping in Moab. Students got to pick what they wanted to do. So, I had a real fun time there, and learned more than I would have at any other school. I had been in a class of about 45 students for 3 years, and we had spent so much time together. I made amazing friends through the years and I miss every one of them so much it's hard to describe. But hey, when adventure calls you gotta answer.
The transition from bus to house was hard but in some ways, liberating. I feel like Americans are always consuming. Buy, buy, buy, and fill your house with fancy junk you don't need. When you move onto a 270 square feet school bus, you realize how much of your stuff is junk. Now the clothes, that was hard. I had to fit my dresser and closet filling collection of clothes into two drawers. I got rid of maybe half of what I had before, though, which surprised me and my family. I also went from a queen sized bed to a... uh... very tiny sized custom couch cushion bed in a VW, which wasn't easy either. We all had to sacrifice to move on to the bus, but it was stress relieving.
Overall, leaving Fort Collins was the hardest thing I've ever done, but the opportunity to travel America and do what I love to do on life is impossible to pass up.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
The Bus Story
You might be wondering how and why the heck my family lives on a bus. Believe it or not, the big school bus I call home actually started out as a food truck.
My father bought the bus in 2007 after being laid off from his full time construction job. When he was young, he and his buddies did about the same thing as I'm doing now, which is traveling around America on a converted school bus. Except his was painted with bright colors, and didn't have the top half of a 70's VW on it. His romance with school buses had already budded. That was a part of his decision to convert one into a food truck, but another part was that he and my mother wanted a business where they could give back in some way. So they decided that for every sandwich bought, they would donate a meal to a family in a third world country through the 'Meal for Meal' program.
The food truck was called "Big Bear's Bus Cafe".(This name originated from when Dad worked at an Olive Garden in El Paso, Texas with my mom. One of the cooks would call him Oso Grande, you can guess what that means.)
All sorts of items were on the Bus Cafe menu, from smoothies, to pulled pork sandwiches, to grilled paninis, burritos, coffee, cheesecake, pretty much anything they knew how to cook well. They weren't master chefs or anything, but the food was petty good as I can recall. I was only 8 at the time, but I remember coming home from school and eating the yummiest chicken pesto sandwiches.
Our signature sandwich was the "Bikini Panini" - grilled chicken, mango chutney, grilled onions, curry powder, and cayenne pepper on italian bread, cooked in olive oil, and seared on a panini grill. We were even featured in a news article for it.
The bus was fun for my parents and for me, but it was clear that it wasn't a sustainable way to live. They were working too hard with too little pay - hardly enough to cover the living cost of two people, much less a family. So they shut it down and found work elsewhere.
Though the bus wasn't in use any more, we still kept it around. Even when we moved houses, we still found a way to keep her. I have a feeling dad had a secret plan to live in it someday, even if we didn't know about it.
After about 5 years of living full time in Fort Collins (taking the occasional small trip on the bus to visit family), we took a trip just for the sake of taking a trip. In summer 2015, we traveled up the coast of California, seeing the Redwoods, San Francisco, the Pacific North West, ect. At this time, the bus wasn't in the best condition. It still had some of the old kitchen parts from when she was a restaurant, and the words "Big Bear's Bus Cafe" were painted on the side along with a smiley bear holding a spatula. We just put a bed in it and made it a bit more livable.
But even when the bus was like that, the trip to California was arguably the best time of my life. The beauty of the coast and the trees, the feeling of family and love, the freedom of it all, it was medicine for me. It was real.
Without the Cali trip, we would never have moved onto the bus, because afterward, the idea of full time travel was in all of our minds. Mom and dad would always joke about them moving onto the bus after my sis and I were grown up. One of the times they had been talking about it, I asked them,
"Why can't we just move onto the bus now?" I'm pretty sure Dad responded with,
"Well, Why not?"
From there, we started planning and discussing the idea non stop. After we all put out our needs for the living space (mine were my own room and a sizable living room area), we'd draw little blue prints of the design for the bus. We had the idea of not having a hallway, putting the living room in the back, all kinds of design ideas.
It soon became clear to us that the bus how it was wasn't really gonna be enough for a family of four on it's own. So after the discussing pop up tents, a whole other camper on top, and many ideas of way to get more space, one of us thought of putting another bus on top, to act as a loft. Only, not a school bus, a small VW bus. This space would be used to sleep in. My and my sisters bed. We all loved it and started searching immediately for the right VW.
Dad found the right one at a junk yard in our town. It didn't run and had missing parts, but it didn't matter - we only needed the top half. It was decided. An orange 73 VW bus, would be my bed.
My dad and his friends spent a coupe days at the junk yard. They put on some music and cut the thing in half with a Sawzall. Then they welded to the top of our school bus and the new bus was born.
There was still a lot of work to be done with the interior, though. Dad spent six months getting her to where she is now. Installing walls, couches, a kitchen, two bedrooms,and more.
After a year of discussing, planning, brainstorming, building,and constructing the bus, she was done, and what a beauty she was. When it had flooring, curtains, recessed lighting, covers on the beds and all the small details of a house, it was incredible. The first time I walked into the complete version, I grinned so hard, and couldn't stop. I was amazed at what she'd turned into.
The bus, for the first time, felt like home.
My father bought the bus in 2007 after being laid off from his full time construction job. When he was young, he and his buddies did about the same thing as I'm doing now, which is traveling around America on a converted school bus. Except his was painted with bright colors, and didn't have the top half of a 70's VW on it. His romance with school buses had already budded. That was a part of his decision to convert one into a food truck, but another part was that he and my mother wanted a business where they could give back in some way. So they decided that for every sandwich bought, they would donate a meal to a family in a third world country through the 'Meal for Meal' program.
The food truck was called "Big Bear's Bus Cafe".(This name originated from when Dad worked at an Olive Garden in El Paso, Texas with my mom. One of the cooks would call him Oso Grande, you can guess what that means.)
All sorts of items were on the Bus Cafe menu, from smoothies, to pulled pork sandwiches, to grilled paninis, burritos, coffee, cheesecake, pretty much anything they knew how to cook well. They weren't master chefs or anything, but the food was petty good as I can recall. I was only 8 at the time, but I remember coming home from school and eating the yummiest chicken pesto sandwiches.
Our signature sandwich was the "Bikini Panini" - grilled chicken, mango chutney, grilled onions, curry powder, and cayenne pepper on italian bread, cooked in olive oil, and seared on a panini grill. We were even featured in a news article for it.
The bus was fun for my parents and for me, but it was clear that it wasn't a sustainable way to live. They were working too hard with too little pay - hardly enough to cover the living cost of two people, much less a family. So they shut it down and found work elsewhere.
Though the bus wasn't in use any more, we still kept it around. Even when we moved houses, we still found a way to keep her. I have a feeling dad had a secret plan to live in it someday, even if we didn't know about it.
After about 5 years of living full time in Fort Collins (taking the occasional small trip on the bus to visit family), we took a trip just for the sake of taking a trip. In summer 2015, we traveled up the coast of California, seeing the Redwoods, San Francisco, the Pacific North West, ect. At this time, the bus wasn't in the best condition. It still had some of the old kitchen parts from when she was a restaurant, and the words "Big Bear's Bus Cafe" were painted on the side along with a smiley bear holding a spatula. We just put a bed in it and made it a bit more livable.
But even when the bus was like that, the trip to California was arguably the best time of my life. The beauty of the coast and the trees, the feeling of family and love, the freedom of it all, it was medicine for me. It was real.
Without the Cali trip, we would never have moved onto the bus, because afterward, the idea of full time travel was in all of our minds. Mom and dad would always joke about them moving onto the bus after my sis and I were grown up. One of the times they had been talking about it, I asked them,
"Why can't we just move onto the bus now?" I'm pretty sure Dad responded with,
"Well, Why not?"
From there, we started planning and discussing the idea non stop. After we all put out our needs for the living space (mine were my own room and a sizable living room area), we'd draw little blue prints of the design for the bus. We had the idea of not having a hallway, putting the living room in the back, all kinds of design ideas.
It soon became clear to us that the bus how it was wasn't really gonna be enough for a family of four on it's own. So after the discussing pop up tents, a whole other camper on top, and many ideas of way to get more space, one of us thought of putting another bus on top, to act as a loft. Only, not a school bus, a small VW bus. This space would be used to sleep in. My and my sisters bed. We all loved it and started searching immediately for the right VW.
Dad found the right one at a junk yard in our town. It didn't run and had missing parts, but it didn't matter - we only needed the top half. It was decided. An orange 73 VW bus, would be my bed.
My dad and his friends spent a coupe days at the junk yard. They put on some music and cut the thing in half with a Sawzall. Then they welded to the top of our school bus and the new bus was born.
There was still a lot of work to be done with the interior, though. Dad spent six months getting her to where she is now. Installing walls, couches, a kitchen, two bedrooms,and more.
After a year of discussing, planning, brainstorming, building,and constructing the bus, she was done, and what a beauty she was. When it had flooring, curtains, recessed lighting, covers on the beds and all the small details of a house, it was incredible. The first time I walked into the complete version, I grinned so hard, and couldn't stop. I was amazed at what she'd turned into.
The bus, for the first time, felt like home.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Introduction
Hi, I'm Charity, your favorite 14 year old traveler! Since my family and I live on a double-decker bus and travel around America since May 26, (and becuase this is a great way to earn 9th grade English roadschool credits) I (being forced by my mother) have decided to write a blog on my experiences living full time on the road. Entries will include details of places we go, people we meet, food we eat, what it's like to live on a bus, and my everyday random 14 year old thoughts. Stay updated for a fill in on my trip so far, (Colorado, Ohio, Maryland, Tennessee, Vermont and Maine).
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