We have LAUNCHED! Having shed the last of our cars and possessions, and made our tour bus home, we are on the road at last. Our first ten days take us down to our new base of operations in the great state of Texas. Taking the southern route, we will pass through many of the great southern cities: Chattanooga, Birmingham, and Jackson to name a few. I was raised by Deep South parents in a Deep South home. I am on a personal mission to find a cat head biscuit and sorghum along the way just for a taste of my childhood.
Living in and driving the tour bus every day is a great chance to find everything wrong with it in short order. She needs a lot of love. So far we have about 60 items to address, some small and some large. I am blessed with Rueben who is not only the love of my life but adores fixing mechanical and electrical things. He is single-handedly repairing things as we go. Some bigger issues that require a bus lift will have to wait for the experts in Dallas / Ft Worth and some significant investment from our repair fund.
Meanwhile, we are taking the trip slowly, averaging four hours a day on the road and trading off drivers so that we both get plenty of experience driving the bus in all conditions. I really like driving the bus! It’s mostly exciting and a small fraction terrifying.
The reality of our total freedom has not yet set in. We are not beholden to anyone for anything. We do only the projects that we want to do. We are masters of our own schedule. Our biggest challenge is deciding where we want to go and what we want to do. It’s a really great problem to have. So our first destination will be DFW where we can find better weather, become official Texans and more importantly, find a diesel mechanic, Prevost service center and Marathon service center all within a few minutes of each other to give this bus a couple of weeks worth of spa treatments to get her back up to her original glory.
