White Bus Black Dog

Ten and four days to go until we hit the road. Since my last entry we’ve knocked a few things off of the list:

- clean the bus (partially)
- undercoat the bus
- fix a bunch of rust holes on the bus
- make a steadicam, based on this guy’s DIY design
- collect some waste vegetable oil
- build a rocket stove (we’re about half way done this task)

We also picked up a few more tidbits required to build our wind turbine, so we hope to be able to get going on that job shortly.

While sifting through an online classifieds board, we found an old metal tripod for $10, which we figured would beat the hell out of those cheap plastic ones that the photography stores try to sell you for $60. We were right; you could use this thing as a backup jack for changing tires on a car.

This morning I’m trying to decide which books to bring along with me on the trip. The bus isn’t very big, so we’ll need to streamline. We have been considering suspending a shelf from the roof to keep an extra square foot or so of floor space free for whatever else we end up bringing. We built a big, freestanding bookshelf last summer out of an old door that we found on the side of the road, so you’d think we’d be feeling more prepared to build another shelf. Nope.

Here are some photos from the last day or two. We’re making a video of the rocket stove construction, so that should be posted in the next couple of days.

On a darker note, I’ve had that Ace of Base song, “The Sign” stuck in my head all morning. Ridiculous. It’s like I’m in the fifth grade again.

Well, we’re filling a school bus outside our door. We’ve got ten and six days to go.
We’ve got old grease buckets stood all over the floor. We’ve got ten and five days to go…

As the days leading up to our bus trip rear up and then roll on by, my thoughts are manic, jumping from task to task, while in my head I keep singing that Shel Silverstein-penned song, “25 Minutes to go,” except with trip-related lyrics.

In my head, Bethany, Johnny Cash, Ed Vedder and I are singing the song together, on a little stage in the back corner of a dive with a linoleum floor and rows of antlers on the wall. There are a bunch of people at the bar, and each time I look up at one of them, he or she yells out something that I need to do before we can leave on our bus trip:

“Install a damn solar panel!”
“Filter some of that there grease!”
“Pack yer bags, sucker!”

But we keep singing, me and my imaginary band mates. It actually sounds pretty good, despite the stress in my voice, which manifests itself in some bum notes here and there. Cash and Vedder have been pretty understanding, conveying their collective annoyance by way of little more than a glare or two now and then.

In sixteen days, Bethany and I are planning to climb onto the bus and hit the road. Sixteen days! May 1st is our planned departure date. While workers are putting paces to asphalt in the beautifully politicized places of the world, we’ll be searching them out, pouring pails of waste vegetable oil into our grease tank as we wheel down the road. It’s exciting, and yet, in my mind May Day has shimmied itself together into one word: mayday!

There is still a hell of a lot to do. Our apartment is a messy, dog hair-infested stink hole. Take a look:

But we know what we need to do. Whether or not there will be enough time to do it all is another story entirely. Here is a brief rundown on the tasks at hand, taken from a list I’ve posted on our kitchen wall (in blood!):

- clean bus
- build bed
- build wind turbine
- buy solar panel
- change motor oil in bus
- get the bus a tune-up
- connect the turbine and solar panel to the battery bank
- finish selling all remaining non-essential possessions
- get an inverter
- clean apartment for incoming sub-letters
- build rocket stove
- finish wage labour
- finish our website/blog
- spray undercoating onto the underside of the bus
- pack
- do all of the other important things we’ve been too busy to remember to list

But all is not lost. Yesterday we scrounged together the remaining items required to make our wind turbine; today we build the rocket stove; I can see the glimmering gold aura around a May landscape at the end of the tunnel of wage labour.

Still, we’ve got ten and six days to go, and before we know it, we’ll be singing about ten and three days … ten and two days … only three days to go! So, I must leave you. It’s time to go spray undercoating onto the underside of the bus. Yee hoo! Sing me out, Mr. Cash: