OK, and now, without further ado, check out our bus renovations!

CLICK HERE FOR VLOG!!!

Here is it: our Vlog tour of our Big Blue Bus.

Here we go!

Big Blue, our 2001 Freightliner shuttle bus.

Check out our massive awning! It doubles our living space!

Welcome to our home-on-wheels.  Please, come inside.

We replaced the double bus doors with this salvaged RV door. Most recently, Bruno added the electrical outlet to the right of the door so that we can plug into mains electricity when we have the opportunity.

This is the first view of our home from the door.  Notice the bookshelf, the three portraits I purchased from Thailand (there is storage space behind those portraits) and the bright African patterned curtains and cushions that we found in Bruno’s mom’s basement a couple years ago.

To the right is the cabin where Bruno and I sit when we drive.  As with most busses, we don’t have a separate doorway to get to the cab, so we do a bit of gymnastics and climb over the engine (the big, black, bulky mass in the center) to get to our seats.  Originally there was only the driver’s seat, so we had a passenger seat installed for me.  We have yet to create a window that opens on my side, but I look forward to the day we do!

Sorry about the mess.  This section of the bus also serves as our garage when we’re parked somewhere, and now that we have a baby, his big toys and car seat go up there, too, so it’s even more messy!

Instead of the mess, may I draw your attention to the lovely map collages I created using simple Modge Podge?

Anyway, don’t forget to take off your coat and shoes before you come in.  We’ve made a space just to the right of the door especially for those items.

Here’s a closer look at Bruno simple, homemade design.

Ok, welcome!  Here are a couple of overall views of our living space, and heart of our home – the kitchen and dining room!  We chose to use as much wood as possible, opting for a darker wood for the floor (this was a mistake – it shows all the dirt!) and stringing warm LED lights along the side (complete with dimmer switches!).  We have a fan on the ceiling (and one in the bedroom and another in the cabin).

Now, let’s look a little more closely at the details of the space.

Here is the entryway, with a lovely portrait offered to me by good family friends before I left on my first adventure in Senegal.  It’s also where we hang our keys and broom.  Behind is our stovetop and oven, also purchased at a salvage shop. It’s pretty exciting to live in a bus and have an oven!  (Though now that I have a baby, an oven is going to get considerably less use…).

Here’s a closer look at my lovely stovetop.  Underneath we have some sneaky storage and also the output for our Herber Spacher heater.

A closer look at our stovetop, also purchased at a salvage shop. I have an OVEN! This appliance is connected to gas which is outside in homemade storage boxes.

On the same side of the kitchen we have some great Ikea cabinets.  They are very practical for easily storing and locating items, but they are, admittedly, not the most efficient use of space.

In this photo, you can see my lovely wood countertop, our gigantic fruit and vegetable basket, and a homemade upper kitchen cabinet with our makeshift spice rack underneath.  Special thanks to a dear family friend for bringing a little bit of le Petit Prince into our new home.

A close-up view of our makeshift spice rack, nailed to the underside of our upper cabinet. Thank you, Pinterest!

On the other side of the kitchen we have a smaller countertop, with our amazing (and amazingly expensive) fridge, a massive kitchen sink, a homemade medicine cabinet, our paper towel rack, and a little rack for my seed sprouters!  I also love that we have a solar-powered Himalayan salt lamp in our bus!

An interior view of my one-of-a-kind hand-crafted medicine cabinet! After five years in Totoyaya, we finally have a mirror!

On the other side of our kitchen sink is our dining room table.  Underneath the benches we have storage bins.  Over the winter, Bruno adapted this area so that the table lowers to the level of the benches and the backward-facing bench houses Phoenix’ car seat.  I’ll show you a photo of that in our next blog post.

Overtop our dining room is our library.  I mean, seriously, what RV out there has a library?!?!?

The next section of our home is the bathroom.  The bathroom door can open and rest on the walls separating the living area from the bathroom/bedroom, which has proven very useful when Phoenix is taking his naps in the back.  Note the sand artwork I picked up over a decade ago in Senegal!

Behind those walls are the shower (on the left), the toilet (on the right) and the bedroom in the back.

Here is the shower.  On the other side of the wall is a gas water heater, which means we actually have hot showers!  Also, this shower is luxuriously big for an RV!  (Since this photo, we have actually installed a shower caddy for our shampoo, soap, etc. which is really nice).

We used a shower base from Home Depot and built the shower walls around it.

Opposite the shower is our dry toilet, which we made ourselves.  We bought a Separett toilet seat, which separates the liquids from the solids), and the soilets drop into a bucket that contains sawdust.  Then we cover the solids with more saw dust.  There’s a little fan in the compartment to aid with ventilation.  Above the toilet is a shelf containing Phoenix’ cloth diapers, and below that, another piece of artwork from Thailand (I love the fact that I’m finally able to showcase the art I’ve collected over the years.

I love Bruno’s mood lighting.

One day I will certainly write a blog post on our experience with this toilet system, but for now suffice to say that I underestimated the dimensions needed to comfortably manoeuver inside!

And now, the bedroom.  Here’s the “hallway” when the bathroom door is closed.  The shower is on the left and the toilet on the right.

We have a double bed with tons of storage compartments, as well as a 200L water tank, underneath.  On either side of the bed are night tables with more storage, and mini-closets for clothes.  On the right of the bed is Phoenix’ side-car crib, which he is fast outgrowing.  We will soon need to build him a new bed… somewhere.

If you’re sitting on the bed looking forward at the rest of the house, this is the view.  On the left are some solar energy regulators and on the right, the gas water heater.  There are also a few silly framed collages gifted to me from Bruno over the years.

Speaking of solar energy, here is the mass of electricity-related stuff that Bruno has in a compartment over the entrance door.  It looks like a mess, but he knows where everything is and he’s amazing with energy.  We love our three solar panels on the roof, and our two solar batteries under the bed.

Well, that’s about it!  I am so, so, so proud of Bruno for building this home-on-wheels for us.  He has logged hundreds upon hundreds of hours on this thing, but I am so impressed with his work (I think he is, too!).  Bruno has no formal training in any of the trades needed along the way, but somehow he always managed to make my ideas come to life.  Love you, Bruno!

Hope you enjoyed the tour of our Big Blue Bus!

The fun thing is that I’m actually writing this three weeks before my due date (trying to get ahead on a few posts in order to buy myself a blog-free February), so I have no clue yet if baby will have already been born, whether he/she will come today (statistically only a 5% chance of that!), or whether I’ll be waiting another week or two.  Oh, the mystery…

Waiting for baby!

Our friend and neighbor took these of us just before Christmas. Out back behind my parents’ home and beach.

In the meantime, Bruno and I have definitely been keeping busy.  There’s so much to prepare before baby’s arrival that I truly don’t know how couples who work full-time manage!  What follows is a brief description of what Bruno and I have been up to since moving into our rental home in Bayfield, Nova Scotia, and how we have been getting ready for our bundle’s arrival:

Bruno, the Bus Renovator

Bruno’s days have mostly revolved around renovations inside our Big Blue Bus.  When we left on our road trip from Mexico to the east coast of Canada last spring, our bus was liveable but definitely not finished.  With a busy family-oriented summer and two months in France, Bruno couldn’t manage to psyche himself up to continuing our bus renovations this fall.

Something about the impending arrival of a baby changed that.  There were, after all, a few essential adaptions we needed to make in Big Blue before we set out next spring with baby-in-tow.

The logistics of working inside Big Blue weren’t super simple, of course, with winter temperatures upon us.  Our Herber-Spacher heating system is not designed for sub-zero temperatures in such a large space, and our bus’ big windows didn’t help, either.  Bruno parked the bus literally right outside the front door of the house, to protect the bus from ocean wind, to be able to hook up to our house’s mains electricity, and also to make the outdoor to-and-from journey as short as possible!

Our Big Blue Bus parked JUST outside the front door of our rental home.

Trying to keep the bus warm using a combination of cardboard insulation and space heaters.

Good ting Bruno has the workshop in the basement – it allows him to warm up after being out in the bus!

Still, even after temporarily insulating and closing off most windows and adding an electric space heater, the temperature inside the bus was far from ideal.  Thankfully, we had a mild early December, so Bruno worked full-tilt inside Big Blue.

The essential tasks?

1. Install baby’s car seat. Our bus only has two seats (and one of them we installed ourselves), so we had to figure out a workable arrangement for baby.  After toying around with several different options, we settled on installing a rear-facing car seat at our kitchen table.  Bruno found a system that quickly lowers our table to bench-height, and he installed heavy-duty straps to the chassis of the vehicle.  I found a car seat that has a small enough base to fit into our tight space, and, most importantly, that can be installed and removed in about a minute (thank goodness for the Click-Tight system!).  This way, we can lower the table and install the car seat when we’re about to hit the road, and remove the car seat when we set up camp, allowing us to use our kitchen table as before.  A simple solution, but one that did take quite a bit of time to figure out!
2. Build a baby bed. This, too, involved a whole lot of thinking, mainly because we needed to decide what sleep philosophy we would adopt for our baby and where we could build a bed that would least limit our evening use of our limited living quarters.  In the end, we have found only a temporary solution, but at least it will get us through the first few months in the bus.  Bruno has built a “side-car bed,” which is essentially a mini-crib with three walls that gets pushed up against my side of the bed.  My hope is that this will make night-time breastfeeding less disruptive.  Bruno’s bed design is currently at the correct height for the bed in our rental home, and then we will cut down the legs when we move out and spend a few weeks with my parents in New Brunswick.  When we move into the bus, we will remove the legs entirely, as well as one of the walls, and install the bed on a wooden platform beside my side of the bed in the bus.  I found a mattress that fits between the bed and the bus wall perfectly (not easy to find!) and Bruno has rigged up a way for us to remove the bed platform during the day so we can still access our bedside storage space.  We’ll see how it works in practice, but in theory it seems like a pretty good temporary solution!
3. Install window screens. Though not directly baby-related, the fact of the matter is that we plan to spend time in buggy warm climates next summer, and need to protect baby (and ourselves!) from mosquitoes and other critters.  With our massive, odd-shaped windows, it took us a lot of time to find a window screen system that would work (and that wouldn’t break the bank).  Eventually, Bruno found some screens in France, which he had me bring back on the airplane in November.  It still took him the better part of a week to install them (as with everything in the bus, the job involved much tweaking and problem-solving), but they’re up!

Car seat installed!

Bruno working on the baby bed in the basement workshop.

And there’s the baby bed, ready to go in our bedroom upstairs!

And here’s the workspace when the window screens were being installed. Dear me, the bus is a mess!   (Check out the strip lights Bruno installed this fall!)

Bruno scrambled to get those tasks complete before the true winter freeze set in.  He was very grateful for the workshop in the basement of our rental home, both because it allowed him to warm up a bit, and because he had the tools and space to build the bed and make cuts to the window screens.

After the holidays, with a few weeks left to kill before baby’s arrival, I convinced Bruno to work on a few more bus-related projects that, though not essential, will be much-appreciated come spring when we hit the road again.  He has installed my spice jars under my kitchen cabinet, created a ledge in the bathroom for diapers (and installed lights in the bathroom, too!), and built a custom medicine cabinet for our toiletries.

Installing my spice jars.

Bruno building a medicine cabinet!

Looking good, gonna be installed on the wall once the mirror is glued inside.

Our future diaper storage area in the bathroom, with some very nice lighting! Good work, Bruno!

Those tasks, in combination with the lights he installed in September and the awning we had installed while we were in France, mean that Big Blue is a few steps closer to being totally complete!

Brittany, the Nesting Mama

With Bruno in bus renovation mode, I’ve settled into my role of preparing for baby’s arrival.  Some of this has involved practical tasks, like finishing all the essential shopping for baby stuff (thank you to all those who contributed to make these purchases possible!), getting the car seat installed by a certified car seat technician (boy, did I learn a lot!), and packing my hospital bag (which, in my case, has involved a lot of mixing of essential oils, haha!).  I have also prepped our diaper station, organized and put away baby’s clothing, and looked into things like family doctors, travel insurance, and baby’s first passport.

Of course, I’ve taken time to nest, too.  As I write this, I have a full month’s worth of home-cooked meals in the freezer, ready for weeks of post-partum healthy eating (thank you to dad for all your help, and to Bruno for the homemade bread!).  I have been reading up on breastfeeding, baby sleep, and general baby care to arm myself with as much knowledge as possible post-partum.  I have made sure to take care of my body with yoga classes, walks, and lap swimming and gym-going at the facilities at St. Francis Xavier University.  Though I haven’t has as much time to rest and relax as I’d hoped, I have made time for an almost-nightly bath.

Reading up on baby stuff from one of the only positions I’m comfortable in.

OK, I’m pretty comfortable in this position, too. Almost-nightly baths with my Hypnobirthing Relaxation on the speaker.

Look at Bruno’s beautiful bread!

The reason I haven’t had too much time to relax is that I created a pretty big project for myself – to go through the 30-odd boxes I had stored in my parents’ crawl space since moving to Zimbabwe seven years ago.  I’d like to cut down the amount of belongings I return to them this spring, so I have painstakingly gone through each box, determined which few items I want to hold onto, and tried to sell, gift or donate the rest.  That last part – the effort for my stuff not to end up in landfills – has been the most time-consuming part of the project.  The fact is, we live in a society filled with so much cheap stuff that few people bother to purchase used, and few organizations want more influx of donated goods.  My efforts have partially paid off, but with baby due to arrive any day, I don’t think I will manage to finish this project, unfortunately.  Sorry, mom!

Going through old books. Donated most of them.

Going through old CDs was a slightly more emotional process. They’ve gotta go, but to whom?

Preparing for Baby Together

Bruno and I took a Hypnobirthing Pre-Natal class this fall/winter, and we have continued practicing the techniques we learned in that class to make labor and birth as smooth as possible.  We have also been visiting the midwives every week or two.  Last week, we began taking a pre-natal class offered by a local NGO, Kids’ First, and next weekend we are taking a two-day CPR and First Aid course.  We also interviewed a few potential doulas, and have chosen one – Jenny Delaney – who will be with us for physical and emotional support throughout our labour.

Finishing our hypnobirthing pre-natal class last month.

Groceries and errands in town FAR too often. At least they have reserved parking for pregnant ladies!

Last, but definitely not least, we made time just before Christmas to have a professional maternity photo session.  I am SO excited about the results of the session that I can’t help but share a few photos here.

The maternity photos are taken, the meals are prepped, the bus is ready(ish).  I’d say we’re about ready for baby to arrive!  Now we just have to wait and wonder when that day will be!

I sure didn’t.  Up until a few months ago, all I knew was a placed called Phoenix.  Since my birth, fifteen years ago, I had lived there, shuttling retirees around the wide, straight city streets and trying to stay cool in the sweltering desert sun.

When I was auctioned off to a truck salvage, I made my peace.  I’d lived a good life, been well-maintained, rarely driven, kept spotless.  Fifteen years was a good run for a shuttle bus, I’d heard, and I was ready for my parts to go to greater, younger things.

Then Bruno and Brittany came along.  This strange, young couple visited me a few times, measuring my interior and testing out my mechanics.  When they bought me, I assumed it was for parts, as they immediately began disassembling my seats and air conditioning unit.  I said my final prayers.

This is me.

Bruno and Brittany bought me from a truck salvage dealership, where I had recently been sent after being auctioned off.

My interior – 15 years of shuttling senior citizens around Phoenix.

And then, all of a sudden, I was being cleaned from top to bottom.  My oils were being changed, my transmission replaced, my interior filled with beautiful, new furniture.  Over the course of a few months, I watched as my interior slowly transformed into a house-on-wheels – a house, I could only imagine, for Brittany and Bruno.

I still had no clue what would soon be in store.  I had no clue that I would leave Arizona, let alone the United States of America.

And suddenly, I was in a whole new country where people spoke a fast-paced staccato language I couldn’t understand, and where the air was cool and humid and salty.

I thought this was my new home.  I thought my new job was to bring Bruno along the mercilessly bumpy roads into town each day, avoiding vehicles that whizzed through stop signs and into intersections.  Despite the roads and the strange language, I liked that Bruno and Brittany slept inside me.  It made me feel less alone.

I thought this was my new home by the sea in Baja California, Mexico.

I thought my new job was to take Bruno to this place every day for work.

Bruno kitted me out with a bunch of new furniture, he and Brittany started sleeping inside me, and I guess I became a home-on-wheels.

Just as I was becoming used to living by this salty thing called an ocean, Bruno drove me away, with Brittany beside him.  We were back home, in Phoenix.  Back to American Truck Salvage.  I guessed I’d just been on what humans sometimes call a holiday, and that now I was returning to my true home and sad fate.

Then something even stranger happened.  We passed through Phoenix and kept driving north.  I wasn’t sure why we were doing this – and I admit, I may have shut off my engine a few times on the highway north of Phoenix in confusion and protest – but Bruno urged me slowly onwards.

Boy oh boy, have I seen things since then!  I experienced my first forest, and my first morning of frost.  It was cold yet strangely beautiful, and for the first time, the warm rays of the sun were a welcome relief.

I experienced my first canyon – and apparently it’s the grandest one of all.  I thought I was big, but that canyon made me feel tiny!

I experienced my first mountains, those monstrous snowy peaks that made me feel as small as the canyon did.  I worked hard to climb them as best I could, and I think I did a pretty good job!

Cool, lush, green, oxygen-filled forests.

The earth isn’t flat!

I experienced my first snow.  And was there ever a lot of it.  Sometimes it was piled higher than me on the side of a road, and one night I slept surrounded by it.  Another day it snowed right on top of me, and tickled my skin as it floated down from the sky.  I was shocked to experience my first sub-zero temperatures, but at least Bruno and Brittany had a heater to warm me from the inside.

I experienced so many new animals I had never even heard of.  I’m still learning all their names, but I know I’ve seen three moose, a mountain goat, lots of bison, elk, and pronghorns, two coyote, a wolf, a grizzly bear, and a black bear with two cute little cubs.  I thought the only creatures that existed besides humans and cars were snakes and lizards!

Sleeping in snow and sub-zero temperatures!

Snow, snow, everywhere!

It’s even taller than me!

Apparently humans and cars aren’t the only animals in the world…

Further and further north Bruno kept driving me.  We even entered another new country – called Canada.  Here, I’ve experienced my first prairies, flat as can be, yet filled to the brim with funny little creatures called prairie dogs.  I’ve experienced forests and lakes so plentiful I’m almost embarrassed that I thought the whole world was dry, dusty, and dull-coloured.  There have been nights where my entire body is covered in mosquitos, and a whole week where we saw nothing but clouds, rain, and fog, yet we keep driving on, eastward now.

In the prairies, surrounded by prairie dogs – and another bus like me!

I got so many bug bites here.

It was hard for me to drive in this fog – we never had this problem in Phoenix!

I don’t know when Bruno plans to turn me around and head back south – this seems like a pretty long holiday, from what I know of them.  I’m starting to wonder if, maybe, this isn’t a holiday at all.  Maybe this is my new job.  To drive Bruno and Brittany all around, from place to place, forest to mountain to beach to plain…

Well, I gotta say, if this is my new job, I love it.  I love that I have a name – Big Blue.  I love that Bruno treats me gently, that Brittany keeps me clean, that the two of them nestle inside me when it’s cold.  I love that Brittany cooks so much tasty-smelling food, and that Bruno relaxes in my front cabin with a beer and a book.

I love that I’ve been visited, noticed, and admired by so many – I never got this kind of attention in Phoenix.  I love that sometimes, the three of us all fall asleep together in the middle of nowhere, where no sounds of traffic disrupt my rest, and I’m awoken peacefully by the birds and the gently rising sun.

Brittany cooks so much yummy-smelling food inside me!

I love that Bruno has found his chillout spot.

I love that sometimes we fall asleep in the middle of nature together.

I love that Bruno, Brittany and I are spending so much time together, really getting to know each other, learning to care for one another.  It sort of feels like we’re becoming what humans call a family.

Best of all, I love what Bruno and Brittany are showing me.  How big the world actually is, and how even an old bus like me can have a second chance at life.

It’s hard to believe that two weeks have gone by since we officially moved into Big Blue and hit the road.  We’ve driven, experienced, and seen so much that it feels both much longer and much shorter.

Two weeks, though, is probably the perfect time for me to sit down and evaluate how our Big Blue Bus is performing.  After almost four months of full-time conversion work, I’m thinking our readers might be curious to see just how things are going. 

I had anticipated our big departure with such fervour that it was almost all I thought or dreamed about as the challenging weeks of bus conversion dragged on.  It was surprising, then, when I didn’t feel the sense of elation I’d felt at the thought of our grand departure when we actually hit the road – in fact, it was really difficult to quiet my mind.  Those first few days, driving through the Sonoran Desert, my thoughts were focused more on all the things we still needed to do to our bus before it would be done.

Then there came the realization that, with the pace we would need to keep in order to make it to Eastern Canada this summer, most of things on my bus to-do list would not get done anytime soon.  I thus experienced a short period of letdown and subsequent discomfort that our temporary semi-chaotic space would be a more long-term living situation.

What our bus looked like when we did the test drive from Tucson to Ensenada.

I looked pretty happy then…

So I think I can be even happier now!

It took a few days, but finally, I relearned to slow down, decompress, and get into the rhythm of the road.  And I’ve come to accept that, as long as we can manage a few essential tweaks this summer, I can wait a while for the rest.

Besides, this acceptance has been a small price to pay for the rewards of being back on the road in a new, beautiful, big bus with Bruno.

First and foremost, I’m rediscovering my husband.  Every day Bruno is a bit sillier, a bit more loving, a bit less grumpy.  .  I had almost forgotten this – the true – Bruno – the one who is excited about the day at hand.

In fact, Bruno is so excited that he has driven a record distance (besides our 3-day transit in Saudi Arabia) – almost 2,000km in four days!  I think it’s because we were driving toward two new national parks – Grand Teton and Yellowstone – on our way to Canada, and Bruno couldn’t wait to camp in nature and be surrounded by wildlife.  This is what makes Bruno his happiest.

And seeing me happy in our bus.  Which I am (despite the slightly longer emotional process to get to this point than I anticipated).

Put Bruno at a campsite in nature (like here, at the Grand Teton National Park) and he’s stoked!

Ok, I’m pretty stoked by national parks, too!

There are so many things that are making me super happy with our bus conversion – and they pretty much all come down to comfort and autonomy.

Check out all the ways in which I am digging Big Blue’s comfort:

1)      We have a roomy driving area with great big windows, so it’s fun to sit up front and watch the world pass by as we drive.  We’re finding it very convenient, too, to be able to pass from the cab to the living space without having to stop the vehicle or go outside.

2)      The kitchen size and layout are working perfectly for our (my) uses.  I have a massive countertop, easy access to everything, a large enough fridge to keep us stocked for days, a big deep sink, and a three-burner stovetop with oven.  I finally feel like I can cook just about anything!

3)      The living space has proved to be perfectly workable.  We haven’t felt on top of one another at all, even when we are both inside doing different things.  I love that Bruno can read without me needing him to get up so I can fetch things under the bed, or that I can stay up once he’s in bed without disturbing him.  I especially love being able to put a yoga mat down in the morning and do some stretches while Bruno simultaneously prepares breakfast!

4)      Our bedroom is luxuriously spacious.  We finally have a double (full) bed!  We each have a reading lamp and a bedside table (wow!).  Bruno doesn’t have to climb over me to get in or out of bed.  I have six small drawers and a mini-closet for my clothing – so much more practical than having my clothes stored in cardboard boxes over the bed!

5)      The bus is surprisingly well-insulated.  We’re able to keep it fairly temperature (even in extreme temperatures, which we’ve had), and we barely hear annoying outdoor sounds when we’re inside (this has been great for the few times we’ve slept in a truck parking or near a road).

Cooking dinner our first night on the road with my new, awesome, giant kitchen!

Bruno prepping breakfast inside on a chilly morning.

Check it out! I can do YOGA in my bus!

Bruno enjoying the view and comfort up front even when we’re NOT driving!

And here are the great ways Big Blue is allowing us to be autonomous:

1)      Our energy installation is fabulous.  We have two big deep-cell solar batteries now so Bruno is being less obsessive about preserving our solar energy.  We have a 200L water tank, and even a grey water tank (woo woo!) so we don’t have to worry about filling up water every day or using our sink in a public parking lot.  We have two big propane tanks which we use to cook and to heat shower water.

2)      Yes, we have a shower!  In fact, I just washed my hair for the first time in it tonight.  It was much better than paying $5 for a public shower at the national park campground.  We have a toilet, too.  Because of these two gems, Bruno and I no longer need to sleep in campgrounds.  This is my favourite thing of all.  I feel so free!  Before, I always did online research to find overnight spots that provided toilet access, and every few days we would need a campground so we could get a good shower.  Even when we’d arrive at a boondocking site, the first thing we did was scope out the place for a peaceful spot to potty.  Now, though, I know that I have those things no matter where we pull up!  We keep driving pass RV parks and shouting we don’t need you anymore!  It’s amazing.  Instead, the US’ National Forests have become our best friends, which is sort of how I’d rather camp, anyway.

Our first national forest boondock.

Here we are a couple nights later at another one. Nice!

And here, waking up after a quiet night at a trailhead off the highway.

Each thing I listed is something I hoped and expected I’d love with our bus conversion.  They are the very reasons we traded our beloved Totoyaya for something bigger.  We knew we’d be giving up certain things – the ability to go off-road, the parking benefits of a smaller vehicle, the reliability of a 1988 Land Cruiser.

When our engine shut off (for just a moment) twice in a row while driving on the highway north of Phoenix, our hearts both sunk.  If Big Blue could give us such a serious problem this early, no amount of comfort or autonomy would be worth an unreliable vehicle.

Thankfully, since then, all has gone well (knock on wood!).  We think the transmission got overheated because it was about 40 degrees celcius in Phoenix that day and the vehicle simply couldn’t handle highway speeds in that weather.  Slowly, Bruno’s gained faith in the quality and durability of our 5.9 Cummins engine, and he’s becoming really good at managing our fuel consumption.  After averaging a disappointing 22L/100km from Ensenada to Phoenix, he’s been able to get our fuel economy down to almost 16L/100km, and this including fast highways (man, do they drive fast in the west!) and mountain driving!

Ok, so we did get pulled over once by an angry cop for driving too slowly, but on the whole, Bruno has been using his manual transmissions, coasting his way into full stops (and avoiding them when he can), and driving at a leisurely pace, and we are surprised and happy with our fuel economy.

Yes, there are a few things I would change about our Big Blue Bus.  I would redesign the space allotted for our dry toilet – it truly is too small to be functional (but more on that, probably, in a future post).  I would replace the square flat sink with a regular one (this one is hard to clean) and the dark wood floors with lighter ones (these show dirt).  I would redo my window curtains (I totally messed them up).

And there is still a lot to do to our bus before she is really and truly finished.  We need to figure out a solution for our windows (so that they all open and have bug screens).  We still need to install locks for the kitchen cabinets, the shoe racks we built, and the shower nozzle into the wall.  We need to finish our book shelf and build a medicine cabinet.  Bruno needs to figure out the heating/AC system up front (right now we need to open the engine and turn a nozzle on or off to change from heat to AC and back).  We need to do a lot of little finishing work.

We rigged this up to keep the cabinets closed during a particularly windy section of road. Permanent solution still needed.

So happy to be on the road together again, and in a beautiful, home-made home-on-wheels!

But on the whole, we’re taking to Big Blue very well.  We think about Totoyaya all the time – and admittedly compare Big Blue to her when our new vehicle doesn’t match up.

The house-on-wheels Bruno built me is quickly feeling more like a home-on-wheels.

I can think of practically nothing else, and with any free moment I am staring at maps and guide books, day-dreaming about the impending moment when Bruno and I are free!  I don’t even care that our bus won’t be “truly” finished – it will be liveable and we will be able to cease this crazy full-time work schedule and begin to decompress and return to our regular selves.  Jump for joy!!!!

Progress on our Bus Conversion

It’s taken a lot to get to this point, of course (find proof here).  This month has been as frantic as the previous two, though in a different way.  Rather than working non-stop inside the bus, Bruno has spent most of it at Pepe and Marco’s RV shop in Ensenada.  As I mentioned in our last bus conversion update, we found a place in town that was willing to do a few projects for us that we couldn’t manage ourselves.

Adolpho, our personal helper at Pepe and Marco’s RV Repair shop, paints our new RV door.

Adolpho working on storage compartments under our chassis.

What we found out later was that they’d said yes to be nice, but that they neither had the time nor the experience to do the things we’d asked!

Progress has thus been slow.

Every morning, Bruno leaves the house by 7:15am, drives into town and spends the next 9-10 hours there, overseeing Adolpho as he installs our RV door, builds storage boxes on the sides of our chassis, and installs a bike rack in the back of the bus.  Bruno manages to accomplish minor tasks inside – fixing the driver’s seat and fans, installing the curtain rods and closet rods, building walls as you walk into the bus – but because he’s parked on the side of the street and has one eye on Adolpho, progress inside our bus is just as slow as outside.  (In the midst of all of this, Bruno had to deal with a pretty big diesel leak that took a few days to get under control.  It was stressful to have precious diesel dripping out of the tank every time he drove, and he had no engine manual to help him figure out the problem, but after a couple tries, he changed the o-ring and we haven’t leaked since.  Phew!)

The guys at the RV shop trying to help Bruno figure out this diesel leak.

Drip, drip, drip.

Adolpho is on the left. Sometimes we get an extra set of hands, too.

Bruno insulating the inside frame of our new RV door.

Most days I stay home and deal with other types of tasks, like finding fabric and a tailor to sew window curtains, foam and an upholsterer for our dining room cushions, and keeping up with day-to-day tasks..  When Bruno arrives home, it’s become a sort of game to try to notice where progress has been made that day.  It’s not easy to spot the day-to-day difference.

It is only when I compile a list here of what we’ve worked on this month that I can see what we have, in fact, accomplished.  Between Adolpho and Bruno, we now have a fully-finished and insulated RV door.  We have a bike rack installed behind the bus.  And we are about two-thirds of the way finished with our four chassis boxes (which will store our propane tanks, grey water tank, spare tire, tools, and kerosene tank for our heater).  These are all key tasks before our grand departure – if you recall, when we took our road trip from Tucson to Mexico, we had the RV door and bicycles inside, and we traveled without propane or a spare tire, none of which was at all practical.

The installation of a bike rack behind the bus starts with a few cuts.

Here’s our bike rack!

We’re getting storage compartments under our chassis!

Adolpho gets a bit of help one afternoon from his son.

There were more steps involved in making these storage compartments than we expected!

Yesterday, Bruno finished installing our Eberspacher heater (which is great news because we hope to be in Yellowstone National Park in a few short weeks, and they’re still getting snow!)  We were both quite amazed that the thing started on the first try because, not only is it a complicated electronic system, but Bruno had to redo a lot of wiring in order to complete this new installation.  We turned the heater on this morning, just for fun!

Between the heater, the curtains and cushions, the work at Pepe and Marco’s RV Repair shop, and the carpentry work our HelpX volunteer, A.J., did for us earlier in the month, we’re sitting pretty for our grand departure.  We won’t be finished Big Blue – there are still a few pieces of furniture to build, all the finishing work to do, and Bruno has quite a few more mechanical items on his list – but we’re much better off for this road trip than last month’s!

Bruno’s Erberspacher heater installation, now up and running!

Grey water tank now installed under chassis in one of our new storage compartments.

Our new foam cushions. Please excuse the mess – this is still a work zone. Please also excuse the pattern explosion – the fabric on the table is only there temporarily as protection… we’re not that color blind!

This picture, for me, epitomizes the month of April – the cushions and curtains (my contribution, as well as the upholsterer’s and the tailor’s); the book shelf and storage door (A.J., our HelpX volunteer’s contribution; the RV door (Adolpho and Bruno’s contribution); and the wall behind the passenger seat (all Bruno).

Being in Baja California

We arrived in Baja California at the end of March and are renting a villa at a resort and RV park along the coast south of Ensenada.  Mona Lisa Beach was probably nice a couple decades ago, but it’s pretty run-down now.  When we moved in, it was obvious no one had stayed here in a long time.  The villa smelled of must and rat piss, the garden was overrun with weeds, and the furniture was rusty.  Nonetheless, it was a vast improvement over the Air BnB where we were supposed to spend April, the price was less than half, and there was a big work space and parking space for our bus.

We’ve opted to continue sleeping inside the bus, which has sometimes proved challenging when we’ve created a cloud of dust over the course of the day’s work.  But it’s been cozy and comfortable in the back of Big Blue, and I still can’t believe we have an actual bedroom in our new home-on-wheels!

Mona Lisa Resort and RV Park, our temporary home for the month.

Our bus parked in front of our villa. We’re the one right behind the tree.

We’re right on the beach, but I can count the times I’ve visited it on one hand.

The living area inside. We use it for cooking and bathing.

… and as a workshop, of course.

Though most of our time has been spent working, it has been a refreshing change to be in a new country this month.  We hadn’t been in a “developing” country in over a year – since Morocco – the longest I’ve gone since I started traveling over a decade ago.  I’ve been practicing my Spanish (it’s really hilarious to listen to) and enjoying the local market, public buses, and taco stalls.  I’ll write specifically about my impressions of and experiences in Ensenada and the surrounding area in a blog post soon.  All I’ll mention today is that that being here in Mexico has substantially lowered our cost of living for the month (almost in half!).  We also spent a lot less on the bus this month (we’d purchased 90% of the things we needed while in Tucson), which is great since we’re over budget for our bus conversion project.

This Month’s Statistics

Kms Driven: Only 288, all of them to Ensenada and back.  It’s pretty astounding that, in so few miles, we already managed to have a diesel leak (that’s in addition to the transmission problem we had weeks after buying the bus in Phoenix!).

Countries Visited: 1, Mexico (if you can call what we’ve been doing “visiting”).

Playa Mona Lisa, just south of Ensenada.

As you see, Ensenada is really only barely into Mexico. We’re almost at the northern extremity of the Baja Peninsula.

Highlight: Getting so many difficult and important projects done on the bus.

Biggest Challenge: Getting so many difficult and important projects done on the bus!  No, but seriously, the biggest challenge was probably being a HelpX host, which is what I talked about in my previous post.  A close second is being so close to the finish line and trying to find that last burst of energy and momentum to get to the end.

On the Cards Next Month

Let’s bring it back to what I mentioned at the beginning of this post – because, let’s face it, this is all I can think about these days: in May we are hitting the road!!!!!!!!!  Our plan is to register our vehicle as a motorhome in Arizona mid-month, then take about two weeks to drive straight north toward Canada, hopefully hitting up a few national parks along the way, like the Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, and Yellowstone.

The idea of being camped in a national park, with no cares, no to-do list, no crazy schedule, no pressing needs is, without exaggerating, one of the most intoxicating thoughts I’ve ever had (no wonder it’s on constant replay).  Now let’s cross our fingers that everything works out the way we hope!

After hosting three volunteers via the working holiday online database, HelpX, I have several thoughts about the experience.  What follows is my take on what it’s like, and what it takes, to be a HelpX host.

The Good

I’ll admit it: the only reason Bruno and I became HelpX hosts is because we needed help with our bus conversion.  We were totally overwhelmed with the project and couldn’t afford the expense of hired help in the United States.  Quite honestly, Bruno wasn’t chuffed about sharing his home, his meals, his free-time with strangers.

After having hosted three volunteers, though, I can say (whether or not Bruno agrees is unclear) that the interpersonal and cultural exchange that transpired when we welcome strangers into our home was an unexpected positive of HelpX hosting.  I wasn’t expecting hosting to provide such a keyhole into American culture, nor for the people we’d host to be so varied, so quirky, so intriguing.  But it was, and they were.

Bruno and Will, our 1st HelpX volunteer. This photo is so cute!

Despite the fact that our three volunteers were all American, all male, and all young adults, we received a wonderfully diverse cross-section of American subculture.  We had one vagabond-minimalist-philosopher; one conspiracy-theorist-anarchist; and one brilliant-but-socially-inept architecture-artist-scientist.  I’ve already introduced you to the philosopher and the anarchist, but allow me to briefly describe our latest volunteer, A.J.

I reached out to A.J. on HelpX because he was a carpenter by trade.  Bruno and I had had enough of the inexperienced volunteers who struggled with our projects and whom Bruno had to closely supervise.  We needed an expert.  It just so happened that A.J. wanted to visit Baja California so it seemed we were meant to find one another.

A.J. is incredibly intelligent, at least in an intellectual sort of way.  His conversations always steer toward statistics and scientific evidence, and the topics that interest him are very cerebral.  Several nights during A.J.’s 11-day stay, I was up super late talking to him about all sorts of things.  The conversations were both enjoyable and thought-provoking.

Ryan, our 2nd volunteer, and the one who stayed with us the longest – 3.5 weeks!

Early on, I assumed A.J.’s choice to wander around the United States this past year or two and not to earn money was motivated either by a desire to travel or by self-imposed poverty.  Neither was really the case.  He had gone nomad because he’s looking for a partner to accomplish a project he’s been working on for a while but can’t get off the ground (an open-cell battery) and he does work-exchanges because he is, as he put it, really bad at earning money.  It was somewhat incongruous to hear that someone so intelligent wouldn’t be poor simply by choice, but this is what I mean about the eye-opening things you learn about the world as a HelpX host.

Of course, the best part of A.J. was that he was able to build us several pieces of furniture for our bus, like a table, a few doors, and a few cabinets.  Despite the added bonus of getting to know interesting and unique volunteers, the best part of being a HelpX host is getting help, of course!  The quality of help may not be consistent (we had one who barely met his minimum hours and one who put in way more time than requested but accomplished way less than hoped for) but at the very least there is the morale boost of knowing we’re not in this [crazy F$%@ing bus conversion!!!!] alone.

A.J., our expert carpenter and third volunteer.

The Bad

Throw strangers together in a confined space, and there is bound to be conflict and drama – isn’t that what all reality TV shows are centered-upon?

In my eyes, most of the bad of being a HelpX host comes down to the intangible sacrifices that one must make to accommodate others in one’s home.  Some things are small: having to wait for the bathroom to be free when my bladder is bursting (this only happened in Ensenada, as we had two bathrooms in our lovely Tucson rental!); having to be friendly and social when I’m, in fact, grumpy or tired; tiptoeing around the house every morning so as not to awaken our guests.  Some sacrifices were larger.  Sometimes, the volunteers’ actions or personality traits annoyed me.  Sometimes, I felt uncomfortable in my own house (which is a strange sensation).

Ultimately, the biggest drawback of being a HelpX host was sacrificing our privacy and personal space.  “Couples’ time” was non-existent.  Quiet evening time was shared.  Because none of our volunteers became wonderful friends, there came a point in time where Bruno and I wanted our space back more than we wanted them around, and in each case, we felt relief when our volunteer left.  (From the experiences of other hosts I’ve managed to find online, this is a totally normal reaction, so I’m not judging myself.)

The other bad side of being a HelpX host, at least for us, involved food.  Because part of our agreement was that I cook lunch and dinner, I was on full-time kitchen duty.  It felt like I was always either at the grocery store or in the kitchen, and I felt pressure to cook “real” food for every meal.  I couldn’t feel lazy one evening and just serve salad with bread and hummus, you know?

Our arrangement was also that breakfast was self-serve, and I left my cupboards of expensive organic ingredients out for the taking.  When our first volunteer made himself a $10 oatmeal out of hemp and sunflower seeds, it created a sore spot in me that never entirely healed.  I’m a bit controlling over my kitchen at the best of times, but thereafter it was even more difficult for me to give free access to our volunteers.

The Ugly

This is probably when the bad turns into the ugly.  It was over food that our relationship with A.J. broke down.  I don’t want to rehash the experience too much, but I also know that giving some vague context is necessary.  Here goes:

A.J. expressed early on that he had high caloric needs – we’d seen evidence of this the first night when, after arriving without notice at 9pm, he downed an entire box of cereal.  He put it to me more bluntly later, when he exclaimed that he was struggling with our “experiment in calorie restriction”.  So I began cooking more and offering him extra snacks, but when this still proved to be insufficient, we came up with a new game-plan: I would buy staple ingredients A.J. requested and he would cook his own meals.  I did, and he did, though I still welcomed him to join us at dinner because I felt happy to give him “extra” for the good work he was doing.

It wasn’t until A.J.’s departure that he expressed his distaste with our work-trade arrangement.  He felt he’d gotten the short end of the stick, massively.  He’d put in about 50 hours of work, which, in the U.S., at $10/hour, would be worth $500 – he felt he’d not received the equivalent of that amount in what we’d offered him in room and board, so he felt undervalued and demoralized.  I had had no idea A.J. felt this way, but since his departure last week, I’ve had plenty of time to analyze what went wrong.

What Went Wrong

Perhaps there were a few subtle elements that led A.J. to feel less than satisfied with our work-trade agreement.  I know that he wasn’t terribly pleased with the accommodation provided (I agree that our current rental is no Tucson Air BnB!).  I also know that he wasn’t at all taken by Ensenada city or the vibe of Mexico, generally (it was his first time leaving the United States).  The lack of appeal of our digs and environment may have made A.J. more negative about the work-exchange, generally.

I also know that he struggled with the  working conditions.  We didn’t have the tools, workshop or materials he was used to, and he wasn’t as adept as Bruno at making do with what we had.  We did purchase some of the tools he asked for, but at this late stage in the game, we didn’t want to make a large investment in tools that we would use for a single project.  Perhaps the work itself, then, wasn’t as pleasant for A.J. as he’d hoped.

But I think the crux of breakdown was the different understanding we have of HelpX.  Clearly, by A.J.’s purely mathematical calculation, he sees HelpX as a network for more money-oriented work-exchanges.  He even asked us for a small daily stipend in our initial email exchange.  Throughout his stay, A.J. calculated not only his calories, but our estimated expenses on him.  We, on the other hand, understand HelpX to be a platform for working holidays for volunteers seeking cultural experiences and cheap ways to travel.  If our understanding is correct, there are several intangible elements hosts offer to the exchange that cannot be calculated numerically.

I think the biggest contributor to the sour ending of our time with A.J., though, was the breakdown of communication.  I began to turn inward early on because of A.J.’s challenging way of communicating, and so after thinking I’d solved his food problem, I didn’t dare re-approach the issue.  Bruno stopped trying to communicate with A.J. entirely after consistently being told his English was unintelligible.  Apparently A.J., too, ceased communicating with us, except for negative, rude, and condescending remarks.  The slow breakdown of communication led to ill feelings that festered within us all, and by the time they exploded, it was too late.

What I’ve Learned

The unfortunate end to our most recent HelpX hosting experience has led me to do some significant soul-searching this past week.  I reached out to HelpX for a written manifesto of the organization and the role of hosts.  No reply.  I’ve googled others’ HelpX experiences.  I’ve found some, but the vast majority are written from the experience of the volunteer (see “Resources” at the end of this post).

And so, despite my father advising me not to blog about my negative HelpX experience, I decided to share.  At the very least this post will provide one account from a host’s perspective that can be useful to current or future hosts.  Perhaps I may even receive feedback from other current HelpX volunteers or hosts that will help me continue to make sense of my experience (I’d love that!).

I’ve learned that being a HelpX host shouldn’t be something you take lightly.  Even if you have experience hosting friends or family, hosting a volunteer is an entirely different experience.  In many ways, it’s a skill that requires refining.

After our first volunteer, I realized I couldn’t just accept any old friendly stranger.  I needed some sort of vetting system.  For my next two volunteers, that mainly involved a few more emails about my expectations and hopes and a few questions about their skills.  I now know that this screening is not sufficient.  I believe that, in choosing a volunteer, it’s important to speak with them on the phone or provide them with some sort of questionnaire.

What types of things are important to find out?  Well, food choices and preferences for a start.  But more than that, I think it’s important to understand what is motivating the volunteer to stay with you.  Is it because they’re really into your project?  They like helping people?  They want to learn new skills?  They want to live as cheaply as possible?  Travel cheaply?  Meet new people?  Understanding the prospective volunteer’s intentions can give a lot of insight into whether or not they will be a good fit.

Being a good fit is, I think, also very important (in fact, our slowest worker was still our most positive HelpX experience because he was the best overall fit).  You’re going to be working and living with the person pretty closely, so it’s a good idea to see if their personality and world view will jive with your own.  That’s not to say that you should only accept people who have, say, the same political views as you – that would be against the very idea of HelpX, in my opinion.  But people have different work styles, communication styles, and eating styles, and, for the placement to work most smoothly, styles should, at the very least, not clash.

I learned quickly that it’s essential for hosts to make our expectations clear from the get-go.  We should clarify what we expect from the volunteer (in terms of work and hours), and provide as many details as possible about the projects and what we will offer in terms of room and board.  We should encourage the potential volunteer to ask questions so that they don’t come with unreasonable expectations.

With A.J., I even re-iterated my expectations the morning after he arrived so that we were both on the same page.  I was hoping this would help us avoid misunderstandings, which clearly it didn’t.  I still think it’s a good idea to have a debriefing conversation at the start of the placement.  It’s probably a good idea to have one a few days in as well, to check in on how everyone is feeling.

Debriefing is a way of keeping the lines of communication open, which is probably the most important thing I’ve learned about being a host.  If I’m feeling annoyed or uncomfortable about the volunteer, there is a pretty good chance they are feeling the same way about us.  Ideally, a conversation can improve these feelings and lead to a more positive experience for both parties.  At the very least, if the conversation goes poorly (like our final debriefing with A.J.), you can learn something which might improve the experience with your next volunteer.

So, Would I Be a HelpX Host Again?

In some ways, I think Bruno and I were great hosts.  We provided extremely flexible hours for our volunteers and never pressured them to work more hours, even if they asked (which is a complaint I read time and again in volunteers’ online reviews).  We remembered that, even if our sole goal was to complete our bus, theirs was not.  We also cooked really tasty, healthy, high quality meals (even if A.J. didn’t appreciate them), provided the volunteers with access to a bicycle and as much freedom as they wanted to do their own thing.

But, if I’m being honest, we are not ideal HelpX hosts.  We’re not local to the places we hosted in so we provided no linguistic or cultural understanding of the place, and no inside connection to the community.  We were too busy with our bus conversion to spend time teaching skills (though Bruno was forced to do a bit of this anyway) or to socialize much.  (In our case particular, I don’t believe any of our volunteers were looking for this, but I’m just trying to be objective.)

Ultimately, we chose to be hosts because we needed help and couldn’t afford to pay for it.  I believe that a truly good HelpX host derives pleasure from hosting guests (be they family, friends, or perfect strangers).  They are happy to go the extra mile for volunteers, taking them sight-seeing, allowing them to integrate into family life, sharing long, loud meals.  Bruno and I, we were just average hosts.

So, would I be a HelpX host again?  I’m not sure.  I don’t think Bruno and I will need any more help with our bus conversion project, so I don’t think we’ll be in the position to host again anytime soon.

But more than that, I don’t think I realized the learning curve that was involved with the job.  I think I have a pretty good idea, now, of what it would take to have more successful experiences as a HelpX host – I just don’t think I’m interested in putting the time and effort into becoming one.

I’m more likely to try being a HelpX volunteer, I think.  The experiences I’ve read about online – and heard from a few traveling friends of mine – tickle me with the excitement of adventure, of cultural exchange, and of trying my hand at new projects and skills.

Yeah, I definitely think I’m more of a volunteer than a host.

Resources for Current or Prospective HelpX Hosts

http://www.helpx.net/host-tips.asp?network=3

https://wanderingfootsteps.com/the-americas/help-from-helpx/

https://wanderingfootsteps.com/the-americas/update-on-our-bus-conversion-pt-iv/

http://wherearemikeandshelby.blogspot.mx/2014/05/my-article-about-helpx-tips-for-helpx.html

A Few Tales from HelpX Volunteers

https://malaysia2adelaide.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/the-curious-case-of-the-helpx-host-from-hell-aka-my-first-helpx-experience-was-beyond-awful/

http://waysofwanderers.com/travel-workaway-helpx/

https://www.thebravedame.com/my-helpx-experience/

https://www.helpx.net/articles/dionnestory.asp

This most ordinary of requests is anything but ordinary in our household these days.  For the past two-and-a-half months, we have been working 10-hour days seven days a week to convert the bus we purchased at the end of January.  Our bus conversion project has felt like the perfect real-world example of biting off more than one can chew.  Bruno’s strategy has been to plough ahead full-steam, despite what I can only describe as severe burn-out.  I’m not exaggerating when I say he has not taken a single waking moment for himself in about eighty days.

Until today.

Bruno himself hasn’t accomplished any major visible tasks on our bus conversion since our arrival in Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.  He’s placed a small 12-volt fan by the bucket of our composting toilet to aid with the drying and ventilating process, and a larger fan near the water heater to exhaust heat and gas fumes.  He has fixed our bedside tables to the wall, and installed bedside reading lights to either side of the bed.  He has placed small hardware into the inside of our bedroom drawers to prevent them from opening when driving (we still haven’t found the perfect solution for the kitchen cabinets), and he has more or less planned out and purchased the remaining materials for our eventual heater installation.  There haven’t been too many photos taken to document the accomplishment of these small tasks.

The fan Bruno placed above our water heater. This actually involved moving the solar panel above, which had been fixed at exactly the spot the fan needed to be.

I actually have no clue what Bruno was tinkering with here, but I’m sure it was important!

This may beg the question: why, then, is Bruno suddenly taking a break, when history would show that he’s been incapable of relaxing with the stress of this project weighing upon him?

I think the answer is simple: we’ve finally had some good help.

Through the misfortune of our failed Air BnB experience, we made a helpful contact – a family shop in Ensenada town that renovates RVs.  One of our first days in Mexico, we brought our bus to them, discussed a few projects we weren’t able to manage ourselves (generally involving welding and heavy metal power tools), and crossed our fingers that they could help.  Their reaction was favourable, their quote was in our price range (as opposed to obscene hourly rates in the United States!), and they could begin the following week.

And so, three days last week, Bruno drove the bus into town, and work began.  So far, we’ve managed to remove the old bus double door and install a used RV door we had purchased at an RV Salvage shop in Phoenix (and lugged all the way here – man, did that thing take up space!).  This week, we’re due to begin building storage boxes on the side of the chassis and a bike rack behind the bus.  These are pretty important tasks in order for the bus to become a functional living space, and we’re so relieved we’ve been able to find someone to help us with them!

Our old bus door and our future new RV door stand off.

Adolpho and mustache-man taking off our old bus door…. bye bye!

Adolpho installing our new RV door, woot woot!

One project (almost) done!

Our other good help comes from the volunteer organization I’ve written about recently, HelpX.  After having two questionably helpful HelpX experiences, I realized we needed a more skilled worker for our project.   I found an American carpenter, A.J., who happened to want to visit the Baja Peninsula.  I will likely speak more about the experience of hosting him in a future post, but today it’s enough to say that he was, indeed, a skilled worker and he was, indeed, able to help us with a number of small construction projects in the bus.

First, A.J. built us a few doors – one for the storage space behind the driver’s seat, and one for the bathroom.  It was in the bathroom door construction that I saw his skills shine – he suggested building a folding door as a space-appropriate door in this tight hallway space.  We’d never even thought to try building this because it seemed too complex, but he whipped up the frame and inner wall in a day or so.  I am proud to say I planked the outside of the door myself!

Our bathroom door, with my expert planking.

Our HelpX volunteer, AJ, working on his carpentry projects.

Next up, A.J. took the remnants of our butcher block countertop and patch-worked a dining room table together.  This was actually more challenging than it sounds because it involved us borrowing a circular saw to cut straight lines, chiselling down the edges so they’d meet as best as possible, using dowels to stick the pieces together (it was up to me to find the equipment necessary for this task, and it wasn’t simple, let me tell you!) and sanding the surface (also done by me) so that the four pieces would be as uniformly straight as possible.  Then AJ fixed the table to the wall and rigged a makeshift foot onto its outer edge.  The finishing aspects of the table aren’t completed yet, but at least we can finally eat breakfast in our bus!

A.J. also built us a few cabinets.  Using an IKEA door, he built an upper kitchen cabinet, taking into account the curves of our bus.  He built a long bookshelf (I can’t believe I get a bookshelf!) on the opposite side of the living space, and he built two mini closets on either side of our bed.  Bruno was charged with the challenging task of securing each piece of furniture to the wall (no easy task when most the walls are mere fiberglass), but at least he didn’t have to build them, too.  The curves and angles of the bus made the tasks just challenging enough that someone without carpentry experience would struggle with them.  A.J. seemed to whip up these pieces of furniture with relative ease, and without having to measure and re-measure the space countless times, as we had done with our early pieces of furniture!

Our new kitchen cabinet. Nice!

The butcher block we fixed together to make a dining room table.

Bruno fixing pieces of wood onto the aluminum structure of our bus so that AJ could build the closets onto the wall.

Our new dining table, next to our new storage door and under our new book shelf. Lotta AJ-work going on here!

Our bedroom is looking more and more complete, especially with our new mini-closets!

When I think of all the help we’ve received over the past two weeks on our bus conversion, it’s not so surprising that Bruno said to me at lunch: Let’s go for an afternoon stroll on the beach.  What Bruno was really saying to me was that he was finally starting to get a handle on this project, that the stress of it all was beginning to melt away.

I feel it, too.  We’re both seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  If all goes well, we’ll begin living full-time in our bus by the beginning of May, and we may even begin traveling again and finishing our conversion project on a more part-time basis while on the road.  I’m so excited about this prospect that I’m beginning to dream – nightly – about all the adventures that await us.

As excited as I am about the prospect of traveling again, though, I’m more excited just to get to go for a walk with Bruno.  Or to see him sit in the afternoon shade and read a book (which is what he did after our walk – I actually rubbed my eyes to make sure I was seeing properly).  I’m excited to linger with him at breakfast, to spend an evening with him where his eyes aren’t half-closed, to share a relaxing happy hour drink while gazing romantically at the sunset.

I don’t think I’d be getting to get this excited if it weren’t for all the help we’ve received in the past two weeks.  I’m oh-so grateful for that help.

It’s been exactly two months since we bought our big blue bus, and almost as many weeks that we’ve been working ten hour days, seven days a week.

At some point, the body and mind just give up. Since our last bus conversion update, we’ve tackled some pretty monumental tasks in the bus.  We’ve installed the water heater, built the dining room seats/storage benches, installed our new [amazing] fridge (which involved an unfortunate incident with UPS), and finished the bed frame.  That was the “easy” stuff.

Yes, this is Bruno, but more importantly, this is the water heater he installed.

One of the dining room seats/storage benches we built. Bruno is already making use of the storage space!

Our new Indel Webasto fridge. I cannot wait to fill it with yummy food!

Our bed frame is done! We have the water tank and lots of storage space underneath. Simple, but very useful, and a copycat design from our Toyota camper van.

The difficult stuff involved plumbing, which I have gathered is not Bruno’s favourite task.  (He actually enjoyed doing our solar insulation).  Our plumbing set up is complicated enough to send seven Home Depot employees off scratching their heads, because it involves connecting parts that have different diameters and using a combination of flexible tubing and PVC piping.

Essentially, one-inch flexible tubing comes out of our water tank and needs to head off into our water heater and our faucet.  Both those items are standard household items, whereas the water tank is an RV item, so they need adapters to fit.  Then, from the sink, we need water to drain down under the chassis and to the other side of the vehicle to the grey water tank (not yet installed).  At the same time, the shower water needs to drain into the same tank (which is at exactly the same height as the shower itself, but that’s a problem for another time).  Only the tubing size for the sink and the shower are different and I couldn’t find any tees that adapted to two different diameters of tubing as well as different materials that would also fit into an RV grey water tank.

Cutting a hole into the chassis for the shower evacuation. The first plumbing-related task Bruno attempted. He quickly moved on to solar pannels and electricity!

Bruno working on the plumbing that would bring water to the water heater and shower.

The plumbing connections after the water tank – our water pump and a few tubes headed to the sink and shower.  All hidden under the bed or floor.

PVC pipes from the sink down under the chassis. Bruno had to install them this way because the AC unit was directly under the sink. These are the complications when you’re installing plumbing onto a bus rather than a house.

Since the get-go, I have been in charge of visits to hardware stores to buy the building materials Bruno requests for the day’s project.  I’ve always been the type of person whose eyes glaze over the moment they enter Home Depot, so this hasn’t been a natural role for me to fill.  Despite lifelong efforts not to learn anything about DIY construction, my daily visits to all the hardware stores of Tucson have filled me with vast amounts of useful (but highly undesirable) knowledge.

A lot of this knowledge has come because Bruno has pushed me to my own edge and beyond.  He often sends me to the store with only an explanation of what he’s trying to do and asks me to find a workable solution.  Other times he sends me with an exact idea of a part he wants, but when I get there, there are fifty varieties of that part but none exactly like his description.  I often end up having to improvise, using my limited knowledge and trying to explain my needs to employees with drawings and hands (since the only vocabulary I have for the parts I need is Bruno-ified French terms).  I often curse the fact that we only have a single phone between the two of us.

The chicken-scratch designs I’d often head to the hardware store to help me understand what I was trying to buy/solve.

“Could THIS work for our plumbing problem?” I have so many pics quickly shot with my phone which I bring home to Bruno to discuss before returning to the store and buying what we’ve decided on. I’ve recently just started buying all the possibilities and returning the ones I don’t need later.

Our crazy workshop, where I stockpile all the stuff I keep having to pick up at the hardware store.

On the day Bruno sent me to the store to buy all the adapters and tees needed to solve our plumbing issue, I thought I understood our problem.  Once I got to Home Depot and stared at vast array of hardware in front of me, I realized I truly had no clue how to troubleshoot our plumbing issue.  Long story short, three hours went by, I could be found sitting in the plumbing aisle with tears streaming down my face, and four able plumbing “experts” couldn’t help me (part of that is I didn’t really know what I was looking for).  I left the store without a single plumbing piece.

I had hit my wall.

Bruno’s had come a few days earlier.  I’d noticed him getting more and more exhausted over the previous couple weeks.  His face was showing fatigue, his mood became more and more ornery, and he’d often stop speaking mid-sentence because he simply didn’t have the energy to continue.  To top it off, it had gotten hot in Tucson.  Like, 37 degrees celcius inside the bus by 11am hot.  It was as though someone up in the sky had suddenly turned the oven on.  The heat in the bus made afternoon work even more exhausting than it already was.

One afternoon, after Bruno had been exhibiting scary signs of fatigue, it clicked for me.  Bruno was putting enormous pressure on himself to build me a beautiful bus.  He knew how much I wanted (needed, even) this bus, and he also knew that my expectations and hopes for the final product were very (read: unreasonably) high.  And so, out of love for me, Bruno had put the weight of our world on his shoulders.  Slowly, the weight became so much – the project so big, so complicated, so beyond his experience – that he cracked.

Inside the bus. Yes.

Bruno isn’t trying to be sexy – the bus is a sauna these days.

Bruno powering through, despite incredible fatigue and stress.

Bruno hit his wall, and it was heartbreaking to see.

Hitting one’s wall must be contagious, because, as I mentioned in my last post, our HelpX volunteer Ryan hit his own wall the day after Bruno.  The only difference is that when Ryan hit it, he was able to resign from his position, book a train ticket, and head back to San Diego.

Somehow – thankfully – hitting our personal walls, and losing Ryan, has brought Bruno and me together.  The pressure that we’d built up around this project burst and subsequently dissipated.  We reframed our timeline for finishing the project, I restated more reasonable expectations and reassured Bruno of my amazement at his work so far, and he began coming to Home Depot with me.  The heat has forced us to take frequent air-con breaks inside, and our evening dinners for two have been an opportunity to reconnect.

In short, we feel so much better.

Our bus conversion project is still crazy challenging.  Installing the shower is a perfect example of how a single piece of our future home can involve so many difficult steps.  To get our shower to where it is now (about 90% done), we had to build a faux floor over the wheels, find a shower base that was just the right dimensions (not easy!) and fit it onto the floor.  Then we had to cut a hole in the chassis under the drain (making sure, of course, that the drain didn’t fall on the wrong place in the chassis – which it almost did) and fit PVC piping underneath (which involved elbows and adapters and two types of tubing).  Meanwhile, we had to build the shower wall frames, install the water heater on the wall, and connect it with the water tank (which involved running tubing under the bed frame and inside the shower wall frames).  We had to install a little faucet to run between the heater and the shower head (to prevent leaks), close up the wall with plywood, measure FRP plastic board (a CRAZY hard task because of our crooked walls), glue them onto the plywood, and build mini side walls (which will help prevent water from leaking out the sides of our shower curtain), which also needed plywood, FRP, and cedar planking.

The shower base, wall frames, and piping.

Gluing the FRP onto the shower walls. We couldn’t take photos WHILE gluing for obvious reasons.

Ahh… the hard part is over! The FRP walls are up. Now we just need to silicone the angles and [hopefully] our shower will be waterproof.

The mini-walls which will help keep the water inside the shower curtain.

Phew!  I don’t even know how many hours all that took and we’re not even done!  We still need to figure out how to connect the shower head to the water heater without compromising the waterproof nature of our shower, but that’s a problem for another day.

Despite the challenges, we’re seeing progress.  After researching DIY compost toilets and purchasing a Separett Privy 500 toilet seat (which separates liquids and solids to drastically reduce odour), I found a design that appealed to me and would work in our tiny space.  Bruno and Ryan built the toilet box, I bought the bucket for the solids (along with biodegradable bags and coconut coir for compost material) and the pipes and tubes necessary to evacuate the liquids, and Bruno installed the tubing, adjusted the Separett seat, cut an evacuation hole in the chassis, and voilà, we have ourselves a functioning toilet!

Now we just need to build a door.

The beginnings of our composting toilet – a box, a seat, and a bucket.

The toilet seat cutout (and my constipated look, haha!)

Toilet seat installed, box almost complete.

The piping for the evacuation of “the liquids”.

Now we just need a door!

I’m also feeling useful in a different way than before.  Now that Ryan is gone and most of the necessary purchases are made (thankfully, as we’ve reached our project budget – oops!), I have become Bruno’s assistant inside the bus.  I measured and cut the FRB board for the shower and helped him glue and install it.  I sanded and sealed the butcher’s block for our kitchen.  I have even begun cutting and nailing cedar planks to the mini-walls for our shower (which involves a power tool, people!)

Look at me go! I’m cutting cardboard to get the shape of the shower walls which I will then trace onto the FRP board.

I sanded and sealed our new butcher’s block. Isn’t it gorgeous? I cannot wait to food prep on it!  (By the way, I used an eco-friendly sealer which uses natural oils and beeswax.  It was easy to use, didn’t smell, and is food safe.  Now we just need to see how well it holds up!)

Installing cedar planking on our shower mini-walls.

This involved learning to use a power tool! First time, yo!

Most importantly – more than seeing progress or feeling useful – Bruno and I have reached a comfortable, less stressful place in our interactions with each other and this F%@#ing bus!  It may not last, but four days of relative peace and calm – and even a bit of laughter! – has done us both a world of good.

The challenges will always be there, what’s important is to adjust one’s attitude toward them.