1935 Chevy school bus

[Lostranger]

Jack, How far are you from Montery?

[ol trunt]

Jim, we are about 275 miles south of Montery and about 60 miles north of LA on the coast in Oxnard (Ventura). Stop on by! Jack

[ol trunt]

Oh boy, Honeysuckle Rose has a date with a 1994, 32 foot Bounder motor home. It's owner, Jeff, and I have been friends for a long time and this will be the first weekend we have managed to get together for a camp out since he acquired the rig back in 2011. Back then I was still working for the PD and I had occasion to arrest the owner of the bounder--seems he had a nose problem etc. Anyway, I after I arrested the guy, the motor home got towed. The guy went to jail and the motor home was sold at lien sale. No one bid on it so Jeff who owns Bob's tow here in town (and happened to be on rotation at the time) became it's owner. Over the years I've helped Jeff get the Bounder into tip top condition--not too hard to do as it had only 30 K miles on it's Chevy 454/700R4 combo. As it was Jeff who allowed me to use his shop for the heavy duty part of building Honeysuckle Rose, it was only fair that I helped him with his Bounder.

It turned out that the Bounder originally belonged to "Chucko the Clown" of a bygone era and had passed to Chucko jr. who had some bad habits. It seems that the only thing that saved the motor home from complete trashing was the fact that Chucko jr kept all of his fathers clown paraphernalia in the MH which left no space uncluttered and therefore no room in which to make a mess--that saved the MH. Jeff donated all the clown stuff to a clown museum where many will enjoy it.

I spent the better part of a month removing the faded sticky tape trim original to the Bounder and then repainting the MH. Jeff had a few modest swirls applied to the freshly painted MH and now the unit could pass for brand new.

I'll post some pics when we get back--though it is supposed to rain so the pics may not be very good. Jack

[somewhereinusa]

Happy camping, it's still below zero here. I seem to vaguely remember Chucko.

[ol trunt]

Hello All. The camp out was a lot of fun though a bit chilly with daytime temps in the 40's. The camp ground (Camp Comfort) is a small, hard to reserve County owned facility. It sports pay showers, a 2 hole laundrymat, 30 amp and 50 amp hookups and a non functional cable service for $35 a night. The pads were very level and reasonably well spaced which was a big improvement over the COA we stayed in in January which had a 30 degree list and made for dinner preparations similar to those in the Lucile Ball movie "The long Long Trailer". We arrived before our camp mates so set up adjoining sites and whipped up a ham dinner complete with biscuits Mmmmmm. This was the first test of the used Magic Chef oven I built into the bus and was a success. Lorna and friend Cathy worked with their water color paints in the cool but clear air and Jeff and I sat around telling each other lies and generally relaxing.

On Saturday night after a diner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and fresh baked apple pie, the camp host came around to let us all know that rain was indeed coming so best not to leave anything out etc. And indeed it did rain! Honeysuckle Rose has never been washed let alone rained on so when the water began to pelt about midnight, I began checking for leaks--not that I could have done much about it except mop. I watched and worried for about an hour and was then convinced the bus was leak free. I tried to go to sleep but the heavy rain hitting the plastic pop up top couldn't have been louder if I had been hitting a tin culvert. Sunday morn came crisp and clear so we whipped up some coffee, bacon and waffles and enjoyed breakfast in a beautiful place. Jack

A pic of Honeysuckle Rose and the "clown house" in our camp site.

Jack and Lorna bundled up and looking like the waifs we certainly are.

[Lostranger]

And to think: HoneySuckle Replacement was just days away.

[Dennis The Bus Dweller]

You did such a great job on that old girl

[Stealth Camper]

That's amazing!!

[tango]

Hey Jack --- The Bounder is...OK...and you did good on the paint...but I'll take Rosie any day.

[Jerry Campbell]

Hi Jack,
I just got a new Towd. A '92 Geo Tracker 2 door convertible 4X4. It's a sweet little rig but it was built by some hillbillys over the back fence of a wrecking yard somewhere so there are lots of missing parts. I am wondering what you did with the parts you didn't use?
Jerry

[ol trunt]

Hi Jerry. You could do worse than a Tracker for a toad--I like the mechanicals for the most part. Sorry to say, I have nothing left of the donor Tracker which was a steel hard top model so most of the body stuff would have been hard to use on your convertible. I'm sure you are aware that if you tow 4 down you will need to stop every 200 mi to start the engine and engage the tranny. The only way around this is a drive shaft disconnect. I have the owner's manual for mine. Let me know if you would like the tow info it has. Jack

[Jerry Campbell]

Thanks Jack, I have all the info on the tracker. I was looking for door locks and keys.
We did not tow for the first few years we had the bus because we thought it would just complicate things and probably end up costing more to travel. We had our bicycles. We found it to be just the opposite. We could drive to where supplys were cheaper and we found ourselves going places we had not gone before so our adventures and fun increased.
Thanks again for your reply
Jerry

[ol trunt]

Hello All. Well, the Little Engineer, Honeysuckle Rose, Clarence (toad) and I spent last week in Yosemite dry camping in the valley. The daytime weather was perfect at about 75 degrees with the nights in the mid forties. There were bears wandering around at night so we were glad to be in HR rather than a tent. The LE (lorna) spent her days painting water colors and watching birds. I read, rode my bike and talked to 50 kabillion people about the bus and toad. So much for anonymity.

This was the first real test of the bus dry camping. With only two 6 volt golf cart batteries I had to run the generator each morning for 1 1/4 hours or so to recharge them. The refrigerator draws the most power as it is running all the time. The microwave and the toaster are both energy hogs though they are used intermittently. The genny and the inverter are good for 3000 watts each which is enough power to charge and use the available stored power. It would be nice to have 4 batteries but then I'd have to have a bigger genny to run a bigger converter to re charge them and there just isn't room for that. Much to my surprise, the combined volumes of fresh water, grey water and black water worked out just fine with room to spare. We have 60 gallons of fresh water, room for 40 gallons of grey and 27 gal of black. Of course our showers were "Navy showers". We have only 15 gal of propane with which we heated our water and cooked. Since we didn't use the space heater we didn't run low on propane. I'd have liked a little heat at night as the bus dropped to 55 degrees F, but wiffy is afraid to sleep with the heater running whether it is gas or electric so we did without. We did figure out that one needs to put a down sleeping bag directly on the blow up mattress before the bottom sheet goes on as the air mattress by itself just sucks the heat out of the bedding regardless of how many layers of down you pile on top of yourself. Once we figured that out we slept like bugs in a rug.

I spent one day driving the toad up the mountain just to see how it would do. The thing climbs like a goat and is very happy with the 35 MPH speed limit. Anything above that probably would have been a struggle.

The bus itself seems to have all the power I can use. I was a bit concerned about how it would handle the 7% grade over the grapevine with Clarence (just under 3000#) in tow. The grapevine goes from sea level to 4150 ft in just over ten miles but the bus took it in stride at 50 MPH dragging the toad. 50 MPH is only 5 MPH off the legal limit so I am pleased.

The drive itself is a tiring 360 miles with mountain driving at either end. What with the various pit stops and slow mountain roads the trip takes about ten hours somehow and leaves you ready for bed upon arrival at each end. Still, it is fun to drive the rig and Yosemite is about as good a destination as any I have found so I'm not complaining. Jack

We always feel like we've made it to Yosemite when we pass through this tunnel.

Running through the tunnel.

Leaving the tunnel and approaching a view of Half Dome.[\b]

Our camp site in Lower Pines.

Again.

The Merced river runs right through the camp ground.

After a week of close confinement we both wish it could haven been two.

[Lostranger]

What a lovely group. Glad you had a great time.

Anonymity indeed!

Jim

[LuckyChow]

That sounds like a fantastic trip! It's good to finally enjoy what you've built. That's a beautiful setup you have and I'm sure it draws crowds like a magnet.

So, now that you've taken it out, is there anything you're going to change?