Grace 4 - The Great Highway 1 Housetruck Race

[Sharkey]

This is the fourth installment in an ongoing photo essay detailing the history of Prakash's bus Grace.

The previous installments are:

The Early Years
Room Addition
Repaint then Road Trip

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Photo 17:


After Prakash's trip to Canada, he and Suchitra (his partner at that time) found a rental property in the Santa Cruz mountains. This place was in a steep ravine, at the end of a road that resembled a goat trail, and it offered quiet and privacy. There was a barn that had the top floor converted into a studio with shop space and facilities below. There was electricity and telephone, and water was supplied by a hillside spring.

Grace was parked on an old logging spur overlooking the building, with the back deck nearly flush with the hillside. A steep set of hewn logs ascended the hillside to the front steps of the bus.

This was Prakash's living situation during my first visit to Santa Cruz in 1980.

[Dennis The Bus Dweller]

Hey Sharkey

I Grace still on the road and is Prakash still livin in it?

These photos are like a flash back in time. This stuff is great.

[Sharkey]

I Grace still on the road and is Prakash still livin in it?

Well, that would be giving away the ending of this series. Guess you'll have to wait until I spin out the next 24 years of photos....

[Sharkey]

Photo 18:


Prakash wearing his best Sgt. Peppers costume, wiiide bell bottoms, lacy shirt with striped sleeves and shoulder pads, huge mutton chops, and China shoes.

The deck of the bus was level with a big log, which made getting up and down a lot easier. Usually it's a bit of a climb to get on the deck.

The rooftop deck looks to have some bedding on it, covered by a Mexican blanket. Prakash and Suchi continued to live in the bus (or on it when the weather permitted), even though the studio had a kitchen and sleeping loft. Mostly the studio was used as a guest cabin and art studio for Suchi's painting, and held her beloved upright piano. Prakash made extensive use of the shop space in the lower level of the barn for mechanical, welding, and woodworking projects.

[Sharkey]

Photo 19:


In February 1981, after nearly two years of preparations on my housetruck, I made a trip to Santa Cruz and visited Prakash and Suchi at their property in the hills. I parked the truck in the driveway alongside the end of the road.

For a week, I hepled move all of their possesions to storage, as they were vacating this property. I even got to help more Suchitra's piano out of the upstairs, which is a story all it's own.

Anyway, this is the last photo taken at that locality before the move was complete. Grace is down off the logging road, the studio is vacant, and we are pretty much ready to put to the road.

This photo doesn't really add much new material to the 'Photos of Grace' thread, other than to set the stage for the next installment, THE RACE!

[Sharkey]

Boy, has it ever been slow around here for the last week, no new posts since last Friday...

OK, so what's this about a "Housetruck Race"?

Well, as I was saying in the last post, I took a trip to Santa Cruz to visit Prakash in January and February of 1981. Shortly after I arrived Prakash and Suchi moved out of the rented studio/shop/barn, which meant that sometime around Feb 9-10, we piloted our land yachts down the bumpy road of the gulch where the land was and out to the asphalt waves of civilization. Down off the mountain and into Santa Cruz proper. We made no stops that I can recall, as this would have required parking large enough for his bus and my truck together.

Highway 1 north of Santa Cruz is four lanes and fairly level. It was there that Prakash and I got into some friendly competition. I had been following, but on the open road now, I decided to show off my auxiliary transmission. With no traffic near, I pulled into the left lane and put my foot into the accelerator hard. Prakash, seeing my advancement in his mirror, did likewise. It took quite a while to overtake him, doing all of about 50 MPH, but as I passed the front of his bus, I looked over to see him grinning and thrusting his body forward in the seat as if to urge his bus to go faster.

At this breakneck pace, we soon reached our destination, Boony Doon Road, and were forced to bring the speed back down to a reasonable level. Since I now had no idea where we were going, I allowed Grace to take the lead once again.

It ended up that we moved into a new situation together. Prakash was doing woodwork and building decks on a house overlooking the Monterey Bay. The owner consented to allow us to park on a large cement slab at the entrance to the property.

Here’s a piccy of our rigs parked end to end:

Photo 20:



This was a very private and quiet location, backed up against some large sandstone bluffs. There was water and power available, and Prakash was also caretaking a house about a half-mile away, so we had access to a complete wood shop, shower and laundry facilities, and telephone, so we didn’t have to bother the owner of the property where we were parked.

When the property owner found out that I had plumbing skills, he hired me to rework the existing drain plumbing in the house’s basement, as he was converting it to a recreation room, complete with sauna and shower. I ended up staying for five weeks, roughing in supply and drain plumbing, and installing electrical wiring in the unfinished walls.

[Stan]

Boy, has it ever been slow around here for the last week, no new posts since last Friday...

Waddya mean, "slow" ... we've been waiting for the great race installment for a week!

[Sharkey]

Another in the Bonny Doon series:

Photo 21:


In this shot, I had wanted to show the rack for carrying the BMW on the front of the bus. Since there was no way that I was going to put it up there myself, I grabbed the property owner's daughter's Big Wheel and put it into the proper position.

It's also possible to see the wire rack that I installed under my kitchen floor to hold firewood on this trip, and the old mail box mounted at the very rear that contains hose and LPG fittings and connectors. I found that a rural mail box made a great under-body locker, all metal, enclosed, with a lockable latch. I still tell people to leave me things in the front one behind the cab on the truck if I will be away when they visit.

Looks like we must have been experiencing a bit of rain, it ~was~ February, after all. The cement slab was a welcome foundation, as there was no dirt or mud to track into the house.

[Sharkey]

Photo 22:


A view of the front loft (The Library). The cream-and-blue thing out the windows is the back doors and roof line of my Housetruck, still parked in front of Grace.

Also shown are many of the furnishings of the library, a zafu (cushion for sitting meditation), some variety of animal pelt (probably something endangered, protected, or extinct by now), photos of spiritual masters, objects d' art, candles, pillows, and, of course, books.

In the foreground, at the top of the image is the curtains that hang from the rafters that can be drawn for privacy or to keep heat in or out. They are made from woolen camel blankets, with an intricate pattern woven into the coarse fibers. When not in use, they are tied to the rafters by woolen ropes with tassels on the ends, also part of the camel blanket accessories.

[dadeo]

cool!! you got any pics of the cab interior?

[Sharkey]

Photo 23


Twenty four years ago today, I packed up the housetruck for the trip home. I'd been in Santa Cruz for six weeks, found employment, a place to live, learned the streets and shops, made friends. Still, the pull back to Oregon was stronger. I've often wondered what might have happened if I had recognized that I could have easily moved to the area instead of going back. God knows that in the next six months, things back at the farm would go all to hell and I'd end up losing my living situation, employment, girlfriend and several close "friends", and nearly witness a murder. How different would my life be today? Eh, who knows? I survived.

Anyhow, here's a pic of Grace and my truck side-by-side in the last few minutes before I hit the road.

This brings to a close this installment of the Grace photos. Next, jumping forward a few years, Grace gets a complete make-over.

[Dennis The Bus Dweller]

How about Graces make-over? Your keeping us on the edge of our keyboards.

Photo 23


Twenty four years ago today, I packed up the housetruck for the trip home. I'd been in Santa Cruz for six weeks, found employment, a place to live, learned the streets and shops, made friends. Still, the pull back to Oregon was stronger. I've often wondered what might have happened if I had recognized that I could have easily moved to the area instead of going back. God knows that in the next six months, things back at the farm would go all to hell and I'd end up losing my living situation, employment, girlfriend and several close "friends", and nearly witness a murder. How different would my life be today? Eh, who knows? I survived.

Anyhow, here's a pic of Grace and my truck side-by-side in the last few minutes before I hit the road.

This brings to a close this installment of the Grace photos. Next, jumping forward a few years, Grace gets a complete make-over.

[Sharkey]

Do I detect a little tension? Good.

It's coming, but on a timetable determined in the past.

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Proceed directly to the next chapter: Extreme Makeover

[Sharkey]

Giving this thread a bump because it's the 25th anniversary of my trip in the Housetruck to Santa Cruz

[dburt]

Wow, did I miss something or did this thread just up and quit 5 years ago sort of leaving us all hanging in limbo?