Many years have found me, in all of them I've had the same reoccurring dream. Of a bus, on a road filled with friends. Filled with dresses and things made of my hands, barreling towards somewhere important and nowhere in particular at the same time. Stopping along the way to sell my wares as we need gas and have grand adventures in new places Ive never seen.
This dream started shortly after I stopped traveling the world. Go figure. That wanderlust that follows never leaves. Sitting at my kitchen table one morning, staring idly into my computer at my online teacher of accounting. A whisper crosses my mind "what happened to your bus?" Some unknown center of my being voice wafting through the mundane teachers accounting chant about organizing values. At that moment my entire mind lit up with this fantasy picture, the reoccurring dream of the road. This time I could really see it. In its entire arch. The people I would meet, the maps I would trace with pencils. The places I would be. Right down to the dresses I would stock my bus with to sell.
In my mind the whisper said "Perfect. Time to get started" and disappeared. Leaving space for the planning of how to execute this fantasy into my reality. Snapping shut my laptop muting the account teachers torturous lecture I turned to the calendar hanging on the wall. Staring into the calendar looking for clues, the boxes started to take shape. I estimated I would look for a month, find for a month and hopefully come up with an actual running vehicle in not to bad shape for renovating by my 40th birthday end of August.
The looking was fun, but a bit saddened by the prices and general disrepair most of the buses were in I was quickly beginning to wonder if I was in fact just crazy and hearing voices or if this was actually something I could make a reality. The first few weeks I attempted to get my husband excited to help look, and like a good sport he did. We found some box trucks and not quite rights and no call backs that fit our price range. Id about given up, after another week of waiting on a call back from a shop in the midwest that had a grundman delivery van from the 40s that would have been amazing. Deciding to give it one last shot I looked again, this time forgoing any notion of something extremely antique for a more reasonable vintage era 60s-70s mini bus. A schoolie is what you'd call it.... quite a popular genre of vehicles actually i found. Combing through online car ads, old motorhomes and long lost vehicles in fields with must pick up on a flat bed listings I came across my bus. I knew instantly it was my bus because the voice came back and said "thats it" the instant the image crossed the screen. Coincidentally this mini bus was in California only 5 hours away in Bigfoot country farther north from where I live. We emailed immediately. After a few days with no answer I was starting to get antsy. Finally we got a response, saying the bus was still available and we could come test drive it and check it out. Of course I wanted to go right away, but work and time wouldn't have it so I had to wait two weeks until my husband could come with me into the hills to check it out.
Finally the day arrived, I packed nothing of course assuming we would be back at the end of the day or late night with the bus best case or towing the bus and back late night worst case. We headed out with nothing but the guys email, and instructions to call him when we arrived in the small lonely town of Hayfork in the trinity alps. Driving through the trinity wilderness, over passes that pioneers and gold miners traveled is a certain kind of out there. The beauty is immense but also so harsh its frightening at times. Extreme heat, altitudes and weather issues are commonplace, including a huge rockslide that had cut off most of the road we were on through the mountain at one point.
Arriving in hayfork around sundown we promptly parked by the town bar to try and get service to make a call to the guy we were seeing about the bus. Having come all this way the silence was unbearable, one minute felt like an hour. Finally the response came but it was not what we were hoping. "We don't do business after dark now. So come by in the morning and we will take her out for a test drive." looking at each other and then the forlorn town with tumble weeds and stark rocks baking in the sun we had to now formulate our new plan of attack. Driving slowly out of town after confirming we would in fact be back for the test drive in the morning we watched the sun slowly descending behind the looming mountain range. 30 miles later we ended our day in Weaverville a small unassuming town deep in the emerald triangle famous for its well preserved historic downtown district. Complete with wooden wild west era buildings, and a fight between rival asian gangs in the 1900's in which the locals helped the asians sharpen pitchforks into weapons and cheered on a 600 person battle between said rival gangs while onlooking towns folk watched just out of town. This is real theres a pile of rocks at the place of the battle, pitchforks emblazoned on it an everything. We checked into a shabby "victorian" style hotel, which really had very few victorian elements to it other than creepy paintings of young maidens and an old pair of shoes left under our bed. The evening turned to night and crept by painfully slow, finally the dawn and light spured us out of town and towards our goal.
The yard we ended up in was filled with neatly organized piles of everything from antique stoves to reclaimed wood. Sun baked rocks and random ferrel cats were speckled about the piles and a organized but dark double wide prefab home awaited us. From the front door rolled a curious man in a wheelchair missing his legs but not short in arm strength as he approached us mastering the treacherous terrain of this yard. He had missing teeth, hair and a beer belly covered in mechanics grease dust and mountain grime. Sporting a smile and a nod he said "welcome" " bus is right over here" and we made our way to the mini bus parked off to the side of the yard. He immediately began telling us the story of the bus, which started with the story of his missing legs. I could tell and Im sure he could too that my husband wanted to ask just how he ended up in hayfork and how he lost his legs being far to polite to ask this man just started the bus story with the most obvious.
Our hero lost his legs hiking up Mt Shasta in April after having drank the night before, and then some more the day of. Half way up the mountain with his two friends and two guides he started feeling sick and decided to take a rest and head back down after he felt a bit better. His friends packed him in snow (it was still snowing up there in April) and left him with his down jacket promising to come back and get him on their way back down if he wasn't already gone. Having been drinking themselves they ended up separating and going back down the mountain different directions, also completely forgetting they had left someone on the side of the mountain in the snow in questionable health. Three days later his work wondering where he had gone called the police. The police sent out a cadaver dog and our hero was found, heart beat down to six beats a minute covered in snow, frostbitten from head to toe but alive. When asked if he remembered any of the three days on the mountain he replied "not a second". He woke up at UC Davis days later missing his legs and being advised he needed a psych exam to get released from the hospital. Apparently our hero told his doctor he had to get to the rainbow gathering in the midwest soon so he needed to be leaving and the doctor told him he was insane. Having realized he needed to escape as quickly as possible from the hospital he pretended to have no interest in his party and claimed to have come to his senses and was quickly released. After leaving the hospital his first stop was a convenient store for a pepperoni stick, one of those long large plastic covered deals which he strapped to his leg as a make shift prosthetic. He then purchased a car and drove across country to the Rainbow Gathering. Leaving the mountain, his legs and the doctors orders in the rear view.
The bus came into his life shortly after that rainbow gathering, in which he animatedly told us of how his wife and children had traveled to festivals and states for years in the bus. The bus is filled with all kinds of gadgets and additions he had crafted himself. A bed that stowed away on the wall and rolled down using old ship rigging. An airplane bathroom ripped from an old captains cabin in a vintage plane. Hot and cold water taps installed outside for festival goers to fill their bottles with water or hot water for tea. Fridge, hanging crystals the whole nine yards. I was in awe. This man shaped like a jelly bean, animatedly telling us about his incredibly full and glorious adventures. Two wives later and grown children moved away the bus had been away from the festival life for a time and our hero was ready to sell her to the right people. As he plucked away at the engine showing us all the new parts and recent work he had done I caught him glimpse me out the corner of his eye and smile.
The bus itself's history was no less colorful than the man that owned it as it turned out. Originally a prison transport bus used to take prisoners from jail to the bus stop once released to parole. 1976 found it in mint condition until the policemen driving it ran it over a curb going 60 and took it out of commission with the department of corrections. Front end in need of repair the bus ended up in hayfork close by with the only mechanic employed by the department of justice that could work on these buses. His last job on his last month before retirement this man rebuilt the buses front end and then promptly retired. The bus went to auction and found its way to our hero. After which time it toured with the bands, Phish, The Grateful Dead, and saw many rainbow gathering summers and festival days.
As we turned the key and the engine roared to life I clapped my hands together and I heard that voice again "its happening" inside my head. I made it known I was sold. He looked at me a long kind but also hard look and said " I knew when you got out of the car I was going to have to sell her today. Your the right people" We exchanged some more stories and cash and with a puff of exhaust and some dirt spewing from under the wheels we pulled out of the yard and onto the highway. Waving our goodbyes to a real hero, pioneer minded type of individual that truly inspired us both with his life story.
Winding down through the mountains driving behind my husband in the bus watching and listening to the engine for any signs of trouble. 170 miles later, out of the mountains, onto the highway and just over the Mendocino county line on 101 a puff of smoke left the exhaust and I could see the bus loosing steam. At the off ramp she died, just off the road on a quiet offramp. Crushed but not defeated we checked the engine for clues. Id only had a bus for a few hours at this point, so little to know experience in this department at this time. After getting her off the road and poking around in the engine for a while we decided to get her towed. I was already planning on driving her to our mechanic at home anyway so this wasn't that much of an issue. For some reason when my husband drove away leaving me in the bus to go find service on his phone and call a tow. The voice gone and my images of fantastic adventures now stalled on the side of the road I panicked. All of the bad things came rushing in, thoughts of how stupid this was, how dumb it had been to try something like this. How it would've been easier to just stay home and what a mess id made with my stupid ideas. My fathers voice had replaced my happy whisper in my head with the tried and true "I told ya kid your always a fuck up" by the time my husband returned I was in tears. Id done a fantastic job of convincing myself Id made the biggest mistake no one would ever forgive me for and ruined my life. My husband, seeing my tears twisted up his face and asked me "why the hell are you crying? We don't need that right now, so your gonna need to get it together babe."
Stifling my sobs like a small child I knew he was right. Sitting there in the stalled bus had snapped me into a place we all go when we are out of our comfort zone for long enough. Trying something new and at the first hiccup it seems so much easier to just not have come. Completely losing the upside, or the other-side or any-side other than it must've been the wrong choice. In the end the sun faded, a truck laden with chains and wood straight out of mad max pulled up and a mechanic by trade Marvin and his teen daughter who lived near by ended up testing our battery and alternator. We determined the alternator was the problem and having arranged a tow already we wrote a note for the window indicating the bus was not abandon and would be picked up and had to leave her there and continued on our way home.
My disappointment soon faded as I thought about all the other possible scenarios there could have been. The bus got us 170 + miles out of some of the hardest highest terrain in the world to a safe place she could be picked up easily. I was already planning on the tune up so really what was there to be worried or sad about? the minor change in plans? The money for the tow that I had planned into the cost of the bus and saved over one year to cover anyway? Despite the current situation things were actually going exactly as planned. As we drove home talking excitedly about the new project bus and our plans for it I asked my husband if he was mad at the extra time we had had to take in Weaverville, if he cared the bus needed a tow if he was mad at me for dragging us out into the wilderness on a wild ride for a bus? My husband the amazing man that he is looked at me and said "No, this is a journey its all part of the adventure. You of all people already know this. Im here for it all. Its all just part of the ride isn't it? What would we be doing if not pursuing our dreams to the ends of the earth together? Today was perfect."
