First "long" trip...

[travelingfools]

Well, we made our first "long" trip with the bus. Well, long for us anyway..Around 130 miles round trip. No real issues mechanically to speak of..Of course a few minor ones but nothing that caused us to call a hook ! When we pulled into Evangola State Park last Monday, the young clerk met us and asked "can I help you" ??" as if we were looking for directions or dropping someone off. When we told him we had reservations, he said  I dont have room for that "thing". We explained to him that our reservation was for a site that would accommodate a 40 footer, he wouldn't believe that was our length. He eventually paced off the bus (apparently some sort of official New York State measurement). Once we had agreed on the length, he suggested we do a drive by on the site we had reserved as he didn't think we could get the bus onto it. It had been apparently raining for the past three days and they were concerned that my bus would become a part of the landscape mired in the mud. Of course in my mind, I was saying I can put this "thing" anywhere I want. We were able to get into our site by backing into the site across from us and pulling headfirst into ours. This worked fine, until my rear drivers wheels dropped off the gravel and began to sink, tipping the bus to the point I though I was going over. Judging by the hysterical laughter coming from my buddy, the look on my face must have shown my fear. While we were shoehorning the bus onto our site, the lad who kept referring to my bus as "that thing" had taken the parks truck and blocked off the road with his lights flashing. This brought out a whole group of people that I'm convinced were hoping for me to fail and provide them with some solid entertainment. Well, the rain stopped and we had two sunny days of camping. Around 6am this morning, the clouds opened and everything was a muddy mess again. Luckily the folks across from us left this am also and with only a few back and Fourths, we were able to get our bus out of the site leaving only a few minor divots/indentations. It rained pretty heavy most of the way home, I could tell this by all the water running down the inside of the windshield. All in all, it was a good trip. This was our first with a full size fridge and no coolers. What a pleasant thing that was, not having to deal with ice ! We also got another wall up for the bathroom before we left, and that worked out nicely. We had a small leak in our black tank, so I guess I'm going to bite the bullet and buy a new one. We had been using a plastic hd 55 gal drum. Our water supply worked like a champ ! Going down the road, the bus had plenty of power. I tried to keep it around 60ish but kept finding my speed creeping to the low 70's. It held speed well going up hills and rode fairly smooth. Ive still got an electrical/battery issue, but that will be for another post...here's a shot of the inside so far from this weekend..skinning project starts next week !

[cody]

And the question is,,,,, are ya having fun? lol.  That brings up a fond memory of mine, libby and I and a couple of friends took the bus to a small river near here that we like to fish at, the spot is a nice level grassy area along the side of the river, the road ends there except for the original part that nobody uses anymore, it goes thru the river and up into the woods on the other side where it's washed out badly and over grown with fallen trees here and there along the 8 mile path it takes out to the main road again.  We were sitting out in lawn chairs drinking coffee when we could hear the sound of trucks accross the river, we waited and watched for them for a long time before we finally saw them grind into view, there were 5- 4x4 pickups with Illinios license plates churning their way thru the old road, they stopped and looked at us, then at each other and shook their heads, one waded thru the river and came up to us, he looked at the bus and shook his head, he asked us if all of us Yoopers were insane lol, he said the last 4 miles they had been in low range and even had to winch themselves thru a couple of spots lol.,, We told them is harder to get in here in the winter lol, they just looked at us, turned around and churned their way back the direction they had come in from, libby said I should have probably told them the road is good on this side of the river but I must have forgot lol.