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Well, I’m coming home to Ottawa soon enough, and it’s going to be time to get working on the bus again! I’ve been busy doing some planning on how we might lay it out inside. The original thought was to have it sleep 8 people, but after a lot of configurations it became clear that it wasn’t going to leave much space for anything else. In the end, it looks like sleeping 6-7 is the best option. This allows us to only keep three sets of seats at the front, and only having one set of bunks. There will be a large kitchen area and a booth-style table that turns into a double bed. The Washroom sits at the back across from the bunks (which will be three high if we can make it work). And then there’s a permanent double bed at the back. Below are some pictures/renders of the layout I did in Maya: ...

So we parked the bus in it’s new home and started hauling out the insides…. So far the seats are all out and the flooring has started to come up. I’m back in Vancouver now so I won’t be able to do any more work on it but this will give me some good time to start planning out the interior. I also found a video from out trip which I’ll include at the end here: ...

Well, we made it home! From Kenora we headed through Ontario, past Thunder bay and stayed the next night in a little motel in a town with no name :P. In Thunder Bay we ordered some Chinese food and found a beautiful Terry Fox lookout to eat at. We pulled into the parking lot of the lookout and there were literally 9 police cars parked there. We still don’t know what they we’re doing but they surely weren’t doing anything useful… ...

Well, just like everyone warned, the prairies are wide, flat and quite boring :P Seeing the never-ending golden fields for the first time was amazing, and it’s a beautiful place, but two days of straight and flat is tough. On Monday we made it all the way to Moosejaw, Saskatchewan, and, along the way, we wired in a nice new stereo for the bus. We had to disconnect 8 of the 12 speakers to get any good volume from the deck but it was worth it! ...

We made it to Calgary! Another beautiful sunny day through the mountains and now were out. Stayed with my uncle Keith and aunt Cathy and got a wonderful hot meal as well. We took some time to look at the seats and discovered how easy they are to remove, so now there’s a big empty space at the back! :) This morning we met up with Alex and had some breakfast before heading out towards Saskatchewan…

So there it it. Day one of the journey is over and we’re about to start day 2. Yesterday we made it to Kamloops, BC. We left Vancouver around 8pm and headed into the mountains. We didn’t know what to expect but there are some long steep hills up here… We definitely had a few points where we could only manage 40 km/h, and downhill I’m keeping it around 60 to stay in control. Thankfully there’s room to pass, though; 40 on a limit of 110 makes a few people angry! So today were headed into Calgary, and get to be done with the mountain driving.

Well this is it. After years of searching and wanting I’ve finally found the perfect fit. This here is my new (old) 1981 coach. It’s a Motorcoach Industries (MCI) model MC9. I bought it out here in Vancouver, Canada not 4 days ago. I now have the permits and registration so thus begins the journey home! In two days I will begin the long drive back to Ottawa, Ontario. More to come!