[{"content":"In 2019 we actually didn\u0026rsquo;t get the bus out at all! We visited it during the summer and took it out on a few short drives, but were a little preoccupied with life. In June of 2019, we bought a condo that flooded the day before we closed. Thankfully it was all covered by insurance but we dealt with a number of contractors over the summer and had our hands full planning and building out everything that we wanted!\nIn 2020, we only managed to get the bus out once (the world was in a pandemic, of course). Thankfully in August things were going pretty well in BC so we took the chance to head up to Penticton with some family.\nWe stayed at a beautiful little spot right on the river - at some point in the last couple of years the A/C stopped turning on in the bus (still to be diagnosed) and it was HOT this weekend. Thankfully the river was cold mountain water and became a great place to relax and dip our feet.\nUnfortunately, I don\u0026rsquo;t actually have a lot of photos from this trip, but I did get some more driving footage on the way home!\nThanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/penticton/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn 2019 we actually didn\u0026rsquo;t get the bus out at all! We visited it during the summer and took it out on a few short drives, but were a little preoccupied with life. In June of 2019, we bought a condo that flooded the day before we closed. Thankfully it was all covered by insurance but we dealt with a number of contractors over the summer and had our hands full planning and building out everything that we wanted!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Penticton 2020"},{"content":"In the summer of 2018 we already knew that we wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be able to take a honeymoon just yet, but wanted to take at least a small trip as newlyweds. We had never been to Kelowna and decided that it would be a fun weekend to drive the bus up there for a couple of nights.\nOn the way up, we stopped for a hike at an old railway tunnel in the mountains. There\u0026rsquo;s some really cool history here - learning about all the effort that went into the trans-Canada railway right across the Rockies.\nWe stayed at a cute little RV park that only had a few spots. It was a really nice and quiet area, and they even had chickens!\nWe brought our bikes up with us and spent the next day doing a bike wine tour. Except that we are not big on wine so instead we did a lavender farm, honey aviary and some other exploring of the city. We also almost had a run-in with a bear and got yelled at by a few golfers\u0026hellip; just a typical day, I suppose!\nOn the way back out the following day we stopped at a jammery for some tasting.\nAt some point on the way home, I must have hit a curb because the tire on one of our tag axels got quite low. Thankfully we were out of the mountains at this point and so a quick stop at Canadian tire for an air pump got us enough pressure to make it home and defer the problem for another day!\nThanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/kelowna/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn the summer of 2018 we already knew that we wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be able to take a honeymoon just yet, but wanted to take at least a small trip as newlyweds. We had never been to Kelowna and decided that it would be a fun weekend to drive the bus up there for a couple of nights.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/MVIMG%5F20180901%5F143706.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOn the way up, we stopped for a hike at an old railway tunnel in the mountains. There\u0026rsquo;s some really cool history here - learning about all the effort that went into the trans-Canada railway right across the Rockies.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Kelowna 2018"},{"content":"And of course, the bus was involved in the wedding. We got married at the sea-to-sky gondola and hosted our closes friends and family in a beautiful house in Whistler for the week. If you know us well you\u0026rsquo;ve likely seen all of our pictures already - I\u0026rsquo;m not going to post many here publically but suffice it to say we thought it was just perfect.\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/we-got-married/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAnd of course, the bus was involved in the wedding. We got married at the sea-to-sky gondola and hosted our closes friends and family in a beautiful house in Whistler for the week. If you know us well you\u0026rsquo;ve likely seen all of our pictures already - I\u0026rsquo;m not going to post many here publically but suffice it to say we thought it was just perfect.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG%5F20180526%5F120622.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/MVIMG%5F20180512%5F151313.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG%5F20180526%5F160240.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/MVIMG%5F20180526%5F155019.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG%5F20180529%5F190214.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/TO3%5F5958.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/TO3%5F5972-Edit.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/TO3%5F7163.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG%5F20180530%5F182354.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/TO3%5F9101.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e","title":"We Got Married!"},{"content":"Through the winter of 2017/2018, we didn\u0026rsquo;t do much, except keep the solar panels clear and the batteries charged.\nCome springtime though, it was time for our annual trip to Whistler!\nWe loaded up the car and headed to the bus, but were shocked to find a whole rally happening! Our bus was right in the middle of the whole thing, so it took a little time and musical chairs to get us out. This set us back an hour or two but everyone was still in good spirits.\nAs usual, the sea-to-sky highway presented beautiful vistas and warm sun on our way up the mountain. The bus takes these hills pretty slow but it\u0026rsquo;s hard to be in a rush when you are enjoying such a view.\nWe settled into our spot in whistler and headed into the village for some dinner. After eating we had ourselves a little fire and settled into the coziness of the bus for the night.\nDay two was the real adventure - we were going rock climbing! This was happening in Squamish, so we packed up and headed back towards Vancouver.\nThis was never intended to be a long trip, and with the adventure over, we headed back home to park the bus. By this time the rally was over (thankfully) and we got back in with much less trouble!\nThanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/whistler-1/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThrough the winter of 2017/2018, we didn\u0026rsquo;t do much, except keep the solar panels clear and the batteries charged.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/MVIMG%5F20180106%5F145322-0.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/MVIMG%5F20180106%5F145322-1-1.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCome springtime though, it was time for our annual trip to Whistler!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe loaded up the car and headed to the bus, but were shocked to find a whole rally happening! Our bus was right in the middle of the whole thing, so it took a little time and musical chairs to get us out. This set us back an hour or two but everyone was still in good spirits.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Whistler 2018"},{"content":"Wow, so much to update on! I\u0026rsquo;m going to try to keep these posts in order, and not skip anything, but that means jumping back a little for a couple of them.\nBack in the summer of 2017, we had heard about the total solar eclipse that was coming. Turns out it the totality could be seen in Oregon, and it was going to happen on a Monday. This meant that with one day off work, we could mozy our way down over a weekend and catch it first hand. Mom was also looking to make a trip out and visit us, so it was all set!\nThis trip was going to be the first full boondocking adventure, where we didn\u0026rsquo;t stay at an RV park or hook up to any external systems during the trip. In all honesty, we did look for an RV park, but this was a few weeks in advance and the rest of the planet had thought to do this over a year beforehand (of course)! To prepare, I had made some minor upgrades to the freshwater system: namely, adding a small accumulator tank and cleaning up the piping a little.\nOn day one, we worked our way just across the border to a Walmart parking lot for the night. Overall this leg was uneventful, and it was Friday night so we were all pretty tired from the week and excited to sleep a little. The bus does not black all sound from outside, but with our added blackout curtains and just being so high off the ground it was surprisingly comfy!\nThe one unfortunate thing thing that we learned that first day, was that we had not fully winterized the valve on our toilet, and so had to rely on the Walmart washrooms\u0026hellip;\nIn our previous trip to Seattle, we tried to take a tour of the Boeing factory, but couldn\u0026rsquo;t get a space (as it was the 4th of July weekend). This time we were determined to see it, and booked spots well in advance. We woke up the next morning, bought some cereal and milk from our hosts, and then headed straight to the factory!\nIf you ever get a chance to visit the Everett, Washington plant I highly recommend going. The sheer scale of commercial aircraft production is insane, and the size of that production floor just has to be seen to really fathom.\nAfter the factory visit, we went out on a mission to fuel the bus and get some lunch. This can be a straightforward endeavor if you\u0026rsquo;re lucky, but more often than not you are cruising around just waiting for a station that sells diesel at a reasonable price, and that actually fits the bus! If I\u0026rsquo;m honest, navigating these tight spaces and parking lots are my favorite part of these journeys (and the least for Zara) ;)\nAfter lunch, we coninued south through Seattle and towards Oregon. We started to make our way towards Mt. St.Helens until we realized that it was a really long way off of our path, and would be closed by the time we made it there. Instead, we settled for a nice walk around one of the visitor centers near the highway.\nThat night, we made our way to a rest area south of Seattle, near the Oregon border. This was actually great! We parked up alongside a few big rigs and had a pretty nice sleep. They even have volunteers that serve free coffee in the mornings (though not the morning that we were there). Thankfully they also had a washroom that we could use that was surprisingly clean.\nThe next morning we did a few more clicks and found a McDonald\u0026rsquo;s for breakfast.\nIt was Sunday now, one day from the eclipse, and we were getting into Oregon. None of us had ever been to Portland so we wanted to go into the city for the day and see some of downtown. As you can imagine, downtown cores are not a great place for the bus, and don\u0026rsquo;t usually have the kind of parking that we need in order for us to stop and have lunch! Our solution was to find somewhere that did have parking, but also access to transit. The Portland Expo Center was our saving grace, with a light rail connection right into the city, and more parking than you could ever hope for.\nUsually when we travel in the bus, we try and avoid situations where we need something from someone\u0026hellip; I know that this sounds vague, but usually people just don\u0026rsquo;t know what to do with our bus, and generally try their hardest to just say \u0026rsquo;no\u0026rsquo;. The Expo Center worried us a little in this regard, since it was paid and gated parking. That being said, we had budgeted to pay for 5 spaces, since realistically we just end up parking across spaces in normal lots.\nWhen we arrived, the parking attendant was not having it and was looking for reasons to turn us away, which would have sucked. Thankfully, her boss (or whoever was on the other end of the radio) couldn\u0026rsquo;t have cared less. In the end, we paid for two spots and got our own space along their nice driveway!\nWe had a lovely day, and in the afternoon, continued on to our final destination, another walmart within the area of the totality.\nThe next morning, we settled in for the eclipse. The parking lot filled up over the course of the morning until there was quite a crow there set up with us! We brought snacks, lawn chairs, and most importantly, eclipse glasses for staring at the sun.\nHonestly, the eclipse itself was incredible. If you\u0026rsquo;ve ever experienced one I\u0026rsquo;m sure you can relate, but it\u0026rsquo;s hard to describe. The shadows start to do really strange things as the sun starts to be covered. When the totality does hit, the whole world gets dark. It\u0026rsquo;s not a nighttime dark, though, it\u0026rsquo;s a different sort of dark with different colors. You can really imagine how that sort of event could spark stories and legends if you didn\u0026rsquo;t know what it was or that it was coming.\nAfter the eclipse we headed back, all the way back to Vancouver. It was a long trip, and we knew that it would be, but nothing can really prepare you for that much stop and go traffic. Pretty much the entire world must have been in that tiny Oregon town with us\u0026hellip; Thankfully though, the eclipse had scheduled itself for the morning, and we made it home in time for bed and work in the morning.\nThanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/solar-eclipse-trip/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWow, so much to update on! I\u0026rsquo;m going to try to keep these posts in order, and not skip anything, but that means jumping back a little for a couple of them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBack in the summer of 2017, we had heard about the total solar eclipse that was coming. Turns out it the totality could be seen in Oregon, and it was going to happen on a Monday. This meant that with one day off work, we could mozy our way down over a weekend and catch it first hand. Mom was also looking to make a trip out and visit us, so it was all set!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Solar Eclipse Trip"},{"content":"As we prepare for our next trip in the bus, I am reminded that I never finished the blog post for our last one! It was Zara\u0026rsquo;s birthday in May, and another one of our friends has a birthday couple days earlier. Because of this, it has become a bit of a tradition that we do a trip in the bus celebrate. Last year was our trip to the Whistler gun range as many of us had never done that before, and this year we headed back to Whistler for some zip-lining down the mountain! We have another friend who has been working as a zip line instructor up there so it just seemed like the perfect opportunity.\nCurtains for the windows were the last thing that we really wanted to have done before heading up, because if there\u0026rsquo;s one thing we\u0026rsquo;ve noticed about sleeping in the bus: it\u0026rsquo;s that waking up with the sun is not always what you want when you\u0026rsquo;re on vacation. Zara and Marco ( my future best man ;) ) worked on hanging these while we headed into the city to pick up the gang.\nAs you can see in the first video, it was raining as we left the bust storage. We drove east into the city to pick everyone else up along the Sky Train line, which is about an hour drive. The weather cleared as we headed north onto the sea-to-sky and actually got sunny heading up towards Whistler. The drive itself was uneventful, and we arrived at the RV site in good time.\nThe one thing that you can\u0026rsquo;t really see in these photos is the temperature. It was may, and a below average may, and many thousand feet up above sea level where we started the day. We\u0026rsquo;re all troopers though and bundled up for our high speed flight through the cold mountain air. Before I jump into those photos, I would like to talk a little bit about water. Many months prior, I had re-plumbed all of the water hookups so that we would be able to plug in the RV park connection and use the water in the sink. I must say I was very excited to finally be able to use the sink and everything like normal, but alas, I had put a male hose connection on the end, which was backwards of what was needed for this rv park\u0026hellip; but more on that later, first we went zip-lining!\nThe Zip-Trek course that we did up there was fantastic, lots of amazing views and the guides made it really fun. They also have the longest zip line in the US and Canada, but that was still closed for the winter, so we\u0026rsquo;ll have to go back again sometime! We spent some time in Whistler village afterwards and picked up a new connector for the water hose (yay!). Unfortunately, the joy was short-lived, after getting it hooked up I discovered that a couple key connections were leaking and I didn\u0026rsquo;t have the parts to get them fixed properly. In the end we had the water going while we washed dishes etc, but I definitely feel like that was a defeat, and I will get that ready before our next trip.\nOn Sunday, Zara and I had an appointment to check out a camp which we thought about renting for our wedding so we hit the road pretty early.\nAs we headed down the highway the clouds cleared ff, the sun came out and there were some breathtaking views. We\u0026rsquo;ve all driven this highway before but the bright blue sky against the white snowy mountains was something special that morning. We had to stop and have a little impromptu photo session at the viewpoint.\nWe rolled into Squamish around lunch time and stopped for a nice meal at White Spot. With some more time to kill afterwards, we decided to do a little stop at Shannon Falls, which was very busy on this beautiful day. We took advantage of the bus parking that was there, which probably saved us a lot of headache as there were lots of cars circling around with no place to park.\nLeaving Squamish, we headed north east down a smaller highway, which turned off into a street that became skinnier and skinnier as we headed deeper into the mountains. The bus has been many places before, and I have navigated it through some unbelievably tight spaces so there\u0026rsquo;s not much that gets me nervous, but I have to say, the small service road leading into the camp was a new type of experience. Looking back I wish that we\u0026rsquo;d filmed the drive; it was a one-lane dirt road with exposed rocks and steep grades that must have been approaching 20-30%. It\u0026rsquo;s possible that my memory has it worse than it is but nonetheless this was off-road-ing for sure. We had been told that buses head down there regularly but it was only later that we discovered this was school buses, which have a much higher ground clearance than our coach. We definitely turned some heads and maybe caused a few heart attacks for oncoming traffic but the bus took it all with ease and hauled us up to the camp.\nThere were some other couples there for the tour and the bus took a few of them off guard.\nWe loved the camp, and were close to booking it for our wedding, but, in the end, the price point was a bit high for us and it wasn\u0026rsquo;t exactly the format that we wanted for the wedding. Either way it was an amazingly fun weekend and a great birthday for Zara. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t already, follow us on instagram ( @abusnamedsteve) for more updates, and thanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/whistler/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAs we prepare for our next trip in the bus, I am reminded that I never finished the blog post for our last one! It was Zara\u0026rsquo;s birthday in May, and another one of our friends has a birthday couple days earlier. Because of this, it has become a bit of a tradition that we do a trip in the bus celebrate. Last year was our trip to the Whistler gun range as many of us had never done that before, and this year we headed back to Whistler for some zip-lining down the mountain! We have another friend who has been working as a zip line instructor up there so it just seemed like the perfect opportunity.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Whistler 2017"},{"content":"Zara\u0026rsquo;s birthday has come and past, which is a story in itself, but as usual the blog is a little behind. We finished getting the roof re-insulated fairly quickly, but not without difficulty. We realized after some trial and error that it was going to be really hard to put the metal paneling back up without knowing where each one came from. This meant that we had to sort through and deduce one at a time which panel came from where\u0026hellip; There are not really any photos of this process because we powered through it as quickly as possible and were struggling to keep our arms from giving out on us after holding panels above our heads all day.\nWe were now feeling the crunch time approaching before Zara\u0026rsquo;s birthday. We had booked our trip to whistler and had a few more projects that needed to be completed before the bus was ready for its next excursion. We knew that we wanted to rebuild the bunk beds so that they had a little more space and privacy. We also knew, however, that unless we wanted to haul wood through the windows later, we needed to reconstruct the back wall while the bunks were disassembled.\nYou can see in the picture above that there is a bit of a shelf-type shape that is formed by the sheet metal at the back. The plan was to build around this and end up with a nice shelf built into the wall. The weather was starting to improve from all of the rain we get through the winter, which was perfect for planning and cutting outside:\nIn the photos above, you can see the vision coming to life. We never quite got the shelf finished (and I\u0026rsquo;ll get back to that) but we went as far as we needed to before shifting focus back to the bunks and rebuilding them. They now stretch right up to the ceiling, which makes them a lot more comfortable. We also installed a plug into each one for phone charging, and will put a little LED light bar in the future. Speaking of plugs, the next task was a bit of and overhaul of the power system. I installed a proper sub-panel under the kitchen counter, and laid out some more appropriate circuits with new plugs in the kitchen and bathroom. We also have plans for a few plugs in the back bedroom, including one in the shelf (which we never got to before the trip, and why it is not currently completed). The last really big project before our trip was painting the ceiling. This was one of Zara\u0026rsquo;s main requests, and I definitely agree that the old pattern from the 80\u0026rsquo;s was not the most stylish. This was a two-weekend process because we wanted to make sure we got two good coats on there. If you have ever painted a ceiling you will understand the struggle of reaching and looking up for hours at a time\u0026hellip; it\u0026rsquo;s pretty rough. With the ceiling painted, we could finally install the LED lighting that we\u0026rsquo;d been planning for. We put up lengths of 2x2 above the windows, which we could lay the LED strips on. This would also double as a hanging point for the curtains that we had made, so we installed eye hooks along the bottom at the same time. Some nice rough-cut paneling then attached over top of the 2x2 to hid the LEDs and hooks: Overall, we are super happy with how this stuff turned out. We put the same system in the bathroom and will be installing it in the bedroom as well once we have some time again. The only other project we completed for the trip was our curtains. If you read the last post, you know that we were a bit preemptive with these guys. We ended up buying a bunch of blackout curtains, and then cutting and sewing them down to a bus size. Unfortunately we didn\u0026rsquo;t totally think through all of the measurements and ended up deciding to take them back home and make them a little smaller. The only photos of the completed curtains were taken on the trip, so you\u0026rsquo;ll have to wait for the next blog post to see them ;)\nThanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/working-hard-for-comfort/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eZara\u0026rsquo;s birthday has come and past, which is a story in itself, but as usual the blog is a little behind. We finished getting the roof re-insulated fairly quickly, but not without difficulty. We realized after some trial and error that it was going to be really hard to put the metal paneling back up without knowing where each one came from. This meant that we had to sort through and deduce one at a time which panel came from where\u0026hellip; There are not really any photos of this process because we powered through it as quickly as possible and were struggling to keep our arms from giving out on us after holding panels above our heads all day.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Working Hard For Comfort"},{"content":"Now that Zara and I are really settled into our life in Vancouver, we have some more time and money to re-visit some of the aspects of the bus that we were never quite satisfied with in our initial conversion. I won\u0026rsquo;t divulge the entire list of projects that we came up with yet, but they will all be detailed here at some point ;) We also have a new Instagram account for the bus (which we\u0026rsquo;ve officially named Steve) that you can follow for more regular updates from Zara [ @abusnamedsteve]\nFirst of all, a little bit of personal news. We got engaged! Most of you reading this may already know that but we are excited :)\nOkay, now onto the bus stuff. The first project that I wanted to tackle was power. We had an inverter and one RV battery in the bus, but now that it is parked with no plugin it is always dead when we go out there and the battery itself was shot. We priced it all out and decided that some new batteries and a set of solar panels would do us nicely. We spotted a nice sale so ordered the solar panels first, which came super quickly via Amazon.\nI knew that the installation would require going through the roof, and running some wires. I also knew that I always wish I\u0026rsquo;d replaced the insulation in the roof when I had the bus torn apart the first time. The solar panel job soon got side tracked as we started to pull down the roof panels to see how big of a job that would really be. In the end, we decided to go for it, as the 30 year old insulation was less than effective and it was likely one of our last chances to really do it right.\nhttps://youtu.be/xpXvn7PUSDQ\nIf you look carefully in this video, you can also see that we put some curtains up over the windows. Those have since come down for the renovations (they were up for a total of about ten minutes). This is one of the other projects that we started on, ordering some full length curtains and sewing them back up to be bus sized\u0026hellip; but more on that later on when they go in for real.\nEventually we got all of the main panels taken down and the insulation cleaned up. We chose closed-cell foam insulation to replace it with and got busy cutting all of the panels out. We struggled a little at the beginning, learning how to best cut the foam and also cut out the divots needed for the cross-members etc. but by the end of the day we could rip them out pretty quickly. With the roof all torn out, we could then get the solar panels installed! This was honestly one of the easiest projects we\u0026rsquo;ve ever done on the bus, we just had to wait a couple weeks for a day without rain in order to get them put up.\nWe also got the solar charge controller installed, but this is when we we\u0026rsquo;re finally able to confirm that the old battery we had was totally useless. The following week we bit the bullet and bought 4 new 6v deep cycle batteries to power the bus. Now that they have the power of the sun to keep them maintained it\u0026rsquo;s great to know that they are healthy and ready for us anytime we visit or use the bus.\nWith the solar project done, we turned back to the roof insulation. First step was to put up all of the corner insulation pieces and start to gain some space back in the bus, which had every surface covered in cut out pieces of foam insulation.\nHaving a source of power has also been a great help as we start to put the roof back up. We have a lot of battery tools but some like the angle grinder are not, which we can now start to use again! This let us finally tackle the riveted roof panels at the back of the bus. We also started prepping the roof panels to get them put back up. We are peeling off the old patterned decal from them so that they can be painted once they are back up. The center panels seem to peel really easily but the side ones do not. We are going to try using a hair dryer next time to see if we could get them to lift. There is also a really strong glue smell that remains after they are peeled so we are sanding off any residue before putting them back in (which is necessary for painting anyway).\nMuch to Zara\u0026rsquo;s delight, we then finally took down the fiberglass panel at the back of the bus. She\u0026rsquo;s hated it since I left it there during the first round of renovations. We are going to build some nice shelves/storage into that area and are both excited to be rid of the eyesore.\nhttps://youtu.be/YUkInXteICo\nWe have started this new chapter where every project seems to spawn another, so it may be a while before I can write a blog post that ends with everything being wrapped up nicely. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue through our long list of improvements. Hopefully it won\u0026rsquo;t be long before we get the roof back together so that the bus is usable again. Thanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/another-round-of-projects/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eNow that Zara and I are really settled into our life in Vancouver, we have some more time and money to re-visit some of the aspects of the bus that we were never quite satisfied with in our initial conversion. I won\u0026rsquo;t divulge the entire list of projects that we came up with yet, but they will all be detailed here at some point ;) We also have a new Instagram account for the bus (which we\u0026rsquo;ve officially named Steve) that you can follow for more regular updates from Zara [ \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/abusnamedsteve/\"\u003e@abusnamedsteve\u003c/a\u003e]\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Another Round Of Projects"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s been too long since my last post, and there is lots to talk about! I\u0026rsquo;m going to split everything up in to a few posts but they may appear all at the same time. First of all, we took a small day trip in October to a little town called Harrison Hot Springs here in B.C. Our friend was visiting from Ontario and it seemed like a good opportunity to get the bus out on the road for a day.\nAs I understand it, Harrison is quite a popular spot in the warm summer months. They have a beautiful strip of waterfront and the town itself has a certain charm to it. Unfortunately for us, this day in October was cold and very rainy. We explored the town, getting chilled to the bone, and then proceeded directly to the hot springs. They have a hotel which maintains a nice private set of pools, but, as we discovered, that is for guests only\u0026hellip; Nevertheless, there is an affordable public pool in the center of town which did wonders on such a miserable day.\nAfter finishing in the pool, it was time for lunch. For anyone that has been to a tourist town in the off season, I\u0026rsquo;m sure that you can relate to the fact that there was not much open as we searched for some food. We settled on tomato soup and grilled cheese supplies from the corner store which we cooked up in the bus!\nAfter this excursion, not much happened at the bus throughout the fall and holiday season. In the new year, however, we really ramped things up, and that will be the topic of my next post! Thanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/harrison-hot-springs/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s been too long since my last post, and there is lots to talk about! I\u0026rsquo;m going to split everything up in to a few posts but they may appear all at the same time. First of all, we took a small day trip in October to a little town called Harrison Hot Springs here in B.C. Our friend was visiting from Ontario and it seemed like a good opportunity to get the bus out on the road for a day.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Harrison Hot Springs"},{"content":"Well the summer is coming to an end here in B.C. and I think it\u0026rsquo;s time for a little update.We we\u0026rsquo;re hoping to do a longer trip this season but only managed to squeeze in a couple of weekend trips.\nTrip 1: Whister For those who don\u0026rsquo;t know, Zara\u0026rsquo;s birthday is in May, along with one of our other friends, and they decided this year that they wanted to go too a shooting range and shoot some guns! So we packed 7 of us into the bus and headed up to Whistler for the weekend.\nIt was a beautiful drive as usual that time of year and found ourselves at Whister Shooting Adventures. We (slowly) made our way up a small, gravel mountain path which opened to a big clearing. The sun was really hot that day but we had tons of fun trying out a huge selection of guns. For many of us it was our first time even holding a gun so it was a cool experience.\nThey\u0026rsquo;d never had a vehicle as big as the bus up there so he took a great picture and we ended up on their facebook page:\nAnd of course, we got our own copy as well:\nThe video that I got of us leaving is a bit washed out, but I\u0026rsquo;ll share it anyway:\nhttps://youtu.be/3JzZRTSJ73M\nI also got some decent footage of us heading to the RV park and looking for gas as well. For those that are worried we did get gas, but not until the next morning on our way out of Whistler. We were sitting around 1/4 of a tank as well I just started worrying because there are very few places to stop along the sea-to-sky highway.\nhttps://youtu.be/JWRtdw31lC8\nWe stayed overnight at an RV park by the mountain, got some Beavertails for the birthday girl, and did some walking around the village as well. On the way home the next day we also stopped in at the Britannia Mine Museum which was a really cool place to see, you get a tour underground and there\u0026rsquo;s some great old equipment to see.\nTrip 2: Seattle This was a real spur-of-the-moment trip. We all got together on Canada Day (July 1st) which was a friday this year and decided that it would be a good weekend to do a bus trip. So that night we planned a route and headed out first thing the next morning towards Seattle. Only one of us had ever really been to Seattle so it was great first visit. We did Pike Place and The Space Needle and many other must-see tourist attractions in the two days that we were there.\nSome Seattle neighbourhoods have some pretty \u0026rsquo;laxed parking laws so we just parked the bus near my cousins house and stayed for free! The streets around here were pretty tight though, the one pictured here was nice because it only had parking on one side, but most that we had to weave down we\u0026rsquo;re the same width with parking on both sides. Each intersection also had a curb/garden right in the middle to slow traffic (I assume) which made navigating the are in the bus a proper challenge.\nWater and Shelves: Through August and September we didn\u0026rsquo;t manage any trips, but I did do a couple improvements to the bus. A few years ago my water pump froze and one of the pieces cracked. Turns out it was about the same price to buy a new pump as to replace the piece! So that\u0026rsquo;s what I did, and at the same time got a small accumulator tank to go with it. I also installed a few valves and a plugin to allow me to connect directly to RV park water when available. I think I\u0026rsquo;d like to get some kind of filtration system next so that I don\u0026rsquo;t have to worry about water quality, but for now we will stick to higher end parks I guess.\nMore recently, Zara and I installed some long overdue shelving under the kitchen counter, which will help make things a little more accessible than the stacked bins that we had before\u0026hellip;\nThanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-17/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWell the summer is coming to an end here in B.C. and I think it\u0026rsquo;s time for a little update.We we\u0026rsquo;re hoping to do a longer trip this season but only managed to squeeze in a couple of weekend trips.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"trip-1-whister\"\u003eTrip 1: Whister\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor those who don\u0026rsquo;t know, Zara\u0026rsquo;s birthday is in May, along with one of our other friends, and they decided this year that they wanted to go too a shooting range and shoot some guns! So we packed 7 of us into the bus and headed up to Whistler for the weekend.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Summer 2016"},{"content":"Well, it\u0026rsquo;s probably been way too long since I\u0026rsquo;ve posted anything here, so here goes the next chapter for the bus :). To be honest, though, you haven\u0026rsquo;t missed much in the way of the bus. After our trip to Boston we did take a weekend camping trip to Algonquin park to celebrate the graduation of a bunch of our friends and the arrival of summer vacation. That was a good weekend:\nAfter that the insurance for the bus expired\u0026hellip; well more like I refused to pay as much as they wanted so it was cancelled :(. We eventually moved the bus to a new storage location in Dunrobin where we could take it around the block every month or two to keep things moving. It sat there for over a year, and in the meantime Zara and I graduated from Carleton, packed our bags, and moved out to Vancouver for good this time. We spent the summer of 2015 settling into our new lives and new city; it was quite a long journey over those few months.\nSometime around September we decided it was time for the bus to join us in our new province. We went home for thanksgiving in October and on Tuesday morning (Oct 13), left bright and early for our trek back across the country!\n6tag_131015-090749\nAs I remembered it from last time, Ontario was BIG. Zara got to experience this first hand now but the weather was good and we could make decent time. On the first day we ended up making a couple of stops for gas and one at Walmart to buy some snacks and fix a little wiring.\nWe ended up not making it quite as far as we\u0026rsquo;d hoped but we drove nearly 14 hours and ended up stopping in a little RV rest center in White River, ON. At this point I should probably mention that we were on a one-track to meet up with my dad, grandmother, and the Edmonton bunch of Bottriells at their place on Thursday, so time was fairly tight for this leg of the journey.\nAfter the nights rest we thundered on through Ontario, stopping only really for gas and Timmi\u0026rsquo;s, but enjoying some beautiful views along the way.\nWe also lucked out on some beautiful sunsets, we didn\u0026rsquo;t capture it the first day but the second night was even better anyway.\nSecond night we stopped in a truck stop right of Highway 1 in Brandon, MB with all the long haulers. That\u0026rsquo;s right we made it out of Ontario in under 2 days, and yes, it was pretty grueling. I also remember it being really cold that night, but the heat of the engine under our bed from the day of driving kept us happy as we fell asleep. Just behind me taking the picture below was a Tim Horton\u0026rsquo;s so hot coffee was waiting for us when we woke up, and, really, what else can you hope for.\nManitoba when by really quickly, we did most of the province in the dark and as we set off in the morning things started to get more and more flat as we ventured deeper into the prairies.\nBy the time we hit Saskatchewan the ground was golden and the sky blue, just as it should be and just as I remembered it.\nHeading up to Edmonton was a good choice. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know this before but northern Saskatchewan actually gets quite hilly. The North Saskachewan river which follows beside Hwy 1 has carved quite a canyon out of the soil up there.\nBy now it was Thursday night, and, just as we\u0026rsquo;d hoped, we were rolling into Edmonton. We parked the bus up at my Aunt and Uncle\u0026rsquo;s house, had a wonderful dip in the hot tub, and slept a deep sleep.\nAfter all of the driving the days before, Friday was our day of rest to spend with family in Edmonton. We saw the West Edmonton mall for the first time, which was crazy, and just generally tried to spend as much time as we could relaxing. Friday night my cousins and their families came over to have a big dinner all together. We got to meet the new additions to the Bottriell family and have an amazing home-cooked meal.\nSaturday morning we headed out with my father this time to do a slower-paced trek through the Rockies. On the first day we passed the most amazing blue lake full of fresh glacier runoff from the summer months of heat.\nWe drove through Banff and Jasper National parks, stopping at the Columbia Ice Fields to see the glacier up close and personal.\nA few more minutes down the road was Athabasca Falls, we got there just as the sun was getting low in the sky but what a view. These are beautiful falls and and amazing little spot to stop and explore.\nhttps://youtu.be/KLsGRfpRt2Q\nThe highway then brought us into the town of Jasper, where we stopped a a classic gas station diner and had a hearty meal. Hopefully soon we\u0026rsquo;ll head back up to Jasper to see the town in the daylight and spend some time there exploring. It seems like a beautiful getaway.\nThat night we continue on into the town of Valemout where we stayed at our first proper RV campground open it\u0026rsquo;s last weekend before closing down for the season.\nThe next day we travelled deeper into the mountains and onto Whistler.\nIn the morning we were looking for coffee, and found a river boat tours place that advertised a cafe. After driving a small dirt road towards a river we learned that it was closed for the season, but it was a cool place to see nonetheless.\nhttps://youtu.be/4svraUhLJvM\nNow, getting to Whislter meant that we were going to travel highway 99, which, little did we know, was a mountain road like no other mountain road\u0026hellip; The morning and afternoon were easy driving. We saw some great views and beautiful little towns. This photo was taken as we approached the town of Lillooet. We stopped to gawk at the tiny river hundreds of feet below the sheer edge of the road.\nhttps://youtu.be/xT8UEf4wCT0\nAs we left the town of Lillooet, things really got crazy. The sun was just disappearing behind the mountains as we climbed and fell along the side of a steep mountainside. Steep grade warning signs became the norm as we then fell into a dark valley between two cliffs. My passengers at this point seemed a little more nervous than I was at the wheel but even I must admit that we were definitely at the mercy of that road. If any of you have driven that stretch of highway before you may remember what comes next. Just outside of Whistler we hit some construction, and about halfway through we saw a huge yellow sigh that read \u0026ldquo;Caution, extreme grades for 13 km\u0026rdquo;. This can be a little worrying for passengers of a huge, 30 year old piece of machinery, but we trekked on! I think 15% was the steepest we encountered, and all the while navigating some of the tightest switchbacks I\u0026rsquo;ve ever seen. Down and down we went and we made it into Whistler where we grabbed some food at the grocery store and parked up for the night in a beautiful little RV campground just outside the village.\nWe didn\u0026rsquo;t know it until we woke up but we had quite the view from our windows!\nWe had a quaint little breakfast in the village and spent a few hours hiking the trails at the base of the mountain before driving the sea to sky into Vancouver. We dropped the bus off at a garage in town to get inspected, if he was going to live in BC again he needed to pass the safety, but more on that in my next post. I promise it won\u0026rsquo;t be as long this time, we\u0026rsquo;re aching to get him out again! Thanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-16/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWell, it\u0026rsquo;s probably been way too long since I\u0026rsquo;ve posted anything here, so here goes the next chapter for the bus :). To be honest, though, you haven\u0026rsquo;t missed much in the way of the bus. After our trip to Boston we did take a weekend camping trip to Algonquin park to celebrate the graduation of a bunch of our friends and the arrival of summer vacation. That was a good weekend:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Back To B.C."},{"content":"This post is a little overdue but better late than never right!? So the first ever major bus trip is now over, and I must say it was awesome. I\u0026rsquo;ll try my best to remember everything as I write this but I\u0026rsquo;m sure I will miss something.\nWe set off from Ottawa in the morning, and made it to the Thousand Islands Parkway near the bridge to the U.S. It was just Zara and I at this point. We stopped at a pullout along the highway and waited for the rest of the travelers. A while later the rest of Zara\u0026rsquo;s family pulled up and we loaded in about a million bags and dance stuff. We were now 6 in the bus: Me, Zara, her three sisters (Emma, Aidan, Justine) and her mom, Khor. Unfortunately, her dad couldn\u0026rsquo;t join us across the border so he got the job of driving them out from Toronto and picking them up again on the way home.\nWe did the drive to Boston over two days. The first day was good, we learned a lot about how to secure things in the bus. The first many corners I took came with the sounds of shifting and falling items\u0026hellip; It was a nice drive as we started to enter in to the Adirondaks.\nPaul is one of the worst back seat drivers :P\nOur destination for the night was an RV park just outside of Albany, NY. A few minutes before the New York - Massachusetts border.It was a nice, quiet little spot. We didn\u0026rsquo;t have the nicest of sites but for one night it was all we needed. During our first night we discovered a few issues with some of the sleeping arrangements, and we found out that when you turn the front table into a bed it squeaks\u0026hellip; A LOT.\nDay two. We set off in the morning and onto the Mass Pike.\nWalmart stop! We had a little photoshoot with the bus before heading into a MASSIVE Walmart and getting hopelessly separated for over 30 minutes\u0026hellip; After Walmart, we decided to stay in the parking lot and make lunch. Zara and her mom walked over to Home Depot to buy some screening for the windows (we wanted to leave the windows open past dusk) and the rest of us stayed back to make sandwiches. As we were sitting eating lunch, a woman poked her head into the font door and yelled \u0026ldquo;Y\u0026rsquo;all gOIn\u0026rsquo; to the casInO?!\u0026rdquo;. Caught by suprise, all I could say was \u0026ldquo;this is and RV.\u0026rdquo; to which she responded \u0026ldquo;Oh where that at!?\u0026rdquo;. \u0026ldquo;Right here\u0026rdquo; I said\u0026hellip; Clearly we we\u0026rsquo;re having some communication issues. Eventually we managed to convince her that we were not going to a casino and that she couldn\u0026rsquo;t get on. With that over with, we got back on the highway.\nOur destination was Winter Island Park in Salem. This is a beautiful spot right on the ocean. What we didn\u0026rsquo;t know, however, was that, on the day we were arriving, the whole park had been rented out for a Greek festival of some kind. As we pulled up to the entrance, down a tiny, tiny road, all we saw was a sea of cars and people. every inch of the single-lane paths had cars parked along them. We found out where our spot was and started down the roads. We were making corners with one, maybe two inches of clearance on either side but we made it up to the field, and parked the beast.\nThe one good thing about the festival is that we didn\u0026rsquo;t have to make dinner that night\u0026hellip; mmmm.\nWe hung out a t the beach and explored the park over the next two days. On day three, the dance competition was starting, and we had to get all of the dance cargo into Boston. We got to the hotel, and subsequently got kicked out for parking in the wrong spot\u0026hellip; Here is the bus parked along the street outside the hotel while we figured out what to do.\nWe were shown to the loading docks and unloaded from there.\nZara;s mom, and the sisters checked in, and then Zara and I took the bus back to Winter Island. They were staying in the hotel for the dance competition, and we were stating in Salem, commuting into the city to see the shows. Boston has a great commuter rail service, but the station was a long way from the park and the hotel. We had been thinking about buying bikes for a long time and this seemed like a good opportunity (cheaper prices and lower taxes).\nHere we are riding the train with our new bikes!\nThe dancers didn\u0026rsquo;t get much time away from the hotel, but Zara, her mom and I wanted to get the tourist experience of Boston. Here is us getting the best pizza ever in the north end (the name of the restaurant escapes me) EDIT: it was Regina, thanks Khor.\nVisiting Harvard:\nWe also bought Settlers of Catan and played it for the first time in the hotel lobby. Awesome game.\nWe did a pretty serious time-lapse of the trip home. You can see us leave Salem, pick up everything at the hotel, and head down the Mass Pike. We stopped for lunch at Denny\u0026rsquo;s and zara\u0026rsquo;s mom forgot her purse, which we didn\u0026rsquo;t realize until we hit a toll booth an hour down the road\u0026hellip; Thankfully, some other dancers left after us and stopped to pick it up for use. We stopped at a truck stop to wait for them to catch up so I let Emma and Aidan try driving the bus for a loop of the parking lot. After sorting all of that out, we stopped at a nother toll booth and were short cash. We did manage to scrounge up enough change but when I went to pull away the rain had gotten so hard I couldn\u0026rsquo;t see 5 feet in front of me. Turns out there was a tornado warning\u0026hellip; there were branches flying across the road and everything outside was sideways. We felt safe in the confines of the bus but thankfully it only lasted a few minutes. If you look carefully you can see the storm creep up in the time-lapse and then hit when we stop (it all happens in the last 15 seconds of the video).\nThe girls and their studio came home with a huge number of trophies (as usual) and most of them ended up in the luggage bays of the bus, along with a couple giant cheques. Coming back into Canada the border guards gave us a hard time and searched the whole bus.. they we\u0026rsquo;re a bit confused by all of the trophies and a little in awe of the bus ;)\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-15/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThis post is a little overdue but better late than never right!? So the first ever major bus trip is now over, and I must say it was awesome. I\u0026rsquo;ll try my best to remember everything as I write this but I\u0026rsquo;m sure I will miss something.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe set off from Ottawa in the morning, and made it to the Thousand Islands Parkway near the bridge to the U.S. It was just Zara and I at this point. We stopped at a pullout along the highway and waited for the rest of the travelers. A while later the rest of Zara\u0026rsquo;s family pulled up and we loaded in about a million bags and dance stuff. We were now 6 in the bus: Me, Zara, her three sisters (Emma, Aidan, Justine) and her mom, Khor. Unfortunately, her dad couldn\u0026rsquo;t join us across the border so he got the job of driving them out from Toronto and picking them up again on the way home.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Inaugural Journey - Boston 2014"},{"content":"Well well, look at this. The bus is back on the road with it\u0026rsquo;s own plates and insurance :)\nBut let\u0026rsquo;s go back a couple of weeks\u0026hellip; This post is going to be rather text-heavy but the story needs to be told. Skip down to the bottom if you just want to see the videos I posted.\nTo register a vehicle in Ontario you need insurance, a Safety Standards Certificate, and an e-test, but it\u0026rsquo;s hard to get tests done when you can\u0026rsquo;t move the vehicle. Thankfully, the MTO will give you a temporary sticker which gives you some time to have the tests done, however, you still need insurance. My original plan was to get the insurance, get the temporary plate, have the tests done, and then go back for the full registration. It\u0026rsquo;s complicated but I was up for the challenge.\nI had a lot of trouble finding insurance, as many of you know already, but after many weeks of searching, I found a policy. Although it was expensive, I realized that it was the best I was going to get (and the only quote I actually got back) [ I ended up with Gifford Associates here in Ottawa, high recommendation, excellent service ]. After agreeing to the policy, I got thrown a curve ball: turns out that the insurance company won\u0026rsquo;t bind the policy without the safety and e-test\u0026hellip; great.\nSo there I am, thinking I was going to have to get the thing towed to a garage for hundreds of dollars, but then I remembered that some garages have mechanic plates which work kind of like dealer plates. So now I was on the hunt for a mechanic who would look at a 30 year old diesel bus conversion.\nI quickly learned that mechanic plates can only be used by the actual mechanics, and so I\u0026rsquo;d have to pay hourly for the trip (one more costly item). In the end, I found Riviera, out on Carp Rd, and after my experience with them, I am very pleased. They had a dealer plate which I could use to drive the bus myself over to their shop, and then have the inspection done.\nPhoto Interlude - Here is the bus looking awesome on Riviera\u0026rsquo;s lot:\nSo, three days later I hear back from them. The e-test and inspection are done, but it needs a few things(never words you want to hear from your mechanic). It was some burnt out bulbs, a couple leaky seals and the big one: a new air tank.\nFor those who don\u0026rsquo;t know anything about air brakes, there is a big compressor attached to the engine which pumps air into big tanks which sit between 100-120 PSI. There are larger, primary tanks which run the brakes, and smaller ones which run air accessories.\nMy bus has 4 tanks, and one of the two large, main primary tanks had a small whole where it corroded through. The problem with a bus is that it doesn\u0026rsquo;t use the same tanks as a truck. Trucks usually have long, skinny tanks which run lengthwise down the frame, but my bus has short, fat tanks which stand upright underneath\u0026hellip; great. I gave Riviera a few days to look for a replacement fro their usual parts suppliers, but to no avail. However, thanks to the wonderful bus nuts over in the BNO forums, I got a hold of the OEM part number, and was on the phone that day getting a new tank shipped over. The great thing about MCI is that people who run buses need parts fast, so they know how to deliver.\nNow things were falling into place. I woke up bright and early this morning and brought the tank to the mechanics at 7:30 am. At 9am I got the safety and e-test documents, and paid for the 18.8 hours of labor (commercial safety inspections are quite the process). At 10:00 am I get the insurance pink slip, and was at the MTO by 11:30. Went for lunch with the pops and had the bus plated by 2:30pm. FEW!\nAnd now the videos as promised :)\nHere is a tour of the bus as it stands now:\nAnd this is a video I took of my driving it to the mechanics shop (I appologize for the stuff sliding around in the back):\nFrom now on my posts will transition into travel logs and any other jobs I end up tackling on the bus.\nThanks for reading, see you on the road!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-14/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWell well, look at this. The bus is back on the road with it\u0026rsquo;s own plates and insurance :)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut let\u0026rsquo;s go back a couple of weeks\u0026hellip; This post is going to be rather text-heavy but the story needs to be told. \u003cstrong\u003eSkip down to the bottom if you just want to see the videos I posted\u003c/strong\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo register a vehicle in Ontario you need insurance, a Safety Standards Certificate, and an e-test, but it\u0026rsquo;s hard to get tests done when you can\u0026rsquo;t move the vehicle. Thankfully, the MTO will give you a temporary sticker which gives you some time to have the tests done, however, you still need insurance. My original plan was to get the insurance, get the temporary plate, have the tests done, and then go back for the full registration. It\u0026rsquo;s complicated but I was up for the challenge.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"All Systems Go!!"},{"content":"I have to say, this week has been very tough. I have been battling my way through the insurance war field that is Ontario. I\u0026rsquo;m not going to go into all of the reasons that I hate how we do things in this province but know that I\u0026rsquo;m mad about it. However, on a happy note, I did find someone to insure my bus :) I haven\u0026rsquo;t finalized it yet but I should be able to hit the road next weekend *fingers crossed*\u0026hellip; but enough about the future, let\u0026rsquo;s look at whats been going on at the bus:\nPAINT! Last time I mentioned the horrible process of stripping down the old label, and I finally finished it. I then went through the even more grueling process of sanding the bus. The strip of paint-able metal on the bus looks small in pictures but when you go to sand it you realize that 3 feet x 40 feet x 2 sides is a lot of surface area\u0026hellip;\nThe painting itself took about 5 seconds and the color turned out really nice. For those who are curious: I bought farm tractor paint, \u0026rsquo;equipment enamel\u0026rsquo; at TSC in \u0026lsquo;Ford Blue\u0026rsquo;. I had a bad roller for the first coat which created a lot of fuzzy bits in the paint so I did a second coat. I have yet to do the back but its really just white so there\u0026rsquo;s no rush.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t have any pictures with the trim back on but you can see already that it looks great.\nThe last bit of floor that was still plywood was the space under the toilet. We got some faux marbel stick down tiles at Home Depot for about $1.50 each. This was probably the only $10 job on the bus but it made a big difference. Unfortunately I got a bit of grease on the first tile that went down. I think I\u0026rsquo;ll try some wd-40 to get it off\u0026hellip; figures something like that was bound to happen.\nThe last major piece of the puzzle was the seat cushions. If you\u0026rsquo;d noticed: up until now, the bus still had plywood benches everywhere. I ordered a bunch of foam for all of the benches, both bunks and the double bed at the back. It took about three weeks to come in and all that I got was these little boxes:\nI was worried for a second but then I remembered what was in them. Popping open the boxes was quite an even, looking back now I wish I\u0026rsquo;d filmed it or something.\nI ended up ordering a king mattress to cut the bunks out of because it was cheaper than 2 custom pieces.\nYou may remember Kelly when she helped me put in the drivers area carpet way back near the start of the construction. She came back (with a sewing machine this time) to help me cover all of the seat cushions. After spending about 2 hours getting the 1972 sewing machine running, we managed to get all of the 5 bench and 6 back cushions covered up.\nThe most exciting part was getting the covers onto the little 2\u0026quot; thick pieces of foam. They were all quite long so sliding the covers on was a serious process.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s a couple pictures after we finished the bench cushions:\nAnd here\u0026rsquo;s the bus as it stands now, ready for a road trip!\nHopefully next week I\u0026rsquo;l have a walk around video for you of the finished product, and maybe even a driving video :)\nThanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-13/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI have to say, this week has been very tough. I have been battling my way through the insurance war field that is Ontario. I\u0026rsquo;m not going to go into all of the reasons that I hate how we do things in this province but know that I\u0026rsquo;m mad about it. However, on a happy note, I did find someone to insure my bus :) I haven\u0026rsquo;t finalized it yet but I should be able to hit the road next weekend *fingers crossed*\u0026hellip; but enough about the future, let\u0026rsquo;s look at whats been going on at the bus:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Road is in Sight"},{"content":"Okay!!\nI apologize for the long silence, but that\u0026rsquo;s how you know things have been busy in(and out) of the bus. I\u0026rsquo;ve got a ton of stuff to go through, most of which have good images but some might not. I\u0026rsquo;m planning to do a walk through video once it\u0026rsquo;s done so hopefully that will capture anything I forgot to photograph.\nWith that out of the way let\u0026rsquo;s tear into it :) The first thing that happened after my last post is that we found some fresh and grey water tanks at good old TSC in Arnprior. We measured these out and decided they would fit perfectly into one of the luggage bays under the bus\u0026hellip; and they did :)\nI also went ahead and installed the new gauges in the dash. I know now that the fuel gauge wasn\u0026rsquo;t actually broke, and I may have to take a look at the float arm in the tank later on, but the oil pressure seems to actually be reading accurate now (before it was always off the top of the gauge). Turns out the two gauges I replaced we\u0026rsquo;re also the only two which didn\u0026rsquo;t match the color of the rest of the gauges (which we\u0026rsquo;re all just white) so now the dash looks a little cleaner.\nThe next big step was doing the interior painting. There\u0026rsquo;s a couple good shots here of Zara prepping and then priming:\nWe didn\u0026rsquo;t finisht the primer until late at night so here\u0026rsquo;s my mediocre shot of that:\nWith the primer done I moved onto the power situation. I decided o put the inverter and battery in on the other side of the luggage bay with the water tanks. This keeps it all in one place and leaves the other two open for storage (and a couple propane tanks). You may be worried about the whole electricity plus water thing but don\u0026rsquo;t worry, I was too. I bolted the inverter to a side wall and raised the battery up on a piece of plywood (which helps support the strap as well). For those interested I ended up with a 1500 watt inverter and a 115 amp-hour deep cycle battery to run it.\nI also splurged on the remote control panel for the inverter so everything can be run and monitored from inside the bus:\nWhen we went to put the drivers seat back into the bus, we thought it would be smart to wash the seat covers and remove the 30 years or dirt and dust from them. This worked well for the back part but the washer tore the bottom cover to shreds (it was about to fall apart to begin with). So I recovered the seat with a piece of fabric that we bought for the seat cushions. So this is also a little preview of what the benches will look like when I get the foam, which has been ordered but still hasn\u0026rsquo;t come.\nI searched around for a \u0026lsquo;door reversing kit\u0026rsquo; for the fridge that I bought. Unfortunately, the only place I could find it who would ship to Canada insisted on shipping it UPS for $23\u0026hellip; so I paid $26 for the kit ( yeah, do that math :( ). Nonetheless, I got it and put it on, now the fridge is ready to go as well. They sell the decorative coverings for them separately so I\u0026rsquo;m foregoing that $50 expenditure for the time being.\nNext challenge was to sort out some of the plumbing. This is how I ended up having to do the main drain for the toilet, and you can see there\u0026rsquo;s a \u0026lsquo;y\u0026rsquo; joint there ready for the sink as well.\nI reused the drain valve from the old bus washroom because it looked perfectly new still. I had to squeeze things pretty tight but I got it in perfectly so that it drains right down through the luggage bay door.\nBack to the inside, I painted the walls!! I really like how the blue turned out, and a light grey went onto the plywood.\nI got a double sink off of Kijiji for $20 but it was a little big for the bus, so I swapped it out for a single sink from our apartment. With all the kitchen pieces ready (stove from Kijiji as well, $50) I went ahead and cut out the holes in the counter for them, so that I could lacquer the inner edges as well.\nI also got the sink drain all plumbed and ready for it to go in after the counter was finished.\nDid a little house keeping and got a drain valve for the fresh water and a plug for the grey water tanks.\nThe success of the next step is still a debate with some people but I hate the look of painted plywood, I think it\u0026rsquo;s cheap looking , so I took a darker grey paint and \u0026lsquo;rubbed\u0026rsquo; it into the grain of the wood. Some areas turned out better than others but either way I think it looks better than the straight grey and it will do wonders for helping cover dirt and scuffs on the walls.\nThe photo here doesn\u0026rsquo;t show too much but I ended up getting a hardwood floor lacquer for the counter and table. This will hopefully give it the best durability as they started out as cheap shelving pine from Home Depot. And I know I haven\u0026rsquo;t shown you the table yet but it\u0026rsquo;s coming I promise (told you there was a lot to get through)\nMoving to the outside portion that I mentioned\u0026hellip; The bus was, as I\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned waaayyy back, owned by Pacific Coach Lines (PCL), but they we\u0026rsquo;re not the original owners. PCL put a giant vinyl wrap on the bus instead of painting it, so I needed to peel this off before I can put my own paint back on. In this process I discovered that I own an old Grey Line bus out of Seattle (which explains the lack of running lights).\nAnd here\u0026rsquo;s the table! I used the same shelving pine and secured it to a piece of plywood. I din\u0026rsquo;t plan to make it as heavy and durable as I did but I decided to add some 2x4 supports to help stop it from warping over time. I struggled with ideas on how to make the table sturdy but adjustable (because the dining area will turn into another double bed). The best, affordable idea that I came up with was to use bolt down fence post holders and varying lengths of 4x4. I ended up having to stabilize the floor a lot but the table is now nice and strong. Unfortunately there\u0026rsquo;s some wiggle room in the post holders that I\u0026rsquo;ll have to find a solution for later but at least it\u0026rsquo;s together and functional for now.\nNow this part is exciting: flooring. For those who don\u0026rsquo;t remember, I picked up some nice laminate flooring in Toronto a while back for nice and cheap. We managed to throw down most of the floor in one afternoon and Zara and I finished it up the following day. The flooring was all snap-together so it went really fast.\nI ended up recycling some of the scrap stainless steel from the demolition and used it to fashion a relatively nice cover plate for the end of the flooring at the front.\nI also put some quarter round trim along the plywood walls to clean up the floor edges, but I don\u0026rsquo;t have any pictures yet\u0026hellip;\nAnd that\u0026rsquo;s it for now. I appreciate anyone who actually read through all of my text and hopefully, if things go well over the next week or two, I\u0026rsquo;ll be able to get it registered and back on the road!\nThanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-12/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOkay!!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI apologize for the long silence, but that\u0026rsquo;s how you know things have been busy in(and out) of the bus. I\u0026rsquo;ve got a ton of stuff to go through, most of which have good images but some might not. I\u0026rsquo;m planning to do a walk through video once it\u0026rsquo;s done so hopefully that will capture anything I forgot to photograph.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith that out of the way let\u0026rsquo;s tear into it :) The first thing that happened after my last post is that we found some fresh and grey water tanks at good old TSC in Arnprior. We measured these out and decided they would fit perfectly into one of the luggage bays under the bus\u0026hellip; and they did :)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Almost Ready to Hit the Road!"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve got a lot to talk about in this post, but also a lot of good pictures to go with it :) I thought I\u0026rsquo;d just start with this picture that I forgot to put in the last post of me putting together the kitchen counter\u0026hellip;\nThe next thing that we did after the counter was the toilet and fridge. We realized that the washroom wasn\u0026rsquo;t quite as far forward as we\u0026rsquo;d hoped and therefore not directly over the last luggage bay. It was decided that the best and probably only course of action was to raise the toilet off of the ground 6 inches and run the pipes forward before going down through the floor. This works out quite nicely as we needed to raise the fridge up anyway and keep the return vent open. Here\u0026rsquo;s a picture of the pipe coming out of the front of the bathroom, and then one of the toilet in place:\nThe fridge fit perfectly in it\u0026rsquo;s new home, and we built the counter nicely over top of it. The wood supports underneath are a bit all over the place but it looks very nice. As you\u0026rsquo;ll notice, the fridge has no door. We realized that we needed to flip the door in order to have it open in a useful way. It was only after we got it off, however that we discovered the need for a \u0026lsquo;door reversing kit\u0026rsquo; \u0026hellip; It\u0026rsquo;s in the mail now :P\nWith the main parts of the kitchen done, it was time to move forward and focus on the seating area at the front of the bus. The first step was installing seat belts\u0026hellip;! This is a 1/4 inch piece of hot rolled steel. We drilled it and mounted it to the frame along the side of the bus where the seats were fastened originally.\nAnd then we finally had a warm weekend!!! With the temperatures rising, the brake lines finally unfroze and I was able to turn the bus around to make it more accessible. I had some trouble with one of my rear parking brakes not releasing. There\u0026rsquo;s a couple of videos here of me trying to get it unstuck (you can really hear the engine pushing) and then another when it\u0026rsquo;s rolling free.\nhttp://youtu.be/eBKJJMDAWVk\nhttp://youtu.be/vW3Cghmbn4w\nNow it was easter, and I had another set of hands to help out. Here\u0026rsquo;s my dad, brother and I getting set up to frame out the front benches.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve also started putting the window release bars back up\u0026hellip;\nOver Easter weekend we framed out all of the front benches. There\u0026rsquo;s going to be a U-shaped booth directly in front of the kitchen and then an L bench along the side of the bus right up to the driver\u0026rsquo;s seat.\nBefore we could finish the bench frames and start covering them, I needed to install the seat belts. Drilling half inch holes in steel is not exactly an easy task but I got it done and the seat belts are in. I could then move on and frame the backs of the benches.\nBefore closing all of the space in, I needed to run some power for plugs and speaker wire. We put in all of the side panels along the floor and then I started installing plugs and speakers in them.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s it for now! I\u0026rsquo;ll be back at the bus on Saturday so hopefully I\u0026rsquo;ll have some more updates soon. Now that I\u0026rsquo;m done the semester and summer has started, I will be spending a lot more time getting things done on the bus. I also got some new gauges in the mail yesterday so that\u0026rsquo;s now on the list of things to do :) Thanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-11/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI\u0026rsquo;ve got a lot to talk about in this post, but also a lot of good pictures to go with it :) I thought I\u0026rsquo;d just start with this picture that I forgot to put in the last post of me putting together the kitchen counter\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/WP_20140322_005.jpg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"WP_20140322_005\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/WP_20140322_005.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe next thing that we did after the counter was the toilet and fridge. We realized that the washroom wasn\u0026rsquo;t quite as far forward as we\u0026rsquo;d hoped and therefore not directly over the last luggage bay. It was decided that the best and probably only course of action was to raise the toilet off of the ground 6 inches and run the pipes forward before going down through the floor. This works out quite nicely as we needed to raise the fridge up anyway and keep the return vent open. Here\u0026rsquo;s a picture of the pipe coming out of the front of the bathroom, and then one of the toilet in place:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Somewhere to Sit"},{"content":"Just a quick update this week. The plan was to do the front benches next but I\u0026rsquo;ve realized that I need to put in seat belts first. The belts are in the mail and I am waiting to get a piece of steel made to secure them. In the meantime, we built most of the counter for the kitchen out of some nice knotty pine boards. Eventually we will stain and/or seal the wood but for now we\u0026rsquo;ve just got it all built in. We decided to build around the window mechanisms so that the original emergency exit handles can go back in. The small area along the back should serve nicely as a duct for the heating and AC.\nNext weekend we are going to put in the toilet and fridge and maybe the stove / sink. These will be the first appliances going in and I\u0026rsquo;ll start to really get a sense of how it\u0026rsquo;s coming together. After that I will hopefully have the hardware for the seat belts and we can finish off with the front of the bus :)\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-10/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eJust a quick update this week. The plan was to do the front benches next but I\u0026rsquo;ve realized that I need to put in seat belts first. The belts are in the mail and I am waiting to get a piece of steel made to secure them. In the meantime, we built most of the counter for the kitchen out of some nice knotty pine boards. Eventually we will stain and/or seal the wood but for now we\u0026rsquo;ve just got it all built in. We decided to build around the window mechanisms so that the original emergency exit handles can go back in. The small area along the back should serve nicely as a duct for the heating and AC.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Moving Forward"},{"content":"So here we go!\nNow that the floor is all done, things are starting to get built on the inside. This weekend we finished the back bed area, bunks, and washroom. We framed the bunks with 2x4s and the washroom with 2x3s. Then we used 11mm plywood to panel the ends of the bunks and walls of the bathroom. We figured that if we built the bunk and bathroom walls well, then we could just throw a 2x4 across and lay down the plywood for the back bed.\nThe bunks are 6 feet long with about 2 feet between them, it\u0026rsquo;s not huge but it leaves lots of the window open and opens up the sight-line to the back. My whole design was done to keep the bus feeling nice and open. I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to close off any windows or make it feel small.\nBelow are the final pictures from this weekend. The bathroom is the only place in the bus where anything goes right to the ceiling.\nI also caulked the stair plates and added an equalizer to finish off the front area :)\nThe plan next weekend is to build the benches at the front and then the kitchen couters will go in last. The only reason for this is that we want to keep the nice work space in the middle for all the measuring and cutting of the benches.\nHopefully I\u0026rsquo;ll be posting again in a week or so, thanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-9/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSo here we go!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow that the floor is all done, things are starting to get built on the inside. This weekend  we finished the back bed area, bunks, and washroom. We framed the bunks with 2x4s and the washroom with 2x3s. Then we used 11mm plywood to panel the ends of the bunks and walls of the bathroom. We figured that if we built the bunk and bathroom walls well, then we could just throw a 2x4 across and lay down the plywood for the back bed.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Somewhere to Sleep"},{"content":"Well, some exciting things have been happening on the bus since my last post. I\u0026rsquo;ll try to keep this one a little more brief than the last but no guarantees\u0026hellip;\nFirst off, the Drivers area. I was planning to take out the old plywood here and put fresh stuff in but I realized that one large sheet stretches across the whole front area and has more or less every major and minor wire passing through it along with the heating fluid, steering column, and pedals. Needless to say I decided not to dig that deep and simply went with pulling up the old floor. I bought a large entryway mat to retrofit in as a carpet. I thought this was great because it\u0026rsquo;s moderately comfortable for the diver and won\u0026rsquo;t allow water or dirt through it into the wood below (it was also rather cheap).\nOnce that was all back together I moved onto the main plywood flooring. I had a week off from university so it was time to tackle the challenge. I think the original bus may have been put together with 10 foot sheets of plywood because the measurement line up better, but 8 foot sheets was all I had. It still worked fine but it meant I needed to buy more sheets and do more cutting. I decided it would be best to put them down lengthwise (front to back) starting at the back of the bus. The frame lined up perfectly to have a 4 foot sheet across the middle and two almost half sheets on either side. I was using sound proof and fireproof insulation anywhere I could as I went along:\nI should mention that there was very solid construction glue along all of the frame that needed to be scraped off (not fun). I did put new stuff back down to help hold everything in place. I also managed to find the same self-tapping screws that they used in the factory to screw the sheets down (though I went through 5 drill bits trying to pre-drill the stainless steel along the edges)\nWe decided to keep the original heating/ventilation layout to save time, effort and money. For those who care there are two (used to be 4) returns at the back and two at the front (plus two fresh air intakes). The output is two large vents at the front (on either side). The plan is to rout one of them under the benches and kitchen counter to the back of the bus.\nWhile I was in Toronto during the same week I found some hugely discounted flooring. It\u0026rsquo;s 12mm laminate with a pre-attached foam pad on the bottom. Every piece is hand shaved for texture. I\u0026rsquo;m really excited to get this in: AND FINALLY: last week I ordered some aluminium diamond plating for the stairs and went over to put them in today. It looks awesome! Just gotta put all the stairwell pieces back in and add another layer of caulking (when it warms up):\nThanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-8/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWell, some exciting things have been happening on the bus since my last post. I\u0026rsquo;ll try to keep this one a little more brief than the last but no guarantees\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst off, the Drivers area. I was planning to take out the old plywood here and put fresh stuff in but I realized that one large sheet stretches across the whole front area and has more or less every major and minor wire passing through it along with the heating fluid, steering column, and pedals. Needless to say I decided not to dig that deep and simply went with pulling up the old floor. I bought a large entryway mat to retrofit in as a carpet. I thought this was great because it\u0026rsquo;s moderately comfortable for the diver and won\u0026rsquo;t allow water or dirt through it into the wood below (it was also rather cheap).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Laying the Groundwork"},{"content":"So I\u0026rsquo;ve been back in Ottawa just over two weeks now. I do miss Vancouver but I\u0026rsquo;ve been able to get a lot done on the bus :) First thing I did was see if she\u0026rsquo;d start up again. It ran so well on our journey home I was curious to how it held up to the cold. You can see the video here :\nhttp://youtu.be/ifp1PGDIlDg\nAfter that it was back to the deconstruction. With all the seats removed the next step was to take down the luggage racks. These guys were massive. Two 10 foot pieces of 100% aluminium on each side. With two people it was still a challenge to get them down without hurting the bus or ourselves. We also had to cut them in half to get them outside but it was a fairly quick process.\nWith the luggage racks out it was finally starting to feel more like a usable space: you can walk from side to side without bending over or smashing your head. The next step was tackling the washroom. This beast was built out of a single, welded piece of stainless steel surrounded by 1/2 inch plywood walls sandwiched between two pieces of sheet aluminium. After ripping it all out we had to open up one of the windows just to get it outside. There is still a whole in the back and a sewage tank underneath that I haven\u0026rsquo;t tried to take out yet but that\u0026rsquo;s for another day as it seems to be built deeply into the engine compartment\u0026hellip;\nWith that stuff out of the way we moved on to the plywood floor, wall panels and some other odds and ends. The wall panels that had the carpeting were more aluminium sheets held about 1/3 of an inch from the actual side of the coach. This is where heading and air conditioning came up from below the floor. They were held on by massive screws, a lot of which ended up needing to be ground off. The floor was an even longer process, however. Long stretches of plywood ran down with what seemed like 100 screws in each one. Every screw was covered and filled with some kind of leveling past or glue compound which needed to be cleaned out before trying to unscrew it. Some of the screws came out easy but near the edges you could see where water seeped under the floor and rusted the screws/weakened the plywood. Many hours were spent on that process but I did get some help from an old friend who was in town for the holidays :)\nSome of the flooring had horribly dust-filled insulation under it and some of it just opened right up to the baggage compartments below. After some fun cleaning and sneezing the only real job left is to lift up the tracks for the seats before putting down fresh new plywood. As I discovered, though, grinding weld after weld is a messy job. Right now I am halfway done with that. If I\u0026rsquo;m feeling up to it I might also take down some of the wall panels to replace the insulation there (in case its a dusty and stinky as the other stuff) but for now, it\u0026rsquo;s back to school\u0026hellip; hopefully I\u0026rsquo;ll get out there over the next couple weekends and be ready for construction soon :D\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-7/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSo I\u0026rsquo;ve been back in Ottawa just over two weeks now. I do miss Vancouver but I\u0026rsquo;ve been able to get a lot done on the bus :) First thing I did was see if she\u0026rsquo;d start up again. It ran so well on our journey home I was curious to how it held up to the cold. You can see the video here :\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://youtu.be/ifp1PGDIlDg\"\u003ehttp://youtu.be/ifp1PGDIlDg\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/WP_20131223_12_59_45_Pro.jpg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"WP_20131223_12_59_45_Pro\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/WP_20131223_12_59_45_Pro.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter that it was back to the deconstruction. With all the seats removed the next step was to take down the luggage racks. These guys were massive. Two 10 foot pieces of 100% aluminium on each side. With two people it was still a challenge to get them down without hurting the bus or ourselves. We also had to cut them in half to get them outside but it was a fairly quick process.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Almost Ready to Rebuild"},{"content":"Well, I\u0026rsquo;m coming home to Ottawa soon enough, and it\u0026rsquo;s going to be time to get working on the bus again! I\u0026rsquo;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\u0026rsquo;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\u0026rsquo;s a permanent double bed at the back. Below are some pictures/renders of the layout I did in Maya:\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-6/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWell, I\u0026rsquo;m coming home to Ottawa soon enough, and it\u0026rsquo;s going to be time to get working on the bus again! I\u0026rsquo;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\u0026rsquo;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\u0026rsquo;s a permanent double bed at the back. Below are some pictures/renders of the layout I did in Maya:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Designs So Far..."},{"content":"So we parked the bus in it\u0026rsquo;s new home and started hauling out the insides\u0026hellip;. So far the seats are all out and the flooring has started to come up. I\u0026rsquo;m back in Vancouver now so I won\u0026rsquo;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\u0026rsquo;ll include at the end here:\nhttp://youtu.be/lY3403HpReg\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-5/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSo we parked the bus in it\u0026rsquo;s new home and started hauling out the insides\u0026hellip;. So far the seats are all out and the flooring has started to come up. I\u0026rsquo;m back in Vancouver now so I won\u0026rsquo;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\u0026rsquo;ll include at the end here:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Renovation Begins!"},{"content":"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\u0026rsquo;t know what they we\u0026rsquo;re doing but they surely weren\u0026rsquo;t doing anything useful\u0026hellip;\nOn Thursday we had quite a long day of driving. As we we\u0026rsquo;re leaving our hotel we stopped to look at a nice waterfall that was pouring into lake superior. 9 hours later we pulled into the Marriot in Sudbury for a very lovely sleep and hot tub.\nThe drive to Toronto from there was pretty easy. We passed all of the cottage traffic heading out of Toronto and we\u0026rsquo;re very thankful we were headed into the city. After a series of unforeseen events we ended up driving though downtown Toronto\u0026hellip; which was an experience (videos to come). My dad took a train from Toronto Saturday night and I met up with the girlfriend, Zara.\nSaturday morning we drove back with my brother and two of his friends. Hit some traffic on highway seven but otherwise it was an easy last day for the bus. Overall we spent about $2000 on gas which works out to about $40 an hour :P. But it was definitely worth it! Now I have my own bus parked here and a project for next semester. We already started pulling up some of the floor to see whats underneath :)\nStay tuned for updates from the deconstruction and reconstruction!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-4/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWell, 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\u0026rsquo;t know what they we\u0026rsquo;re doing but they surely weren\u0026rsquo;t doing anything useful\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Home at Last"},{"content":"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\u0026rsquo;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!\nWoke up this morning and powered through Manitoba. We are now in a hotel room in the beautiful town of Kenora, Ontario. It seems amazing that on Saturday night we left Vancouver, and now, on Tuesday, we are in Ontario. Unfortunately, if you look at the numbers, we are only just over the halfway mark, but the next 2000 km should be a lot more interesting than the last 1500. Hopefully we can push a few hours past Thunder Bay tomorrow and have some pretty easy days on Thursday and Friday.\nThe Bus is running beautifully and staying very hydrated. We did some calculations today and found that we\u0026rsquo;re getting about 7.5 MPG or 36 liters / 100 km. Which may look bad for a car, but for a 1980\u0026rsquo;s bus, we\u0026rsquo;re doing really good (and more importantly, we\u0026rsquo;re doing better than I budgeted for :) )\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-3/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWell, 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\u0026rsquo;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!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Through the Prairies"},{"content":"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\u0026rsquo;s a big empty space at the back! :) This morning we met up with Alex and had some breakfast before heading out towards Saskatchewan\u0026hellip; ","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-2/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWe 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\u0026rsquo;s a big empty space at the back! :) This morning we met up with Alex and had some breakfast before heading out towards Saskatchewan\u0026hellip; \u003ca href=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3253.jpg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"IMG_3253\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3253.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3251.jpg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"IMG_3251\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3251.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3260.jpg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"IMG_3260\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3260.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3266.jpg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"IMG_3266\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3266.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3271.jpg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"IMG_3271\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3271.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3290.jpg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"IMG_3290\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3290.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3319.jpg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"IMG_3319\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3319.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3346.jpg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"IMG_3346\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3346.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3343.jpg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"IMG_3343\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IMG_3343.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Calgary"},{"content":"So there it it. Day one of the journey is over and we\u0026rsquo;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\u0026rsquo;t know what to expect but there are some long steep hills up here\u0026hellip; We definitely had a few points where we could only manage 40 km/h, and downhill I\u0026rsquo;m keeping it around 60 to stay in control. Thankfully there\u0026rsquo;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.\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus-1/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSo there it it. Day one of the journey is over and we\u0026rsquo;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\u0026rsquo;t know what to expect but there are some long steep hills up here\u0026hellip; We definitely had a few points where we could only manage 40 km/h, and downhill I\u0026rsquo;m keeping it around 60 to stay in control. Thankfully there\u0026rsquo;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.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Day 1 = Complete"},{"content":"\nWell this is it. After years of searching and wanting I\u0026rsquo;ve finally found the perfect fit. This here is my new (old) 1981 coach. It\u0026rsquo;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!\n","permalink":"https://bus.thebottriells.com/posts/bus/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/WP_20130927_07_50_37_Pro.jpg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"As Purchased\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/WP_20130927_07_50_37_Pro.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWell this is it. After years of searching and wanting I\u0026rsquo;ve finally found the perfect fit. This here is my new (old) 1981 coach. It\u0026rsquo;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!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Adventure Begins"}]