Day 1: We bought a bus!
We had been dreaming and thinking and planning for this day but neither of us realized it would happen so quickly. For years, we had been interested in the Tiny House movement and living more-outside-than-in, but job schedules, permanent housing for licenses for those jobs and financials had kept us from following our dreams. It wasn’t until recently when David got his perfect job as a Pet Pharmacist, working 7 days on and 7 days off, we decided to take the plunge. I was already a stay-at-home dog mom so that we could really take advantage of our time together, and it just seemed like the perfect opportunity to start the adventures we couldn’t get out of our heads.
I had been researching on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, government auction sites, bus sales sites, and Ebay for months. When the listing for Beast 151 popped up, it was hard to ignore. The bus had already been started to be converted to an RV by a young single mother that wanted to travel and hike with her two girls; her only help with the build was her dad, and he had become unable to finish the project.
We were skeptical of everything. We immediately felt out of our element, but made sure to check the things I had written down as important. Look for rust, check the tire tread, get under the bus, see if there’s anything on the engine, do the lights work, no broken windows. It was pretty immaculate for something that had been on the road for 200,000 miles. Until early this year, it was taken care of by a school system, so it was always up-to-date on its routine maintenance. Everything seemed to be in working order until… David went to take it for a test drive and found out, it had air brakes. All the research I had done for Kentucky state law said that air brakes made it necessary for the driver to have a CDL (commercial driver’s license). I stopped in my tracks.
Even in the blazing 92 degree weather with no shade and no A/C in our car, I took the time to do some more research. I called my “car guy” friends and had them researching too. Our amazing friend Brandon, who had travelled up with us to purchase the bus, was frantically searching on his phone as well. After a little while, we all determined that a CDL was NOT required as long as we kept the build under 26,000 pounds. So, with hearts pounding, we took the plunge.
We had ourselves a bus. Our dogs were incredibly thrilled… even though they very obviously had no idea what Beast 151 truly meant!
