How to lose friends, alienate your family and have your neighbors hate you.

Just when my family thought I was somewhat normal, just when my friends stopped snickering when they drove up and there was a enormous green army truck at my house. Just when the neighbors stopped shaking their heads when they drove by... that is when you drop the bomb.

Well here it is the ire of the neighborhood. The reason for my Mother to say my kids will need therapy, our new bus.

Now before you make any judgments let me explain my thought process. We had a motor home that was great, but only had one normal bed and was too small for all seven of us. Se we sold that and bought a trailer that could sleep all of us but still only one or two people could stand at a time. So I decided we need a bigger adventure vehicle. I was looking at older motor homes and larger trailers and I found a motor home I wanted. The only problem is that it was $30,000. As I have pounded into my kids over the years that "debt is dumb" it just didn't make sense to do that and go against what I am trying to teach my kids. This project will have to be done within the budget.

The reason I chose a school bus is because they can only be in service for a period of time so you can always find one, they are extremely well maintained, very reliable and they are built like a tank. But there are some down sides to a school bus. The bus has a governor which means it has a top speed of 58 MPH. Yea give that a minute to sink in, me hurling through the Arizona deseret at a blistering 58 MPH. Now that is a top speed. There was more then one hill I crested at 35 MPH with a trail of travelers behind me that were not thrilled with my new purchase.

The bus was retired from Tempe Union High School District. The great thing about Arizona is that the winters have no snow, no snow means no rust. I will post up some more pictures and give updates on what I am doing.