Schooled by a skoolie. Part the first.

I came across a video on youtube where a dude converted a bus into an RV, and I fell in love with the idea. With a couple of friends sold on the taking a bus and converting it into an RV for our roadtrip in 2019. (I am the wrong kind of stupid) I began searching for a bus. Yeah, I had to talk other people into this project, as I was already well over my head. More on that later.

I strolled about the interwebs for months trying to land a proper bus with the features I wanted. Flat-nose, rear-engine, 40’ long. There are always a ton of buses available, but most of them don’t really fall into my price-range of super-cheap, while not being about to shake apart in a light breeze.

Because I am either dumb or delusional in my belief that I can find both good and cheap.

I had a list of sites that I checked daily and I began to get really antsy and anxious. There were a couple at a place out in Maryland. I could buy one, take a flight and drive it back through DC traffic the 20 hours across country. Man that sounds like a bad idea. I ended up on facebook market-place as the days ticked by. Desperately combing the ads for a bus that would fit the bill. Facebook marketplace, insert Mos Eisly Cantina reference here. It fits.

But luck was with me, I came across a bus with the features I wanted. And in my price-range. A big red monstrosity that had once been a church bus. And the owner was a mere hour to the north, and had intended to build a skoolie himself and his family. That fell apart and he was now selling, but only after he had put in some of the basic work. Huzzah. I made an appointment for the following Sunday.

He was cash only, as are most of the denizens of facebook so I stopped at the bank and withdrew the cash when we were on our way to comic-con. And then spent the rest of the day weaving through rivers of strangers with one hand in my pocket as my shoulders cramped and my mind was wrapped in a gauze of paranoia. It was a long day.

The following sunday, in the company of a couple friends, we ventured north to take a look at the first real lead in our exciting new world! I was going to get a bus. Maybe. Mostly I was worried that I was going to be robbed and then get Ned Beatty-ed. I don’t have an opinion about the relative attractiveness of my mouth and to this day I am perfectly content to remain in blind ignorance about what the general populace might think.

The bus made me uncomfortable. The breaks were odd, the engine was leaking oil, the front step had rusted out and he had cut all of the legs off the bus seats, leaving the feet that would still need to be removed. We gave it a test drive and told him that I’d think on it. I thought it made me uncomfortable and I would pass.

He sold the bus to some other taker. Good luck to both of them, but I was back where I started. Then I found an auction site for local governments. Hot damn! And they had whole load of buses. All over the country! I bid on one in Eugene Oregon, all my features, and no rust. I was already cobbling together plans to fly out and drive it back. I have a friend who lives in Eugene, I’d like to drop by and see her. Fortunately, as the much shorter Maryland trek would have been an endurance job, the Eugene bus quickly taken away by aggressive bidders.

I ended up buying a bus from a school district in Toledo Ohio, some 3 hours drive from my home. I put in my bid and my nerves grew more and more strained as the countdown ticked closer to zero. How am I going to get this thing? I need a ride over. Do I have to insure it(yes, theoretically, but finding bus insurance is insanely difficult for individuals)? What would happen if I got stopped by the police, as I don’t have a special driver’s license? Did I need a special driver’s license just to drive an empty school bus across state?

I won the auction. $1500. I was already stewing in anxiety. Where was I going to keep this thing? I had already named it. Rowsdower, after Canada’s greatest action hero. I set to trying to work out the details.

Shit. I just bought a bus.

Late June and the weather was a humid 90 degrees, a good day to drive across state. Fuck the Midwest. But with paperwork in hand I set off with a friend across state to go and see my bus for the first time and bring it home. Like a proud, frightened nimrod who makes poor decisions. Like myself.

Rowsdower was in fantastic shape and sitting down in the driver’s seat made me feel excited as I imagined the possibilities.

Buying the bus was a learning experience. Firstly I learned that my bus could hit 70 on an open highway. Secondly I learned how to drive a bus. Did my bus have air-conditioning? That was my first question. And yes it did, when you opened the windows and got onto the highway. More importantly, did my bus have cruise control? I forgot to ask that. The answer turned out to be yes, I discovered on my own a month later. Hey, looking over your shoulder through the rear window? Like you do when driving a normal car, well that isn’t feasible with a bus. You stick to the mirrors buddy and you’re gonna like it.

The drive back was long and challenging. I tried to keep behind semi-trucks as Rowsdower plodded along the highways. That way I was able to keep a constant pace, and maybe even draft a little and ease up on the fuel consumption. What seemed like a week later, we finally got back into town just in time for rush hour traffic.

Another friend had offered to store the bus on his property north of town. He was in a residential neighborhood, but off the beaten path. I had never been there, but the friend who had gone on the Toledo adventure with me, he knew where it was.

Mostly.

We passed the driveway. I learned something new, backing up a school bus in a quiet suburb is not easy. It is very hard. Especially for yours truly. But alas, Rowsdower was safely ensconced in his new home! I had accomplished a major feat and achieved a goal.  And the rest of the night was mine to relax. Soon the deconstruction would begin.

Detroit, home of Robocop and Eminem. That sounds like a great horror shortstory.

In our part of the world, the year can be divided up into two seasons. Those happen to be listed as winter and construction, both of which vary in length and intensity.

During winter one must contend with the possibility of encountering snow and ice on all of the surfaces. But these tend to be passing conditions. Where as during construction season, those surfaces onto which you so gingerly ventured out, may be missing entirely. Hey, that road that leads exactly to the destination which you are so desperately trying to reach? Well now it's a 10 foot deep trench that stretches for blocks at a time.

Free on street parking though. Come on down.

We made the mistake of visiting during the first or second worst season for travel, depending on how you reckon such things. I have some disdain for traveling in 90 degree weather when I'm being forced to navigate an ever-changing gauntlet in a new city.

I would like to take this moment to say “Fuck you Siri, in all of your incarnations.” You know that asshole who swerves across 3 lanes to turn? Yep, probably listening to Siri.

For our collective birthdays this year, it was some how decided upon that we would visit Detroit. I missed the committee meetings on this one, so I cannot explain the rationale behind the choice to you. Yeah. Detroit. The murder capital of the universe! . Happy birthday to us!

Do you want to see urban decay and street crime? Well come to sunnyish Detroit! The Crown Jewel of the Rust Belt. Shells of houses that have tasted the kiss of Arson? Check! Miles and miles of decaying concrete? Got that too! The shattered remnants of what America used to be? We're having a sale! Make sure that you stay on the highways that run 4 lanes in either direction and have a posted speed limit of 55mph(which everyone ignores and opts for the more conventional 70+).

Detroit is a modern wasteland known for the ruins porn in a way that has moved past trope and into cliché. Rotting infrastructure that is so beloved amongst urban explorers. People who explore the remnants of our once mighty industrial base and stick their noses into the crumbling past and document what has befallen the American Dream. People who aren't me.

But hey, Detroit is a place that exists and surely they have some gems. So we did our research and came up with a list of places to do and things to visit – I think. I'm not sure that our thinking was straight.  After all, Detroit is one of the cities that I used as the basis of Jefferson(Chicago being the other) - the fictional necropolis in which I set part of my zombie series.  Good times.

We were mostly there to see friends and find some of the sights that might be worth seeing.

As a species part of our shared humanity seems to be intertwined in the appreciation of food. Many cultures are, at least in part, defined by their cooking. So you will forgive us if food is one of the driving factors in our travels. We jot down any interesting restaurants that we encounter and store them for future consideration.

Detroit had several such entries. So we met in a place called Fall's Sports Lounge. I don't know who picked that one. On google they rate between 3 and 4.5(out of 5). And are supposedly renowned for their hamburgers, the best in Detroit(a lot of ground to cover). I love hamburgers. I did not protest.

I won't review them into great depth. The food was good, especially the fries, but I cannot imagine that they were the best in all of Detroit. We have several joints here in my hipster-infested burg that are superior to the fare. I don't know if I would ever sample them again – not a dis, It's just that there have to be other places to try in my rare visits to Detroit.

Enough of food. I can eat well here. On to activities that my current home town doesn't offer!

This was in our hotel room shower -

I have no Idea what it is for.

The Detroit Institute of Art. A few months back, when the City was going through bankruptcy, the DIA was on the chopping block. Until the State of Michigan stepped in to save it. Good call Michigan. The DIA doesn't really stack up to museums in grander cities such as the Chicago Art Institute. But it is still a wonder to experience. The founders collected some amazing artifacts from around the world and houses them in a wonderful warehouse of ingenuity. The building alone is worth visiting for the architecture. The treasures within are priceless.

The campus of Wayne State University seems to be a trendy and revitalized part of Detroit, this is almost a facade, or maybe an Utopian island. A mere handful of blocks away the city seems to fade back into it's seedier side with the graffiti and abandoned houses. We accidentally found ourselves wandering through as we searched for a place to park.

 

Wayne State home of this African Batman mask!

Onwards!

I love me some books. I may have mentioned such a sentiment before. On par with food, I am a bookstore tourist, and have been since high school. In fact, I first visited this place back when I was in around 11^th grade. That was at least 20 years ago. And the place hasn't changed much since(though I believe that it has become more cramped and packed with printed goodness.

 

Here there be Treasure!

John King books... where to start? First, it is entirely a used book store. All four stories of it. With books overflowing the shelves and lying in stacks and boxes around the floor. In fact I suspect that they have several annex buildings to house their stock. The store is so big that upon arrival a member of the staff will hand you a map. Imagine the library of a large city, and that all of those books are for sale. Everything from ancient classics to the most recent smut. I found a full two shelves dedicated to carving duck decoys – just to give you an Idea of what this place is about. Boooooooks!

Joygasm!

There is the wonderful book must that permeates the air. I don't like aftershaves or body washes or what-ever. But if someone would make an old book cologne, I think that I would wear it daily. (Note, I won't be searching google for this product, I have spent enough money this weekend.) Days could easily be whiled away wandering the shelves of John King. Sadly we took less than two hours before moving on.

One of the best finds was This - 

Oh yes, I am reading it now!

There. The rest of the day was spent eating, hanging out in the hotel room and drinking bourbon homemade wine. All activities that need little mention.

The hardcore life of a drug mule.

I got to do some drug-muling this week. Boy was it fun.

Wait, that sounds like an actual adventure, and not a twisted half-mirror image of one. I work for a pharmacy that specializes In supplying long term care facilities. Most facilities are on a 30 day cycle for their medications, meaning that they generally get one large shipment every 30 days. With exceptions being made for emergencies and new prescriptions. But all in all days are spent packing tens of thousands of dollars of medication for one delivery. All your eggs in one basket indeed.

Let me explain something about the facility in question. First, it is a depressing place to visit as they take care of and house car accident victims. I don't mean people who broke an arm in a car crash, I mean the folks who have come away permanently changed. Or just aren't there any more. One of the most depressing set of instructions ever seen on a script is probably "Apply to stumps." Really, when it comes to a place like this, those what die are the lucky ones. The rest are just vegetables and shells. Which is why, that if I get into an accident, I hope to buy the farm immediately.

I think that 16 year old kids, and people on DUI charges should be forced to visit... no, work at a place like the Facility. Videos and brochures and slogans are all nice, but you need to be able to experience in all visceral sensual detail what their decisions could lead to, either for themselves or for others. Let them apply ointments to the stumps of a vegetable for a few weeks. Let them interact with the brain-scrambled denizens that poke and prod and generally go on crazy.

And if they fail to learn the lesson, shoot them, as anyone that thick shouldn't be allowed to breed.

In seven months, this is the third time I've taken cycle to the Facility. The first time was because our driver decided to take a day off right as cycle was due. This was about two weeks after I started. I got to drive across the state and deliver the cycle. Which is for our little company a very big deal. Almost like, oh I don't know, some asshole captain of an oil tanker in say Alaska skiving off to get drunk and handing the job over to the peon who washes dishes. Except that I avoided grounding on any reefs.

This is all just to say, muling isn't my usual job, I just step in when needed.

Our driver promoted himself to the head of the delivery department. This happened when one of our competitors imploded and our business quadrupled in like a week. So they brought in a ton of new people and a half-dozen new drivers. Here's where my confusion begins, they have a load of drivers who are fully capable of taking an object from point a and leaving it at point b and then returning home. They have one woman who is dedicated to this route. Plus the self-styled manager of the delivery department carried cycle to this very Facility at least ten times in the past year, plus near daily visits in between.

When he stepped up, he gave his job to an older woman. One who has yet to win the confidence of some of management in her ability to take an object from point a and point b and then return. She's pissed off the goblin that works at the Facility, who just happens unpleasant creature who doesn't seem to like anyone or anything. So I was asked to go along to make things smoother.

Which brings me back...

It turns out that I wasn't just along as extra muscle, I was the actual driver and delivery monkey. This is a one person job, and I would have preferred to do it alone. Or better have our main driver take over.

If one of his hand picked followers is incapable of doing the job, shouldn't the head of the shipping department be the one who steps in? It's not like the man is busy, his days are spent chatting on the phone and taking two hour lunch breaks at Hooters. Yeah, this is great. I'm doing his job. I hope I get paid extra for it. I would like to be the head driver for a day. Hang out at Hooters. Wreck the company bathroom. Take an hour to fill one car up with gas. Creep out the female members of the staff and get away with it.

The drive over went quietly and smooth. How I like it.

There was yelling when we arrived, or so I heard tell of later. The warthog wasn't too pleased to see my copilot. She came out of the South Building and yelled "Don't you know where South is?" I pointed at the building and responded "Yeah, It's right there!" Had I wanted to see a real explosion, I could have said "Do you need directions?" But I like having my testicles whole and attached to my person, so I kept my mouth shut.

Beyond this, the delivery went rather smoothly. Dropped off meds, saw pretty girls. That's the one reason for a Facility visit for me, they have a lot of pretty girls working there. My company is sadly lacking on that front. Gotta go out and visit other companies to see natural beauties in their wild habitats. With luck, maybe I'll bring one home one day.

During the second to the last stop, one of the more mobile patients approached my copilot and asked a simple question "Did it hurt?" Now there are two possible reasons that I can think of for this question, and sadly he didn't opt for the first and instead finished with one of the classic pick-up lines. Only to immediately dive into a second, followed by a third. My copilot giggled the whole time. We don't think she usually gets that sort of attention.

A second high-point, if it can be considered so, involved an idiot man-child. Now, when you stand in the center of a group of angry women, and then make what can be considered sexist statements to them, you should expect to get a beating. He didn't seem to make that connection as they slapped him. He even asked why I didn't man up and help him. I called him a moron. That got a laugh.

Then the return trip. The trip out was quiet, the one back not so much so. I got to hear about the yelling, and autistic grand children and about a dozen other topics of less interest. I thought about the pretty girls.

My favorite quote from the entire experience was "Animals are alive." This wasn't from a head-paitent or a random crazy hobo, but my copilot just after we narrowly missed turning a living breathing turkey into something that could be squeezed through a feeding tube. I don't know what she meant by it - I think that this was my "If it weren't for my horse" moment. I've tried to dissect the statement, and the best I can come up with was that it was a philosophical observation about the changing of the weather and how animals seem to just re-appear again.

Or maybe she's just dumb.