Jan 5, 2010 Colorado The beginning of the adventure!

I did not learn to blog till the end of Aug 2010. I am writing this beginning of our voyages after the fact.

John was retiring in 2010. He told me I had to retire too. He wanted to travel and he wanted me to come along. so I had to quit my job that I loved, move out of my house that I loved and move onto the bus, with a man I loved, but had just met- 3 years ago. I was totally freaked out. But what was I going to do, not do it? We both had to throw away a lot of possessions just for me to move in his house.
John has been researching motorhomes for a year. We have been going and looking at the different ones. He finally chose a Country Coach. He looked at many of them till he found this one. It had been owned by the man,s father who passed away. The estate was selling it. It had lived in a heated garage except when it was on the road. Only had 61,000 miles on it, which is really good for a diesel engine. It was in fabulous shape. He looked at it, then we both  went to Wiggins, Co again so I could look at it.  It was exactly what he wanted, and I was overwhelmed.  It is nicer than anywhere either of us has ever lived before. We went home, then he made an offer. Then it was ours!
We went back to pick it up. We rode with the seller in his car and drove the bus back to Denver. Thru rush hour, scared me to death, John did fine, to south of Denver to a repair shop to get it checked over and all the fluids and filters changed.

Here is my first glimpse of the bus, looking into the cockpit, The two seats up front turn around and can be part of the living room, the couch folds out to a queen sized bed. There is a leaf that fits in table to make it bigger for guests. They have to bring their own chairs. Up front is a whole AV system, and a TV and cassette player (it is a 2002) in the bedroom

looking back into the galley, the burners are  under a lift up cover under the convection/microwave combo oven, the sink also has covers.

the fridge (full sized fridge) and shower. There is a pocket  door between the fridge and shower. The bathroom sink . It has a marine toilet, you flush it with pedal, it has no water in the bowl until you flush it, so it won’t slosh all over when you drive. There is a sprayer in case you want water.

the bedroom. Queen sized bed, huge closet, lots of cupboards.

We got the bus back and John took it to a storage yard. He refused to let us sleep in it at the storage-he said it would cheapen the experience!  He refused to take it anywhere so we could try it.  To use it we would have had to DE winterize it, fill it with water. After that if it got below freezing the plumbing would freeze up. We had to wait till April. John spent most of his free time readying the bus to take off. I had no idea there was so much to learn about it. so many different systems.  I was moving out of my house into John’s. So I put most of my kitchen utensils on the bus. Towels, sheets etc. What to take, there is not much room. Especially after you put all the toys in, the gear to empty the tanks, maintain the bus, lawn chairs etc.  You really have to downsize. I remember that now looking back. It was really hard. But now I am so happy to not have all that stuff to take care of.