Finally, closure to the long-passed end of an era…

So i just called up the KOA campground where my bus was being stored to let them know that it would be quite rude to keep charging me for storage,what with it no longer being in their storage bin and all. My mechanic buddy took new batteries over there last night and put them in and the thing started right up.

Sonofabitch, it started right up when, for the last year and a half, I thought the starter was dead. The last time I tried to get rid of it, December ‘07, I had the guys at the campground charge up the batteries before I showed it to a rather nice couple, only to have the bloody thing not only not turn over, but not even crank. Hell, the starter didn’t even click. Since then I’ve spent over a grand in storage fees (mostly procrastinating) trying (not very hard, mind you) to get someone with some knowhow and some elbow grease to get over there and fix/take the thing. I thought about calling the scrap yard, but it just seemed a shame to demolish the otherwise healthy bus when I knew there were people out there that could use it and love it, if only it would be self-mobile again.

So under cover of darkness he drove the uninsured, unregistered vehicle out of the KOA and down the 8ish miles of roads back to his workshop where he’s going to re-re-renovate it into some sort of boogie mobile. While it saddens me in some respects to see it go, and I certainly have a nostalgic and, I’ll say it, kitschy love for the thing, I do realize that I’m at a much better point in my life as far as means are concerned, and that, should i decide to take to the open roads once again, be it residentially or merely recreationally, it would probably not be terribly burdensome to procure a vehicle of similar, if not superior, utility that would also include a working toilet. FSM willing it might even have a shower be able to exceed the 55mph limit of its predecessor. Whatever comes, though, i sure it will never match the “This thing was designed to protect little children from speeding trucks” robustness of the old bird (Bluebird, don’tcha know), but then little short of a tank would. I didn’t flinch when we had to weather a hurricane in Zhills, and I’ll miss that piece of mind.

I’ll go say goodbye to it this weekend, and see if there’s anything left in it that i still want (please stop me, anything that’s in there I’ve survived at least 4 years without the use/possession of), and be happy that the old girl is going to another good home instead of the scrap heap. Indeed, I’ll even call it a better home, as while she’ll be oft exuding cannibas smoke from the cracks of her windows and doors (there was never any smoking in her in my day), she’ll be getting driven, lived in, and loved in. And isn’t that what every bus-cum-motorhome wants?

Goodbye Bessie, may you continue to encounter countless miles of new and interesting roads.

Bessie in her prime