Veteran Hobo via Shorpy

ICYMI: I’ve been trying to buy and live in a converted schoolbus for the last year and a half or so. I finally OWN the bus, but it’s full of black mold and would need to be stripped back to the frame and rebuilt, by myself single-handedly thanks to budget constraints, and completed before mid-September, when my pet-sitting bookings dry up. The bus currently has a rocket stove as its major heat source, and I have it on excellent authority that this particular form of heat source, ie an open wood stove, will NEVER EVER IN A BILLION YEARS pass inspection, and it must pass inspection in order for me to drive this bus anywhere.

And…

I have to be in Ottawa in September, to spend the winter and possibly longer.

So…

If I cannot insure the bus, I cannot drive the bus. If I cannot drive the bus, I cannot use the bus. So, it becomes about selling the bus (and all its contents that are mold-resistant; it has some useful and valuable stuff like a gas generator, etc).

I may put that money into an RV or a car and trailer. My friend the Bus Whisperer insists that trailers are not fashionable, and are therefore a much better deal than RVs, so that’s tempting. Also way more versatile; I could hardly take a bus to the grocery store, or go downtown with it. The question is, can I get both a car that can drive 3,000 miles AND a trailer I can live in for whatever I can sell the bus for? The Bus Whisperer says if I strip it out right to the bones, ie no glass, no rubber, nothing in the box, I could sell the aluminum body and then sell the rest and maximize my take, rather than just letting them do it. I can certainly do that; demolition isn’t a fine art, is it? Lots of exercise though.

I’m moving to Ottawa to take care of a family member with a chronic condition who just needs someone around in case. In exchange, I get to live rent-free for the winter, and concentrate on my writing rather than this pet-sitting treadmill which is taking up easily half of my working hours and getting me rent plus $20 a day. I can do a LOT better than that by writing.

And I’d get to visit all my friends in Montreal, Toronto, and New York. Heck, I’ve never even BEEN to NYC. Might even see the Maritimes, who knows? If I had a car and a trailer, I’d basically have complete freedom. Could pick up the pet-sitting again, could just do my own thing, wifi permitting. And nothing says I can’t do some custom, hackery renos on the trailer and/or car.

So, since there’s a hard deadline, and a three thousand mile journey, suddenly several decisions have become very simple. If something’s not possible, it’s just not going to happen, so what else can happen and how can that help me? I’m going to miss the coast like anything, but I fully plan on returning when I can. And you know, somehow I have a way of getting things done if I really, really want them.