First long distance trip with my Van this weekend

[TDW]

Hey all,

I'm pretty excited to head North this weekend up to Seattle and beyond into the Cascades (from Portland OR). I have an old 76 40 footer transit bus sitting in a field up in Darrington Wa, and I'm off to shoot some photos and figure out what the heck I'm going to do with the thing. It's been about two years since I've been up there, so who knows what I'll find. From the sounds of it, some squatters have called it home for a while, but have been chased out.

The great thing is that I can take the van, and I have found some people that need a ride. There's a free music festival called "Folklife" up there this weekend, so plenty of people are looking for a ride. I might have up to ten people, so fuel costs won't hurt too bad.

This may be a frivolous post, but hey I know there's plenty of people out there in OB land that love taking their rigs out.

Have a good Memorial Day everybody! Got to love America!

 

[LCAM-01XA]

Cool, gotta love paid road trips Hopefully this one is uneventful, especially in the van brakes department... And how did you get that bus way out there in the field?

 

[Alex S]

Thats a hell of a place to park a bus!

should see if you can get the old Detroit flashed up

 

[Brianedwardss]

Darrington, WA is a beautiful place. Very cool mountains

 

[IDIDieselJohn]

You'll have fun doing long trips in an IDI

I'm working on my 6.9 Motorhome, gotta get it ready in 5 weeks, were leaving for 9 weeks, heading to California. Were looking at doing a good ~ 13,000 miles in 9 weeks with it. Stop by the Grand Canyon on the way back, follow Route 66, finish it. We done it from Chicago to Amarillo Texas (Cadillac Ranch)

 

[Wanderer-rrorc]

we're gonna take ours about an hour away for a day of hiking and a night of campin!!

wonder if the park will be packed...memorial day weekend...cooler temps...NAAhh...we'll be lonely...

 

[TDW]

Cool, gotta love paid road trips Hopefully this one is uneventful, especially in the van brakes department... And how did you get that bus way out there in the field?

Vacuum booster is working great, master cylinder has as much fluid as the day I closed it, and I've put on a couple hundred miles since then. As far as the bus goes, it ended up there because I had nowhere to go when I was living out of it, and the price was right for rent, ten bucks a month. It's been a couple of years since I've made good on rent, so I am going to hand deliver some funds to the gracious land owner. I'd love to drive it out of that field someday. I'm going to ***** the situation and try to determine how possible it is.

Well if I have any issues, I'm sure you'll all hear about it. I hope for the sake of my eight scheduled passengers that we have a seamless journey.

Today I checked fluids, seems like I'm eating through some oil, which is expected. Everything else checks out. I noticed I had a headlamp out, so I bought a matching pair and saved the good one. I decided to not buy new wipers, although I we're getting some precipitation out here, I decided the ones I have are fine. If I make it up to Darrington without issue, I'll probably head into the Mt Baker National forest in the Northern Cascades. Won't take her too far, but far enough to find some peace and quite.

 

[TDW]

Thats a hell of a place to park a bus!

should see if you can get the old Detroit flashed up

I'm confident it would start if I tried! I need to pick up a new fuel filter and housing, because it was previously stripped off. If I can find a set up up in Seattle, I'll try to charge the batteries up. I'm bringing tools, so we'll see.

 

[OLDBULL8]

Is that an old Flexble? Looks like one in the 60's.

 

[Agnem]

That bus is cool! Baltimore City had tons of those when I was growing up. If I recal, the windows have a release on the bottom and are hinged at the top. The seniors in my high school used to hang "Weenies" (9th graders) by their ankles out of the window. The drivers were too scared of the high school kids to deal with them, so anything was possible on those busses. One year, this "****** dipping" ritual was under way, when a sharp curve leading to a bus stop caused a telephone poll to make contact with a window that was at 90 degrees to the bus, shearing the window, breaking the frame, and depositiing the ****** on his head. The police were called, and the practice went out of popularity.

 

[snicklas]

Mel,

Based on the details of the incident, were you somehow involved in this incident?

 

[Wanderer-rrorc]

Mel,

Based on the details of the incident, were you somehow involved in this incident?

his head still hurts?? or he wont hand anybody out a window again?...not sure..

 

[NapaBavarian]

his head still hurts?? or he wont hand anybody out a window again?...not sure..

See, we all understand so much better now

 

[88beast]

that bus is sick

 

[plywood]

Dude, REALLY likes to hall passengers

Looks like it might be best to wait til the ground hardens to try to move that bus. Unless the farmer has a biiiiiiiig Tractor.