WE BOUGHT A BUS!!!!

So...in case you haven't heard, we bought a bus!! "What the heck did you do that for?" Good question, friend, good question.

I've known myself for a long time and have come to accept that I simply can't sit still. I want and need more from life. I need to be out exploring, seeing, doing new things. And so when I saw a video years ago of a family from Argentina who is driving around the world with their two and then three kids because they want their kids to have open minds and broad horizons, my heart leapt in my chest. There they are, driving this old car, no air conditioning, figured out a system for putting eggs in the engine and after a certain distance or time of driving, they know the eggs are cooked...oh, my gosh! I want that! And then reading other stories of people who live nomadic lives whether for a year or forever and it makes my heart sing. The Scandinavian Viking blood is strong with this one.

Last year, when Shad was away for boot camp, I loved the freedom of roadtripping with my kids. We had such fun trekking around the country, visiting friends and family, going to places we've dreamed of or seen on tv or read about in books or seen marked on our wall maps. I had 7 months of road trips planned out because that's how long I was expecting my husband to be gone. And then that all came to a grinding halt. That was sooooooooooo hard for me! All the stress and emotions of the military life suddenly pulled away from us, the 6 years of our future that we thought we had just planned and settled, feeling set back further than we were before, Shad feeling like a failure, and all those road trips gone. And I was stuck in one place to deal with it all. And I'm a runner. I run away from crap when it happens. "Nope. Let's NOT deal with this, let's just LEAVE."

Things settled a bit for me, but it's still been a very real struggle. And then one night in April, all the emotions just came pouring out of me. We had tried to make things work here, we had tried to make things work with China to be elsewhere, and failed and failed and failed. And yes, I know the stinking Thomas Edison quote. Don't think it doesn't just play on loop in my brain during these times. It does. But there I was on the couch, thinking about all the dreams we've had and the plans we've made and how they just keep falling through. And another quote popped into mind: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" I just lost it. Completely lost it.

Next morning, Shad got on Craigslist and there was a bus, already in progress of the Skoolie conversion, just 20 minutes away from us. As stated in the previous post, Shad and I looked at it, thought about it and discussed it briefly, and decided to jump on it. How many times do you talk about a dream and then just have it show up in your face like that? YOU ACCEPT THE GIFT!

So it was Friday that I had my meltdown, Saturday that Shad found the bus, Sunday that we saw the bus, and Monday that we purchased it and made it ours.

My day on Monday involved telling the kids the plan and watching YouTube videos of skoolies during lunch so they'd understand. We'd pause after videos and discuss elements and designs we liked and wanted to see in our own skoolie:

Tommy: curtains on the kids' bunks for privacy and personal space

Katie: sliding chalkboard door separating the kitchen from the sleeping space

Dancy: bunk curtains and a desk in the parents' bedroom

Thora: a fan and a clock

Samson: curtains on the windows

Dancy was so excited, she wanted to take pictures.

We had swim lessons that afternoon, so Shad and I made the plan that he'd have a mobile dinner prepped for us that we could eat in the car on the way to the bus as soon as we got home to pick him up. Hooray!

This is our bus! It's also the "watch out for horse poop" picture.

The bus had already been gutted, rust purged, insulation and silver lining installed, floor boards down, roof sealed. And loads of gear collected!

Honking the horn is one of life's great pleasures!

Ahhhhh, bus!

Some supplies. Gonna sell that water heater and get one that's not gas. I'm not having propane.

RV fridge.

Escape hatch! I just decided this morning that it will have a Marauder's Map pasted over it and say, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good!" I was shrieking with delight when I thought of that and Shad came running to see what was wrong!

Queen bed platform already built. We do need to modify it, though. And a shower basin on the left.

EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

And then we met horses! Because...horses!

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

We've been having fun running around doing field trips on weekends and exploring what's around us. On April 7, that was Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. It was our contingency plan when the weather didn't look favorable for driving 3 hours southwest to the Great Sand Dunes. 

It was supposed to be around 60 that day, but was windy and cold still when we arrived in the morning. There was plenty to keep us entertained in the visitor's center while we gave the weather time to warm up! We started by getting our Junior Ranger booklets and watching the 10-ish minute documentary explaining the history and geology of the area.

You know a place is good and kid-friendly when there are buttons to push!

Pretty sure Sam and Thora pushed all the buttons.

Tom and Katie, Junior Rangers in progress.

Dancy working on hers.

One of the petrified stumps.

Okay, so the story of this area is that these HUGE Redwood trees, larger even than the ones in California, grew here thousands of years ago and then volcanic flow covered the area and preserved the stumps, some up to 11-feet high. All the rest of the trees decayed above the cooled and solidified lava, but these stumps remained. They were picked apart quite a lot for decades before scientists finally prevailed in getting the government to protect the land to prevent tourists from cutting out their own souvenir pieces of petrified wood.

Samson loved looking in this microscope and I love Dancy's glare!

I think he had it on the petrified redwood sample.

Dancy and Katie quickly got their Junior Ranger badges and then came to show me. Ruiners! They didn't let me get a picture of them swearing in. And then Dancy and her sass...

She was particularly happy with this booklet page.

 And then we were ready to hit the trails. Tommy needed to finish the rest of his badge outside and it was warm enough.

Right by the visitor's center there are these bound and covered giant stumps, protected from erosion.

Stump cluster.

Ancient Clones

This family circle of fossilized stumps grew out of the single trunk of an older parent tree. The tree trunks are ancient clones, or genetically identical copies, of that parent tree.

Modern coastal redwoods also reproduce by stump sprouting. If a redwood is toppled or burned, a ring of new trees often sprouts from burls around the trunk's base. In the coastal redwood forests, family groups are common. But this trio of stone stumps is unique in the world's fossil record.

Harry D. MacGinitie, shown standing by a modern redwood trio in California, was a paleobotanist who excavated fossils at Florissant during the Great Depression years of 1936 and 1937. His work, published in 1953, is still the most comprehensive study on Florissant's fossil plants. MacGinitie was the first to compare these fossils with modern vegetation in order to reconstruct past climate, ecology, and elevation.

If the main trunk of a redwood is damaged, the dormant stems begin growing rapidly, using the parent tree's root system for nourishment and support.

Single stump.

Just One Piece at a Time

"One of the wonders of this part of the world is the 'Petrified Forest' … between Colorado Springs and Fairplay. This remarkable relic...bids fair to disappear very shortly, unless the...tourists cease their work of destruction. Everyone must needs take a specimen, and some of the stumps are 'growing smaller' at a very rapid rate."

Colorado Springs Out West, June 13, 1872

Early accounts describe the valley as being littered with petrified wood. As word spread, the Florissant area became a popular tourist destination. Exploitation, constant collecting, and thoughtless destruction continued for nearly 100 years. There is no way to assess the damage done or the loss of rare scientific evidence during this period. 

Shelters now protect some of the remaining stumps from weathering, and laws strictly prohibit fossil collecting. A variety of methods of stabilizing and preserving the stumps have been proposed and tried over the years, and the National Park Service continues to work towards the best solution.

In 1893, when this photograph was taken, tourists still had access to the shale fossils and petrified wood.

I forget which trail we took, but it's the one right by the trees, heading out into the open field. Not that you'll know what that means unless you go there. And you should.

Katie came running back to me to make sure I took a picture of this tree gateway. Already done, chick.

You know what's great? Walking along and the little one starts singing Potatoes and Molasses to himself. Oh, I love it!

"Mom, take a picture of me by this baby tree!"

"Mom, take a picture of those baby trees by their moms!"

Shad found a fossil!

This big stump still has a saw blade embedded in it from when some genius tried to cut it up decades ago.

If you zoom in, the blade is on the far left at the top before the rest of the stump continues higher.

Across from the big stump. I love that Thora picked a quiet spot to sit, as suggested in the Junior Ranger booklet!

Samson joined me in my spot. And he really likes having constant access to water.

Our view.

And then as we made our way back, Sam announced that he had to go to the bathroom. Poop. Crap. We had at least a quarter mile to run back to the visitor's center. And Thora decided she had to pee, so I couldn't just pick up the one kid and run. Both of them made it, and still managed to let me snap some final pictures on the way while Shad and the older three lingered reading signs.

There they are, walking behind us, only a few minutes slower than I was able to drive Thora to move her butt and stop dragging her feet.

And then we had some Junior Rangers swear in!

We'd have liked to stay longer and see more, but I had Painting with a Twist to go to for my friend Katie's birthday that night...and Shad had us scheduled to look at a bus! So we left for home around 2 pm.

Shad and I saw the bus and loved it and the idea of renovating it into an RV and begin our lives as nomads. We just weren't quite sure if we wanted to take that jump. It was while I was out painting with friends that we were texting and decided to jump on this opportunity to pursue a dream and not let it keep being "someday." My words were "We should do it. Let's be reckless, carefree risk takers." And so, check out the following post for more details on that.

Meanwhile, at Painting with a Twist...our instructor drove me nuts because he sounded just like Tom Haverford from Parks and Rec! (Aziz Ansari)

Fun night painting and chatting bus purchasing with Brandi, Lindy, and Katie!