To drive anywhere I pass a bunch of other wheres. One of the wheres this time was my mothers house.

I got all the seats out of the bus! Most of the bolts came right out, but I used and angle grinder on a few. I don’t know why I didn’t take any good pictures of the whole thing, but here is a picture I took after taking the first seat out:

It’s pretty long, about seventeen feet of usable length, and maybe seven feet wide. I’m a dork, I didn’t measure for real (I did the footstep thing). I had been planning on a loft bed in the back, way up by the ceiling with most of the storage underneath, but now I see that there’s an air conditioning unit in the way. So I could put the bed way high up somewhere else, along the side in the back or something. Or I could have a lower bed. Like, one that I could sit up in. That would be weird, but I might be able to get used to it. I want to have a wood stove right next to the bed, a kitchen cabinet/counter opposite that, and most of the rest of it open space with bookshelves and stuff along the wall. Open space and being able to stand up excites me a lot right now. Also, there are pull up bars!!

But I want your guys’ ideas. The first bus around, I wouldn’t listen to anyones advice. This time around I want it all, even the crazy way out there stuff.

I got to thinking, while pulling out those seats, that I may be the only person in the world with a 56 year old mother who is eager to come out and rip out seats with me. Afterwards I helped her move a pile of cinder blocks, a big trailer, and a non-operating four wheeler because she is digging a big trench to insulate the ground next to her garage.

I’m so grateful for having been raised by people who aren’t afraid of doing things and didn’t tolerate me not doing things. I still remember the first time I became aware of this. We had just moved to town, out in this neighborhood where everyone was building houses, and after we built our house my dad went out to trapline for the winter. It was a cozy neighborhood, since we’d all camped out while building houses together, and a neighbor lady was driving me home one day.

“How does your mom get by without your dad? Doesn’t she need help?” she asked me.

“Um, with what?” I asked, thinking that my dad wasn’t that much help when he was around, except that he was good at shooting bears through their eyeballs in the pitch black of night when you can’t see them.

“Like, snow. How did she get the snow off the roof?”

“Oh,” I explained, “she used a ladder, and she climbed up to the top, cause if you start at the bottom the snow will knock you off. And she tied herself to the stove pipe and knocked the snow down, and then the ladder fell down too but that was okay, she just jumped down in the snow.”

“That’s amazing. She must be a feminist.”

Later, at home, I asked my mom what a feminist was and told her she must be one because she’d shoveled off the roof.

“Well!” my mother said, haughtily, “I calculated it out and there were 8 tons of snow up on that roof! It’s 2×6 construction, it can’t handle that! Am I supposed to have the roof cave in because there’s not a man around?!”

Then she sent me out to bring in fire wood.

It’s taken years for me to understand what a gift this was. Thanks mom.