Welcome to Our Crazy Journey
Hello!
Welcome. We are Mackenzie and Ryan and we just bought a 2008 Chevy 12 passenger para-transit bus.......
You're probably asking:
Why?
Where?
How?
The WHY?
After moving out of our awesome warehouse in San Francisco, we moved to Sacramento, CA and found the most epic 3 bedroom AND 2 bathroom victorian duplex in Downtown. We were paying less for that 3 bedroom than we were in SF for our warehouse/loft space and we fell in love immediately. The city, the people, the house, the river, etc.
Unfortunately, this chapter of our life didn't last very long. After losing our sweet fur baby, Panda, we were on a journey to focus on:
a. Taking care of each other during this very difficult loss
b. Re-evaluating what means the most to us as we felt we had slightly forgotten
Losing Panda opened up a lot of things for us. I have had many pets in my past but the relationship Ryan and I had with her was unlike anything I have experienced with a pet before. She was empathetic. She was loving. She was family.
About a month after we picked up our lives again and retained some sense of normalcy, we awoke at 2am on a Monday morning to a full blown structure fire when a neighbor down the street started banging on our door to get us out safely. I definitely did not think that it was our building on fire until I ran around the corner and saw that our neighbors basement was shooting out flames. Luckily, our neighbors were okay but they lost almost everything and moved out immediately and we remained to pick up our smoke damaged items and left with what we could.
So, 2017 was not our best year and after those two experiences back to back, Ryan and I had many conversations the months following about what we care about most in life. What about our current state is holding us back from those things?
For me, I was experiencing an immense amount of grief, fear and PTSD, having lost sleep for weeks after the fire.
We questioned why the heck we are letting the fear of instability and past experiences stop us from moving forward and doing what we want in life. Life however sad, scary, stressful or fulfilling it may be, it keeps moving forward. AND what we want to do is to continue to move forward, travel, dine at great restaurants, and to live where we want and not bend over backwards working just to give all of our money away to rent and miss out on..... LIFE. We really didn't want the amount of money that we make take us away from our living.
I believe that no amount of money in the world can bring you more happiness than the experiences you have each day, each week, each month and each year. Money should not be the source of our stress or the indicator of who you are as a person. Who you are should be based on how you see the world, how you treat others and how you treat yourself.
The Where?
After quitting my desk job, helping my mom move out of my childhood home and a short visit to Canada to see some family, we came home refreshed and ready for life to continue.
When meeting up with two of our friends whom had been living in their van in SF for almost a year, we felt inspired!
So, we were on the lookout for the right vehicle.
We had seen many fantastic bus conversions on Pinterest and Youtube so we went from looking at vans to also looking at buses to expand our search.
We had just a few mandatory factors for our purchase:
Searching took about 1.5 weeks before we found THE ONE!
Located in Petaluma, a 22 foot 12 passenger bus that was not only Diesel but was only about 10 years old. JACKPOT!
We had already missed an opportunity to purchase a bus about a day prior so we didn't hesitate on this one. We rented a car and made our way to Petaluma. We made an offer within 30 minutes--after a test drive of course. She sounded PERTY.
The How?
So, we really SHOULD have searched a little bit longer and thought about:
We chose to look into Craigslist and since we have family down South and we were located in Northern California, we didn't limit our search to just Northern California. We looked online in Los Angeles, San Diego, Central Coast and further North than San Francisco and Sacramento. We wanted to see the average cost people were selling buses for to get a better idea of what a fare price would be. We considered:
We definitely test drove the vehicle and asked as many questions as we could to make sure it was solid.
We drove her back to Sacramento and took her straight to a diesel mechanic, got her checked out and luckily aside from some refilling and replacement of oil and filters, she got a clean bill of health. We then drove her to Los Angeles to work on it through the holidays.
We decided to call her "The Compassionate Coach" because when we do finish and take her on the road, we want to meet as many people as possible in our travels and hear their stories.
We plan to continue our love of story telling as well as enjoying and embracing life. With that, comes listening, spreading kindness (it's contagious you know) and sharing.
Stay tuned for more and Happy New Year! We hope 2018 brings you much laughter and love as it has for us so far.
💛💜💙💗
Welcome. We are Mackenzie and Ryan and we just bought a 2008 Chevy 12 passenger para-transit bus.......
You're probably asking:
Why?
Where?
How?
The WHY?
After moving out of our awesome warehouse in San Francisco, we moved to Sacramento, CA and found the most epic 3 bedroom AND 2 bathroom victorian duplex in Downtown. We were paying less for that 3 bedroom than we were in SF for our warehouse/loft space and we fell in love immediately. The city, the people, the house, the river, etc.
Unfortunately, this chapter of our life didn't last very long. After losing our sweet fur baby, Panda, we were on a journey to focus on:
a. Taking care of each other during this very difficult loss
b. Re-evaluating what means the most to us as we felt we had slightly forgotten
Losing Panda opened up a lot of things for us. I have had many pets in my past but the relationship Ryan and I had with her was unlike anything I have experienced with a pet before. She was empathetic. She was loving. She was family.
About a month after we picked up our lives again and retained some sense of normalcy, we awoke at 2am on a Monday morning to a full blown structure fire when a neighbor down the street started banging on our door to get us out safely. I definitely did not think that it was our building on fire until I ran around the corner and saw that our neighbors basement was shooting out flames. Luckily, our neighbors were okay but they lost almost everything and moved out immediately and we remained to pick up our smoke damaged items and left with what we could.
So, 2017 was not our best year and after those two experiences back to back, Ryan and I had many conversations the months following about what we care about most in life. What about our current state is holding us back from those things?
For me, I was experiencing an immense amount of grief, fear and PTSD, having lost sleep for weeks after the fire.
We questioned why the heck we are letting the fear of instability and past experiences stop us from moving forward and doing what we want in life. Life however sad, scary, stressful or fulfilling it may be, it keeps moving forward. AND what we want to do is to continue to move forward, travel, dine at great restaurants, and to live where we want and not bend over backwards working just to give all of our money away to rent and miss out on..... LIFE. We really didn't want the amount of money that we make take us away from our living.
I believe that no amount of money in the world can bring you more happiness than the experiences you have each day, each week, each month and each year. Money should not be the source of our stress or the indicator of who you are as a person. Who you are should be based on how you see the world, how you treat others and how you treat yourself.
The Where?
After quitting my desk job, helping my mom move out of my childhood home and a short visit to Canada to see some family, we came home refreshed and ready for life to continue.
When meeting up with two of our friends whom had been living in their van in SF for almost a year, we felt inspired!
So, we were on the lookout for the right vehicle.
We had seen many fantastic bus conversions on Pinterest and Youtube so we went from looking at vans to also looking at buses to expand our search.
We had just a few mandatory factors for our purchase:
- It had to be a Diesel
- It had to be a short bus -- 26 ft max (This is because some state parks and RV campsites have a length limit on RV and campers)
- Cost us under $5,000
- The engine MUST turnover. If you buy a bus that is a couple thousand dollars and it won't turn on, you will be spending a lot more money for a brand new engine or to restore it (labor).
- The vehicle year could not be in 2003 or 2004 (We had read that the makes of most buses during those two years had changed a bit and they were experiencing lots of problems).
Searching took about 1.5 weeks before we found THE ONE! Located in Petaluma, a 22 foot 12 passenger bus that was not only Diesel but was only about 10 years old. JACKPOT!
We had already missed an opportunity to purchase a bus about a day prior so we didn't hesitate on this one. We rented a car and made our way to Petaluma. We made an offer within 30 minutes--after a test drive of course. She sounded PERTY.
The How?
So, we really SHOULD have searched a little bit longer and thought about:
- Where we were going to park it
- Where we were going to work on it
- Registration
- Insurance
- EVERYTHING. PERIOD.
We chose to look into Craigslist and since we have family down South and we were located in Northern California, we didn't limit our search to just Northern California. We looked online in Los Angeles, San Diego, Central Coast and further North than San Francisco and Sacramento. We wanted to see the average cost people were selling buses for to get a better idea of what a fare price would be. We considered:
- The Make and Model
- The Year
- The Condition
- Any stated mechanical issues (there will be on any used vehicles, but it's a good idea to figure out the cost of those issues stated to see if the price is fare relative to what you will be spending on mechanics).
- Diesel, Natural Gas or Regular Gas vehicle
- Tire tread (Mainly look at this when you go look at the vehicle)
- What was the vehicle used for? School, church, etc. This will give you an idea of the interior wear. You will be gutting most of this anyway but you can imagine how much the vehicle has been through depending on how it was used.
- The Mileage - Diesels, if taken care of, will run for much much longer than regular gas vehicles. Our bus had 266,000 miles when we purchased it. At first, you think EEEK but if you read up on Diesel vehicles, this is considered the middle of it's life.
We definitely test drove the vehicle and asked as many questions as we could to make sure it was solid.
We drove her back to Sacramento and took her straight to a diesel mechanic, got her checked out and luckily aside from some refilling and replacement of oil and filters, she got a clean bill of health. We then drove her to Los Angeles to work on it through the holidays.
We decided to call her "The Compassionate Coach" because when we do finish and take her on the road, we want to meet as many people as possible in our travels and hear their stories.
We plan to continue our love of story telling as well as enjoying and embracing life. With that, comes listening, spreading kindness (it's contagious you know) and sharing.
Stay tuned for more and Happy New Year! We hope 2018 brings you much laughter and love as it has for us so far.
💛💜💙💗
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