By boat, by bike, by...bus?

As I'm sure you all know, every REALLY good story needs to have lots of interesting and unexpected plot twists and turns! So, not long after x-mas, Michael and I were happily tootling along on our trusty bikes in Quartzsite. Our heads were turned by a handsome, tan, 40 ft long school bus priced at a measly $3500. Michael, who is honestly the knowledgeable one when it comes to these matters, said, "Wow! That's a REALLY good price for that bus!" But we kept on pedaling. That night we talked about how funny it would be if we got the bus, then we started talking about all the things we could do with it, and all the room we would have for art projects. Maybe we should just look at it...it's probably in terrible condition to be so cheap, right? There can't be any harm in just looking...right? So...we looked. And it was in great condition! We asked Tom(the man selling the bus) what his story was(i.e. why is such a great vehicle so cheap? what's the catch?). Turns out he had 30,000 pounds of rock to transport from Wyoming to Arizona and to rent a truck would have cost him $2000. But he has friends that work for the school district and they gave him the heads-up when a great bus came up for sale. He said he would have kept it himself, but the wife said no. So even selling it so cheap, he's making $1000 instead of spending $2000. Which pretty much sealed the deal for us. We had to borrow money from the Bank de mi Padre, a long term, low interest loan, and voila! We, as of today, have a new home and a new leg of our adventure! "And we'll have so much room to do projects!" It does work out conveniently for the photo shoot job Michael has in South Padre starting March 6th. The guy who hired him said I couldn't stay in the condo with Michael; and I wasn't sure how thrilled I was about camping on the beach by myself when there are scores of drunk frat boys pumped up on their spring break festivities. Michael already had warned me not to leave my drink unattended or accept drinks from strangers, so I'm just as happy to have a nice, comfy, safe bus to sleep in. And it's a diesel engine that can be converted to run off vegetable oil. We are excited to meet people too, and go on Craigslist and see who needs cheap rides to help with the gas money($75 got us a half tank). We'll be able to see things we were going to have to skip because of the impracticality of biking there. And Tom said he has a stand he'll have going for the Pow Wow they have here with extra space that we can use to sell what we have: Michael's pictures, my sculptures, and the purses Jeni gave us to sell(THANK YOU JENI!). And we won't be sleeping on the hard ground freezing our behinds off at night! Happy happy joy joy!