The leaves were beginning to change and the nights were growing colder and my will to exist was growing dimmer…as will happen in the cold weather. It was definitely time for me to begin the journey south and westward.  I was certainly not going to make the mistake of passing another winter in the Northeast.  I was excited to get on to the next projects and some fun visits along the way.   I stopped through New Hampshire for one more visit with Scott and Adriane.  They have had a challenging year, to put it mildly.  Adriane is battling the aftermath of surgery and ongoing treatments for a rare form of sarcoma (click here for more info and to help out)  among many other life stressors.  I roasted them a chicken for dinner and popped it in a pot for soup the next morning – it wasn’t much, but I hoped I could make a minor dent in the mountain of stress, at least for a brief moment.   That night was damn near freezing cold and my heater needed some maintenance I just wasn’t prepared for at that time.  I woke up with an icy cold face to a pretty sunrise and I knew I had to make tracks south and fast! I was excited for the next stopover – to have some time with my favorite niece, Kiyomi, who is starting her new chapter in New York City.  Not an easy place to get going, and she is bravely giving...

What’s It Like to Drive a Bus? A lot of people ask me this - is it hard to drive Rita? What is it like? I figured it would be good to get a bunch of stuff down now while it is all still fresh for me as a newbie. I have logged over 7,000 miles on Rita now, but definitely feels still very new to me in a lot of ways. Slowly, much of the anxiety about navigating unfamiliar roads and showing up somewhere new (how big will it be? Can I back out? What if I get stuck? What if I hit something?) is dissipating, as I have successfully survived more and more varied situations.  Driving Rita is not nearly as difficult, or terrifying as I feared.   Space, the Final Frontier Keep in mind, Rita is only 22 feet long – many pick-up trucks are just as long!  While she is nothing like driving a 40 foot, full sized skoolie, she does have some unique characteristics and things I had to learn/get used to. The very first thing that freaked me out about driving miss Rita, was how WIDE she is.  Around 8 feet to be specific.  This means she takes up an entire lane most of the time.  I’m always worried about side-swiping someone.  In my lower side mirrors, I can always see the ground and can make sure I am within the lines.  At first it was super challenging and a little terrifying (especially when...

It has been well over 2 months since I posted an update. I am currently writing from Spencer, Tennessee at. Wanderlust Waypoints - a place to get bus projects done!  But before I get into all that...what have I been doing the past 2+ months-that-feels-like-6 ? The time has been pretty action packed, a lot of doctor appointments (routine stuff, getting it all in while in my 'home state', I'm in tip top shape, it seems!), moving all my stuff into Rita, lots of projects, a prolonged stay with the mechanics, lots of family and friends visiting and maybe even a little adventure.  I can't subject you to a 2 month blow by blow describing what all has happened (and probably I can't even remember it all coherently). So let's try this chronological photo montage - you can hover on a photo to see a description and click for full size image. Still more to come, it was quite an adventure from NYC to TN!! Hang tight, I'll tell you all about it!

NOTE: SORRY If you got a new post notification and there is not, in fact, a new post after this one yet...working on it!! But now you know the post notifications are working finally 🙂   I got a not-too-early start out of Salt Lake. It was so great to visit with Art and Lisa – I’m already looking forward to visiting them in their AZ home this winter! I was able to fill up one tank with water before rolling on out of there. It was to be a fairly short drive to my overnight at Dinosaur National Monument. I didn’t even know about it before, but I saw it on the map when looking at my route and it seemed like a place I HAD to see. Thanks to Art, I now have the Gas Buddy app, and it shows me the cheapest places to get gas. They are always just a tiny bit off the beaten path – so worth it. I discovered I actually have a 55-gallon tank, so saving 20 cents or more/gallon is a big deal! Still, after nearly $6/gallon in CA, everything feels like a deal. One of my biggest fears, and the reason Jonny put the extra latch on my door, was that the door would fly open while I was driving. Even though we reasoned that, when driving forward the wind/pressure would likely make it impossible for the door to open. Well…that myth has been busted. The extreme vibrations of driving...

It was quite stressful waiting on Rita for the week. Kind of like having a friend in the hospital (with no insurance), waiting to hear the news of multiple surgeries.  It looked like she was going to be done on Wednesday, but then it turned out to be Thursday night before I could pick her up. I was losing my mind a little with anticipation and anxiety and thinking about all the things I had to do to take off.  The bill made me a little nauseous, but I keep reminding myself what my BFF Jen told me “Stop saying you’re bleeding money! Instead say “I’m investing in my future”. So yeah, this is my home and in the grand scheme of things, homes never cost this little!  I spent the week working and walking to errands (and Deanna kindly loaned me her car a couple times as well, lucky me!!). Deanna drove me down to Watsonville to pick her up – traffic was a nightmare so it took forEVer.  We went out for Mexican food while we were down there (Watsonville is a little like being in Mexico anyway).  A couple errands and a fuel fill up, it was about 10pm by the time I got back to Deanna’s.  I have to say I did NOT like driving in the dark, and will try to avoid that as much as possible.  I do not see well, and the headlights are a little funky/not straight and I don’t appear to...

I had to carefully turn into the narrow gates of John and Laura’s long driveway – I managed not to scrape either side.   I love this big old house on Pinto Lake.  I helped them move in back when I was a professional organizer.  That’s how Laura and I met.  I adored her from the start, and eventually we became too good of friends to be working together.  I love that house, filled with fun and interesting and beautiful art and the wooden stair case that make me feel like royalty everytime I walk down it. I left Rita at the shop first thing Monday morning.  I was feeling optimistic and added a couple other things I wanted checked to our extensive list.  Doug grimaced at me and said “do you need it back today?!” And I said “NO, I just need back when it’s ready!”.  That apparently gave them the green light to let her sit ALL DAY without getting started on anything.  A whole day I could’ve been getting some stuff done!  So I was a little annoyed about that. FOUR DAYS! That’s how long they kept her.  In the end there was a 4 page estimate of what she needs totaling over $13K.   A large chunk of that was for air conditioning – they were not able to fix the system because THERE IS NO SYSTEM…some previous owner had ripped it all out. Puppies, wine, and a blankie, what could be bad? SO.  No air conditioning is...

It was hard to leave Omega Camp, but I knew it would never be easy, I could've spent weeks there, I think! So I decided to make things easier in general by leaving Saturday instead of Sunday - I knew it would take me almost an hour just to get out the 4 mile dirt road, and with the extreme heat it probably wouldn't be wise to spend an entire day driving in it. I wasn't entirely sure where I would spend the night, but I definitely wanted to stop and see my cousin, Diane, just north of Sacramento. Not a super long drive, but definitely would cut a few hours off the trip down to Santa Cruz. Good luck to find Diane still at the house (it is under remodel, so they aren't there all the time). She texted the address and off we went. I wasn't sure exactly but I had the idea I could avoid going back to Grass Valley (after the nail salon owner incident, I wasn't too keep to roll through that town again so soon!). There was no cell service, so I actually had to pull out a paper map to check the route (glad I got a full set from AAA!). I was able to go in the opposite direction and pick up 80 all the way to Auburn. A little ways out I saw signs for a scenic overlook, so I thought I'd stop and have a look-see. Turns out there was...

Rita got her fancy new tires put on in Fort Bragg and we were off. The first hour or so was the super sketchy  winding part where I had to pull over a million times to let people pass. Surprisingly, I’m actually not annoyed at being the slow one. Once we got past that part it was much smoother sailing. Rita was clearly excited about her new tires. I could feel her soul come alive as she bounded along the open road with new and beautiful scenery. This is what her heart needed and she had a permanent smile on her face. Oh wait. Maybe that was me. I loved that it was hot- even clearly TOO hot… (I really hope we’re able to get Rita’s AC working next week. ) The air was so hot blowing in my window I had to roll it up. It was like being cooked in a convection oven. But I noticed I still had the smile. I got as far as Grass Valley and needed to stop to check the directions as I knew I was close, and would lose cell service soon. I saw a Safeway and thought going in the AC might help me think clearly for a minute. I missed the turn in and thought the next parking lot went through so I turned in. There was a construction fence at the end and it was just a very narrow little lot. I panicked a little bit…how to get out?!...

The first order of business in customizing Rita, was to get a shower installed.  There are lines already in place, and a hot water heater.  Just needed to waterproof the bathroom, put in a drain and hook up the shower head.  Easy peasy, right?!  Well...no. I headed up to Fort Bragg, CA to hire my ex for this project and a few others.  We owned/lived on a sailboat together for 10 years.  He knows how to do everything and he happened to have time to and interest in helping me. 10 long days in Fort Bragg… Did not end up getting what I thought I was coming for.  The shower install turned out to be too complicated,  and there was not enough time to sort it all out.  I had a deadline to get to a 4th of July camp out!  But I got a lot of what I needed/didn’t know I needed. Jonny busted his butt for me and did things I wouldn’t know where to even start with - better than most people would or could, and under-charged me for sure. And no one got murdered. But we did joke about me throwing him under the bus a lot… Working on Rita is so much like a boat - maybe because she was designed by someone who builds sailboat interiors. It feels so comfortable and familiar to me. BUT…we can drill holes at will and not worry about sinking!! I still want a damn shower, somehow, so that...

Welcome to Rita's Blog a 2000 Ford Thomas E450 School bus that has been converted into a tiny home. I purchased her from her creator (Craig) in June 2024.  Quickly transitioning to full time living, while getting up to par mechanically is a bit overwhelming, but we are persisting. The idea for this life began almost 2 years ago, when I was living in Mexico.  I was planning to return to the US to be around my family more.  But the US is awfully expensive...how to do this?  I had lived on a sailboat so, tiny space living is not foreign to me.  I also love the idea of having my own home but not being stuck in one place all the time.  I was SO done with landlords, and owning a home in the US is not only impossible, but very unappealing to me now.  I really just something that was MINE and gave me the freedom to be where I wanted.  It was a long process to finally get here, not without some big sacrifices...but those are stories for somewhere else.   When I am determined to make something happen, it usually happens, maybe not exactly how I planned, but always after a fashion! Rita has *almost* everything I wanted - maximized storage space, composting toilet, full kitchen, easy to use bed, complete off-grid solar system, plenty of freshwater storage, and even some things I didn't know I wanted - like the diesel heater. Pics below are from the...