Cold and Ceilings

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I’ve begun tearing apart the bus. Well, the ceiling panels are off and the old insulation is out. The insulation covered maybe half of the ceiling by this point in its life, and clearly wasn’t doing much good anyway. I pulled all the wiring that we would no longer be … Read More

1966 Dodge Travco Interior (Before)

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We’ve spent the past few days just sort of cleaning up inside the Travco. It wasn’t that bad to begin with, but it obviously hadn’t gotten too much attention in the past few years. I also took off all the purple window tint, which made a humongous difference in the … Read More

Paperwork

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One of the best things about this Travco is the paperwork. The original owner, Leslie Smith—a perfect 1966 name if ever there was one, did an amazing job of storing and organizing everything. I’ve got every manual to every single item on the bus. They really are a window into … Read More

Holiday Ramblings

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We’ve been playing airplane lately. This includes packing up luggage and flying from one grandma’s house to another. Today Ouest added a new wrinkle to the game and included a stewardess. “Hey, juice lady. Juice lady?” she called out once the plane had reached cruising altitude. Because really the best … Read More

My Mazatlan

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I’ve mentioned it many times, but it bares repeating, that Mazatlan has become one of our favorite spots in Mexico. The Old Town section is where it’s at, so if you go there on holiday make sure you get downtown and explore beyond Plaza Machado. I threw together a sort … Read More

Holy Christ…mas

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Of all the things Ouest learned in school—good and bad—the meaning of this Santa Claus guy has to be the worst. But hey, I’m not going to be a total Scrooge, so now that she knows what’s up, the key is going to be mitigating the damage. We took the … Read More

Introducing the 1966 Dodge Travco

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In the dark early hours a couple of days back I set off with Ali’s dad for the road trip south to pick up the bus. It was about 270 miles away—too far to travel with the kids, in the cold, in an old motorhome—outside of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We … Read More

I Guess We Are Minimalists

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I’m not sure if we’ve ever called ourselves minimalists. It always feels as if we have more of everything than we could ever need—be it food, clothing, or toys. And yet this pile of boxes is everything we own. Well, that’s not entirely true, we do have a surfboard and … Read More

In the States Again

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We said goodbye to Mazatlan, a city that we’ve really grown to love these past few months. Ouest had her last day of school which I had been a little worried about, but she seemed almost not to care. I think that probably has more to do with her not … Read More

Roll On

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About two years ago, shortly after Lowe came along, Ali and I started having conversations about what we were doing. What were our plans? Where did we want to go? What did we want to do? We watched friends leave to cross the Pacific and for a few days we’d … Read More

Hole in One

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So here is the hole that has caused all of this drama the past few months. This speck of a hole, about the circumference of a piece of pencil lead, was enough to sideline us all this time. In the other picture the hole is just out of sight around … Read More

It’s a Hole

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Found it! Finally. Yesterday the mechanics started tearing the engine down. After removing the fresh water pump at the front of the engine they could peek through the hole to the first cylinder, and there, just barely in view, was a small spot of corrosion that had worked its way … Read More