Winter is coming

Time for an update.

At the moment we are still standing on the parking lot of the workshop in Hoogerheide, well actually not only standing, but also living there in our Nomads Bus. I must say it feels like home more than ever, the inside is super cosy and we have everything we need to live a comfortable life in it. I told Val that this is surely the most luxurious and convenient house I have ever lived in and it is only 25m2. I have lived in so many places I can’t even remember them all, but never have I had the opportunity to fine tune one completely to my needs. I guess it is also because our house is so small that you start looking at every corner and try to make the best of every little bit of space you can find. Also, it lends itself to quick improvements, because everything is made out of wood and it feels almost like playing with Lego, where you can easily remove and add new stuff all of the time. Thanks universe for providing us with wood!

From a technical aspect everything that needed to be done, has been done and so now the waiting game has begun (again). We were looking at different ways to get our bus inspected and our first idea was to go through what is called an individual inspection process in The Netherlands, but last week someone who works over there called me up and explained why it might not be the best idea to start that whole process. Basically, he said it would probably take a long time and a lot of money, he also mentioned there are other easier ways and that’s when Germany came up. He couldn’t tell me more about it, but he hinted it would definitely be a better option. Funny as how life goes, because later that day I met up with an old friend and he told me that one of his friends has a company that helps people import foreign cars into The Netherlands. How much of a coincidence is that?? The next day I called him and after that first conversation I can say it looks very promising, as usual there are some ifs and buts and maybes, but he told me that this is what they do for a living and that they import somewhere over 500 cars per year through Germany. Now all we need to do is get some technical info on the bus from the Thomas company and we can start the inspection process. He said it could be arranged in 30 days, if everything works out the way it should, but when does that ever? So, more realistically we’ll be to able to drive our home legally in Europe at some point in January. At least we have found a way that should bring our bus into the mountains, where it (and we) belong! Can’t wait, can’t wait, can’t wait!

The most frustrating part is that we still can’t accept any bookings, because we don’t want to disappoint any body, hopefully we’ll be able to open them in the very near future!

Still fingers crossed though, mine have been like that for quite a while now, I hope I can uncross them soon.

Ps: We have over a month to fine-fine tune the bus, so any suggestions are welcome!

Sent from my iPad

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It happened again

Yes it did!

I almost can’t believe it is true, but it is, this is the so-mani-eth time we have found the right place at the right time.

 

I am sitting in the front part of our bus, while Valerie is enjoying some ‘alone’ time with happy Fenna in our bedroom and can’t help but smile. Why, you might ask. Well, because I am in Hoogerheide at the workshop, where I have been working on The Nomads Bus for over two months now and tomorrow together with Michiel (one of the nicest people I have met thanks to our project) I’ll do the last difficult part of the conversion. It is not going to be a pleasant job though; we have to put on the black layer of undercoating on the bottom of the bus, very nasty stuff to work with, but knowing this is the last big task I have to do makes me really happy. When this has been done, it is up to Jan, the incredibly relaxed and friendly owner of the workshop, to finish up the last bits and pieces on the bus. I am so excited to see the end finally nearing and a bit scared as well, because this means we’ll be going to the inspection in a couple of weeks and find out if we can start our journey on the road.

 

The last post that I wrote, I was kind of depressed about the workload and the fact that Jan didn’t want to continue working on our bus. However, this final hurdle, like as almost any obstacle, has brought me quite a bit of joy these last few weeks; I have learned yet some more skills, I have met some very nice new people (especially a big thanks to Kasper and Maarten for helping out!), our favourite brilliant Norwegian Viking friend Vidar The Great was so nice to fly to Belgium and help out for two weeks and most importantly I got to know my brother Dieter a lot better thanks to the work we did together during this final part of the conversion.

 

There is a lot I have to be thankful for these days, like for example my parents, who were so kind to do a big detour on their latest trip and pick up some important parts in Munich. I am definitely most grateful though for having found this workshop; the way they have handled this whole thing has been nothing but amazing. Seriously, I don’t think there are many workshops in the world that are so friendly and helpful. Can you imagine letting in a bunch of different people in your workshop, letting them use used their tools, ask a million questions, have lunch and dinners in your kitchen, used your bathroom and let them sleep on your terrain? And then only charge the hours you actually work on the bus? Insane no? So much goodness, it is overwhelming.

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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A bump in the road

A couple of days ago the phone rang and I was too busy to notice that Val’s mood had changed completely after she had hung up. ‘What is wrong?’ I asked after I realised that my girl was moping and looking sort of depressed at the other side of our little three by three room. ‘The mechanic from the garage has just called’, she said ‘he does not want to continue on our bus and wants us to come over as soon as possible to explain why.’

 

It felt like a meteor had just hit me. Why would he say that? Two weeks ago he was fully committed to get our bus ready for inspection and now this? I saw our dream crumble before my eyes. It can’t be true, is what my first thought was, no way this was happening. I had to keep an open mind and hope we could convince him to continue to work. So, the next day we drove up to the garage to ask what was going on.

 

When we arrived, I immediately looked at what he had done so far and I was very impressed with the quality of his work. He had done some great welding and had reinforced a lot of beams; he even had screwed on some good-looking iron plates on a part of the bottom of the bus. He certainly must have worked quite a lot on it already and in everything he had done, you could see his craftsmanship.

 

A few minutes later he walked up towards us and started to explain he didn’t want to continue working on the bus, because it was simply taking up too much of his time, which made him neglect his regular customers. Not only that, if he would continue at this rate, it would cost us a fortune to get it all done. He had already put in 60 hours, at his normal rate this would cost us 3000 euro and he hadn’t even finished a quarter of the job. He is also leaving for four weeks and has not a lot of time when he returns.

 

Can we just drop our dream? Do we really have to? There must be a solution to this? What is the best way to move forward? So many questions popped up in my head, it was hard to get my thoughts straight. We have spent so much time and money in this project and so many people seem to believe in our dream, is it really time to end it?

 

My mind kept rambling on, so I tried to get it on track and think logically; we have come this far, from buying a bus in the US, shipping it, importing it, converting it and finally finding this guy, we are at the final stages of getting this on the road, there must be a way to convince him. Besides, this mechanic is really professional and a super-friendly human being who definitely has a good heart, which is a rare quality in a car mechanic.

 

‘Maybe we need to give you more time’ I said, ‘so you can work on your regular clients and work on the bus whenever there is time left. You could also tell us when you’ll work on the bus, so I can find a couple of people to come and help. I have met some amazing people thanks to this project, who are very skilled and probably willing to help, if we can schedule it properly.’

 

‘All right’ he said, ‘I’ll think about the options during the upcoming weekend, please call me back on Monday.’

 

‘Yes!!’ I thought to myself, ‘Maybe we can come up with a solution after all, we are so close, there MUST be a way.’ So, fingers crossed for Monday and if any of you want to help, please let us know, we’ll be eternally grateful!

 

 

 

 

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Great things take time

‘I think you should come have a look on Saturday.’ He said on the phone a few days ago. Apparently, the friendly round faced mechanic who has been working underneath the bus for a couple of days now, kept bumping into more rust than he had expected. So, he needed our opinion on how we wanted to proceed.

Together with our Skilled Nomad, Maarten, we drove to the garage in Hoogerheide and went into the pit underneath the bus to take a look and get a second opinion. Have you ever walked underneath a 12m long school bus? I hadn’t. Well yes, I did lay underneath the bus with a headlamp and my big pregnant belly last summer to look for space for the water tanks but to see the whole bodywork in detail was quite overwhelming.

‘Rust really? Where?’ is what I thought.

 

 

A year ago, when we found the bus on Ebay, we truly believed Jason, the Ebay salesman, who was very confident of the condition of the bus and convinced us that there was not much rust at all. I can’t really believe he deliberately lied to us and in his mind, he didn’t even have to; to US standards this is not much rust, to Dutch standards however, where not more than 20% of the metal can be turned into rust in order to get trough inspection he would definitely be lying. You really had to look closely and high up with a torch to spot anything, but there it was, hidden between the huge pieces of metal, which to me are all the same, you saw what he meant; the copper colored stuff, still stuck in my memory as the never ending parasite covering the floor of the bus, that dirty brown color streaming down Tim’s face in the shower when he spend his days trying to grind that stuff away on the inside of the bus.

That was almost a year ago and so much has happened in the past year, that I couldn’t let negativity slip into my mind when the mechanic told me this was going to take at least another month and would cost somewhere in between five to ten thousand euro to fix. Mainly in man hours, because it is all about getting the rust away in the most gnarly places. When I was thinking about whether or not we needed to stop this beautiful project, stay patient and pump more money into it, not for a second I doubted what was closest to my heart. My mind is not created to host mister negativity.

Even if I was able to let the negativity get the best of me, I still wouldn’t have given up, because this project isn’t just about the end goal. It’s not about that moment I always envision when I think about the bus in the Alps, a bus full of stoked riders chasing pow. It has always been about the road that has led us up to this point; my memory is overflowing with positive moments building this thing, from all the work-awayers we have gotten to know to walking into the bus with a one-day-old baby and lighting the wood stove for the first time. We’ve made it to this point in the story. I’m not ready to give up.

‘Just do what has to be done. At least the main frame of the bus is strong and safe enough. We’ll try to find some extra hands to get rid of the rust. We need to get this bus, our dear Big Bertha, through inspection. As long as we’re on the road before the next winter starts it’s all good’. Is what we told the mechanic at the end of our visit on Saturday.

So peeps, to make a long story short, this is what’s happening:

We’re staying in Belgium just a little bit longer. It might even be till the end of October. In any case, we’ll put all of our energy into the bus but and at the same time enjoy the amazing things we’ll miss when we’re in the Alps: family, friends, Belgian beer, Stoofvlees and all the rest what this amazing and oh so flat country has to offer. Everything always happens for a reason and although at the moment we do feel a bit shitty towards people who already bought a trip during the crowdfunding last year and to our sponsors who have been with us from the start, we are absolutely positive this will happen. Don’t stop believing in this crazy dream we have. We certainly haven’t and we’ll do whatever we can to turn on the engine and start driving towards the snowy mountains with a bus full of stoked riders who will have the privilege to enjoy Bertha’s first big adventure!

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