First Let Me Explain her name. When I first started thinking about buying a bus.
I had watched a movie on YouTube called "Without Bounds". One of the nomads featured in it
was a man called Randy Vining. He so impressed me that I binge watched everything that I
could about him. He'd done an interview with Bob Wells of Cheap RV Living fame. Mr. Wells
had done a marvelous job interviewing this man. In the course of the interview Mr. Vining had
some amazing poetry, but the one line that struck me was he called his travel trailer his "Land Yacht".
I have a pretty strong love for all things ship and ocean related so calling my future bus "The Gypsy Clipper" in reference to the Clipper Ships we had seen when I was growing up in
Massachusetts seemed ideal.
So the name stuck but it didn't stick on my bus. I am a mobile dog groomer by trade and that seemed like a name better suited to my profession so Gypsy Clipper was the name I had
chosen for my grooming business.
So I continued to shop for my bus and while I was doing so I built up my social media under the name Gypsy Clipper. Then I had begun to lose the feeling in my hands and grooming full-
time was no longer an option. But I'd worked so hard to build the social media accounts I hated to lose them.
I started to transition everything to more of a nomadic existence and I was now known as Gypsy Clipper. People even refer to me as Gypsy instead of by my real name. I tried to change it to something more fitting like Gypsy Homesteader but though accurate it just didn't seem to fit.
So now I am personally know as Gypsy Clipper. And then it left me
without knowing what to call my bus when I found her. I knew she needed a name. Every prior vehicle in my life have had a name. This now being not only my transportation but my home she REALLY needed a name.
I had originally chose a school bus in Oregon. I chose one in Oregon because I had thought
that would be the ideal place to start my new nomadic life. The bus was ideal. I'd negotiated a
price and sent a down payment. I'd found a place where we could live in the bus while we
worked on it.
I had a friend that was going to join me in this adventure but that fell through. I was left with a bus in Oregon and no way to get there.
I’d put ads on Craigslist and hoped I'd be able to get a ride west for my dogs and myself. During that time the person I'd bought the bus from had a family crisis and needed to sell the bus
immediately. I didn't want to buy it without getting to see it in person. So I let him keep the
$1000 I had put down on it for his trouble. It felt like the right thing to do and I felt like I helped him as much
as he helped me. In my heart this was a sign.
Then I had found a 1960's model Prevost motor coach. It was beautiful and it was in Colorado.
It seemed like it would be ideal for my maiden voyage as a nomad. Colorado also seemed to make a bit more sense as a place to start from. Plus it was already converted. But I had trouble
getting to Denver in addition to a problem with my finances. The seller wanted $15,000 in cash. That wasn't possible. I definitely couldn't see myself riding in a stranger's car with $15,000 in my luggage.
So, I was back at the drawing board to rethink my plan. The idea of looking out of state was a good one originally but I could see without a reliable vehicle of my own it just wasn't going to
work. So I now focused on an area about 250 miles in all directions from central Illinois. My friend Chris could drive me without too much inconvenience.
And then I began to do a bit more research. I knew the two motors I was looking for. One was
a DT 466 and the other was a 7.3 diesel. Both were solid motors that were easier to get to
know and to find a mechanic to work on if I had to have it professionally repaired.
I then started looking at smaller shuttle buses because there seemed to be quite a few in my
area and they were a bit less conspicuous of I wanted to be stealthy in cities.
Soon my luck changed and I found two candidates.
When I had found both shuttle buses I was torn and I couldn't decide. On one hand the 12 passenger shuttle bus had a newly rebuilt motor and transmission(supposedly). It also had a false back wall which made it so it had a garage in the back. That would be a great place for my shop. I liked the concept but I didn't really think I liked losing that much space. But if it was meant to be it was meant to be.
The international was just impressive. But I wasn't sure about its past or my ability to work on it. But again I trusted God, divine intervention, fate or whatever you want to call it.
I made plans to go see both the same day. I had contacted both owners and negotiated a price for each of them. The larger 24 passenger bus was actually $500 less than the 12 passenger bus and it had a full tank of fuel. So I probably was already leaning towards the bigger bus.
There was just one problem the man that was selling the international was firm in his need for me pay in cash.$6,000 in my pocket just didn't seem like a good idea. I just decided it didn't make sense to hold up the sale on this alone. So I asked around on forums that I belong and the consensus was just to meet at a bank. That made sense. I offered this solution to the seller. But that wouldn't work either. The international was too large to fit into his bank’s parking lot. So throwing caution to the wind we just decided to meet at a super Walmart close to where he lived. The morning of the meeting we went to my bank where I picked up $6000 in cash. I hadn't really thought it through. The bank is tiny and they really weren't used to handing out that much cash. The teller was very cautious in counting out the money. She also made sure not to flash the money as to draw the attention of other bank customers. The town is very depressed and a single woman walking out of the bank with that kind of money apparently is an issue. That probably is a separate blog post. But I was able to walk to the car without being robbed. But seriously, I was saddened to think my little town had become this bad. It just reaffirmed to me it was time to get a bus and get on the road.
I still had mixed feelings and had been disappointed so many times that until I actually saw the bus I wasn't going to relax. The poor seller. I look back now and I was a total pain in the ass. But he obviously was in management and was familiar in dealing with people. He responded to all my texts the morning of the meeting with either a picture or a rapid response. He sent me pictures of him going to the storage garage where you had it stored. He sent me pictures of himself at the gas station fueling it up and then he sent me a final picture of him driving it. But even that wasn't enough to keep me from being worried. I was really gun shy.
We arrived at Walmart a little early. And while we were sitting there my friend did most of the talking and I just sat and worried. She saw him pull in first. She said right then she knew I wasn't going to go look at the second shuttle bus. And quickly she said that looks like a Lolita to me. And I just laughed because I had known a Lolita in the past and she didn't know that.
I'd met the original Lolita at a local bar where she apparently spent quite a bit of time. As soon as I met her I knew she was special. She had stories that kept me on the edge of my seat. At the time I wasn't a very good listener but her stories we're so good and so exciting you couldn't help but sit and listen. She called herself “old bar whore”.
I tried to tell her that wasn't a nice thing to call yourself. And she knew. She had a very colorful past and she was in the last stages of hepatitis. She had long ago accepted that the end was near and she had done everything on her bucket list and then some. As I sat there listening I wished I were a writer or I had a better memory because her stories were so good they needed to be told. But it wasn't going to be by me. At the time that made me sad but I was young. Obviously I'd gotten over it.
I hadn't thought about her in years but when Chris said her name it all came back. This is how she introduced herself as she pointed to the only seat in the crowded local bar. “Hey, I’m Lolita and I'm the Old Bar Whore and I can kick your ass.
Sit down I'm going to teach you a thing or two”. And that's how my bus got her name. She's definitely telling me stories and she's definitely kicking my ass.
Please follow along on social media where we collectively are known as “Gypsy Clipper”. I'm sure it's going to be an interesting ride.