Entry# 5 Its Here, Now What?

One Foot in Front of the Other

Now that bus 246 has finished in final road trip to the Callaghan, I can switch gears from thinking about what I am going to do if it breaks down to what I am going to do, period. At this point, I really hadn’t considered the success of the road trip portion of the endeavour. It just seemed there were so many obstacles to physically and legally getting the bus to the mainland that I really hadn’t considered what to do once I got it home. Moreover, all the internal issue with construction in the bus John and I had spoken about are now reality. Particularly, how to best make use of the space considering how low the ceilings are in certain places, how to secure the doors, and how to strengthen the sheet metal roof for snow-load. Other than day dreaming plans, which I’ll have five months to do, I need to make some good use out of the little time I have as I leave for Mackenzie in the morning. First things first, I have to tuck tape some missing windows closed. Then I decide I need to focus on two things; cover the bus up, keeping it a secret till the fall, and remove all the seats from the bus.  Now I do realize the idea of hiding a double decker bus under a tarp is hilarious, but I simply don’t like people knowing what my plans are till they are executed. After all, at this point only my parents and friend Spencer even know I went to the island and bought the bus. As for the seats, I just need to best posture myself for when I come home in the fall to be able to jump right into the construction aspect of the bus. I would like the bus to be operational by winter 2018/2019 which means every day with the bus counts. The trend of tight timelines will continue all the way through this process, from bus delivery to cafe opening I am committed to stress! After getting the seats all unbolted and stashed away, it begins to rain quite heavily. No matter, it seems as good a time as any to climb up the side of a round smooth surface to unroll a 100 foot tarp on a sheet metal and fiberglass roof. A few close calls later, I have a large bright blue wrapped bus, only slightly less eye catching than the bright red bus. To celebrate the first days work on the bus I decide to have my first coffee in the bus. I dig around in the trash and find an old water bottle which I cut in half and pour some palm warm coffee from a thermos. Although its not the best coffee I have ever had, its far from the worst, but it is the first of many.