We bought a bus! Now what?..

I remember about a year ago sitting around on a cold fall evening, kids in bed and the wind outside is howling. It had been a long, trying season for us on our small farm (more on the farm life later) and we were exhausted. We felt a little lost and were ready to make some changes in our life. Problem was, we had no idea where to start or what we actually wanted. We imagined what life would be like if we didn't farm anymore, or if we could travel and explore other parts of the country. We would see the sights that we have never seen, visit places that intrigued us or sparked our curiosity. We had watched some amazing videos on the tube of folks that were homesteading in beautiful places, and others who had chosen a life of full time travel living a nomadic lifestyle. All of this seemed a little out of reach for us. How would we ever leave our home, our farm? How could we convince our family to come take care of the animals so we could explore all that this world has to offer? What if we bought a school bus and turned it into a tiny house?! Wait, what? For Sarah this was a very serious proposition, for me its was like, well yea I can build that I'm a fairly handy guy. So in January of 2019 we drove an hour north to see a bus, a $2000 craigslist special. As we approached the industrial park we could see her, all 40 feet of her bright red glory beaming from the dull empty parking lot she was stored in. We fell in love with her instantly. We knew so little about school buses so I literally took a google search crash course the day before going to see it. We also had to settle for a quick spin around the empty parking lot, but we could easily see that it ran really well, shifted and braked just as it should. We gave the guy a down payment with promise to be back in a week to pick it up! Holy crap... did we just buy a bus? The week between seeing our future tiny-home-travel-machine and picking it up had us feeling all the feels. We were so excited to begin a new venture and also terrified of what we were about to take on. See this idea started out very innocent and "safe". We were going to take the next year or two and convert this old bus into a modest tiny home/RV. Then we would take it on some short trips, planning around our farm schedule and growing seasons. We would rent the house out or do some sort of airbnb thing to justify our time away from our farm and jobs. Pickup day arrived, so we loaded the kids up in the minivan and headed north. The kids were so stoked that we were actually buying a bus and it had nothing to do with going to school! We paid the remaining balance and started the hour long trip home. As I pulled out of the lot, adrenaline rushing through my body I settled down just enough to realize, I've never driven a bus before. Long story short, we made it home and she drove like a dream! This amazing, powerful machine now sitting in our driveway represented something Beautiful. Its a new beginning, a chance to make the changes we longed for and the start to an amazing adventure, this was our Plan B.