What are you still doing in Arizona???

We arrived in Arizona nearly 6 weeks ago. In that time, we’ve experienced only one day in which the high temperature was below 100 degrees, and many of those days in excess of 110. You’d think that when you have location flexiblity, we’d take advantage of the first opportunity to escape to cooler climates.

While the notion of following the weather is a nice one, and we definitely get why so many RVers make this a priority – it’s not always our deciding factor.

Chris & Wayne working on the back-up camera

This isn’t the first time we’ve gotten our seasons mixed up.  In 2009, we spent the winter in single digit temperatures workamping at Amazon.com in Kansas, followed by spending the holidays in St. Louis with family. And last summer we spent a considerable amount of time in hot and humid Florida to be with family during a tough time.

Our travels are primarily determined by people and experiences, not places.

And the same is true now.

Since we bought our bus in Yuma a month ago, we returned to Lake Havasu City intending to stay a couple days with our friends and perhaps tackle a couple projects before moving on.  But they had other things in store for us – such as a surprise technomadic bus rendezvous.  And then a nearby fellow ‘bus nut’ and 2-stroke diesel mechanic guru (known affectionately as the ‘Yoda of Buses’) invited us to bring the bus over.

After the bus passed his approval with no notable concerns (just some more filters that needed replacing, as well as an O-ring on the power steering pump), we seriously considered moving on to nearby higher elevations for cooler temperatures.

Chris & Andrew aiming the back-up camera

But in the end, we opted to return to Lake Havasu.

Being with dear friends won out.

Especially when those friends have bus parking, a garage full of tools, lots of skillsets to share and a shipping address to receive parts.  We don’t get the opportunity to have access to this combination of resources often, and we couldn’t imagine such a scenario happening again anytime soon. We can handle small projects as we go, but it was quite appealing to get a lot of projects done at once.

We’ve made so many improvements on the bus in these past few weeks, it’s incredible.  Here’s just a sampling:

  • Fresh water system fully functional and improved
  • Smoke, carbon monixide and propane detectors installed
  • Night vision back-up camera & monitor installed
  • Dinette taken out
  • Counters repainted
  • New kitchen sink, faucet and undercounter filtration system
  • Bluetooth handsfree stereo system installed
  • Furnace removed
  • Bunches of small tweaks & projects
  • Lots of upcoming projects researched and ordered

And all this while enjoying the company of awesome friends and immersing ourselves in community.  Staying places longer is exactly the pace we want to switch to, so it seems right to start off our bus adventure by staying still.

Interior remodeling underway

Next week we’ll leave the bus parked while we fly back to St. Louis to bring Kiki home and visit with Chris’ family. We’ll also grab some stuff we left behind before departing on our bus hunt back in May.

While we’re gone, new floors will be installed.

And then we have every intention of starting up the engine and driving away. We’ll probably head to the west coast, maybe towards San Francisco, where temperatures are 30-40 degrees cooler.

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