The End of An Era

If you have been following this blog for many years, you probably remember that in 2010 we bought a school bus and used it to move from New Hampshire to North Carolina. It took few trips to complete the move. We hung on to the bus and used it for storage. At one time we had dreams of converting it to a mobile studio to teach classes in. We realized over time that our focus needed to be on building our business here in Seagrove. Off and on we have toyed with the idea of selling the bus and when a friend approached us about purchasing it, we decided that the time had come to let it go.

Our school bus has lower mileage than my 2008 SUV! Even after not running for over two years, she turned over after a couple of tries. Today was the day she went to her new home where she will be transformed into a food truck... or should I say, food bus!

Since she isn't registered and inspected, a tow truck came and hauled her away.

Good-bye old friend. You helped us get started on an exciting new adventure and we will always have fond memories of our many road trips.

The end is in sight!

Remember back in 2010 we bought a school bus and moved south? Well, we still own that bus. It has sat in the yard for five years. We were neglectful school bus owners, and didn't keep starting it every week. Thankfully, Jeff did take the batteries out of it. Last week we had those batteries charged, and after bleeding the fuel line (we had it replaced shortly after it's last trip North) the beast started in no time at all! 

This news makes us very happy. The bus is loaded with all of our glaze buckets, chemicals, and assorted pieces of equipment. It can now make the one mile trip up the road. Once it's unloaded we will put it for sale on Craigslist. In the past we contemplated a mobil studio/gallery, but with the maintenance, fuel costs, insurance, it just doesn't seem like a wise financial endeavor. I would rather sell it and see the money in my bank account!
Today we will unload the trailer from our very wet, outdoor show, and pack it back up with more studio stuff. The rain has stopped, the weather is cooler. A good day for working.

found (fond) memories...

We have been preparing for Jeff's trip to S. Korea, figuring out what we have for suitcases, electrical converters, passport, cameras...
On the camera front, we decided that Jeff should take the newer camera so I dug out my old Sony that is 10 years old. It's only 2.1 megapixels but it should get me by for blog pictures while he is away. I charged the battery and turned it on this morning. Low and behold there were picture on there from 2010! Jeff must have taken them...

It's the gypsy potters school bus... towing Jeff's pickup truck! We were heading south and stopped at my parents house to say good bye.

I am sure that Mom and Dad were thrilled to have our hippy bus parked in front of their home with the perfectly trimmed hedge. My Mom would also not be thrilled to know I posted this pic on the web when she didn't have her hair "done"...she will never know because at 85 years old they are clueless about the internet.
My parents sold their house in Nashua last year and moved to an apartment in Dover, NH. Most of the relatives are there and they are closer to my sister. The manicured yard was getting too much for Dad to take care of and he was never happy with how anyone else did it. I was happy to find this photo of the house I grew up in as well as some more recent photos of my parents.

back in the '603!

... and it feels really cold here!  it was a shock to our bodies to go from 80 degree weather to 50 degrees.
after a few snags as we were packing the bus for our trip (two dead batteries in the bus and a crack in windshield that needed a repair) we hit the road and had rather easy journey north, arriving safely on Thursday afternoon.
our week here is jam packed with things to get done.  friday jeff taught a raku workshop at the high school in hillsborough (i was the assistant).  i will post more on that later.

we fell in to bed exhausted on Friday night and woke up at 5:30 am to do the potters market in Concord. we had a great time catching up with old friends and meeting some new potters as well.  we drove the bus to the market because our rental car was too small to pack our pots and display in to.  needless to say we were the talk of the market.

when the show was over jeff and kurt planned to have their ritual sake sipping from handmade sake paraphernalia... five of us went out to the bus and sat on the bed and had a toast.  we were all laughing and feeling like teenagers sneaking around... all that was missing was a bong!

we are home!

we are in seagrove!  it was a long tiring trip.  we took turns driving the bus and my equinox.  the bus was packed with 2 electric kilns, 1 raku kiln, the bricks and burners for the gas kiln and studio equipment.  the car was packed with cats in crates... my sophie and jeff's three; franny, troixie and IV.  the cats did well for such a long trip... of the 4, sophie had the most difficult time.  now that we are here they all seem to be settling in quite well.
tomorrow the unpacking begins.

franny in her crate... she was the coolest traveling cat.  we think she actually liked her crate!

i took this photo while following the bus on interstate 81... i think we were in pennsylvania

do we have stowaways?

we lined the inside of the bus windows with cardboard... to protect them and for security.  i spray painted the cardboard black and before we hung it jeff decided to spray on "peepers"!
we fired the gas kiln on thursday and couldn't resist unbricking the door and taking a peek before we hit the road.  it was a great firing... lots of reduction.  luscious copper reds and the shinos look fabulous!!!

and one more bus pic for the road...

... makes me laugh every time i look at it. catch up with you later when we arrive in the 'grove.

the continuing adventures of the gypsy potter and swirly girl...

the seats are out of the bus!  once jeff figured out the trick to getting them unbolted it went pretty smoothly... he worked under the bus and i worked inside with a ratchet.  most of the bolts we just snapped off.  when we were done we caulked all the holes with silicone.

one of our concerns was about how to get rid of bus seats... hurray for facebook! we posted that we had seats to give away and very quickly they are almost all spoken for and taken away.  people wanted them for all kinds of things... seating around a campfire, extra seats for a musicians bus... the best one is tree-house furniture!  we are feeling good about recycling them.
today we covered all the windows - i can't WAIT to post pictures of how that turned out.
...we started to load the studio into the bus tonight - tomorrow we load some household stuff and head to seagrove for trip number one.
stay tuned for more of our headin' south in a bus adventure!

oh my aching fingers...

i am wiped out tonight.  i spent most of the day at the studio... the first part of the day was spent getting more of the gas kiln loaded.  the second part of the day was spent removing any lettering that referenced "school bus" on our bus as well as any reference to massachusetts since that is where it came from... we new hampshire people don't want to be driving down the highway and have people thinking we are "massholes"! oh...did i really just say that???  wasn't a very nice thing to say was it?  i apologize to any of my mass friends & readers... of course there are lots of  nice people in massachusetts... and some of them might even be good drivers.

removing the lettering involved a hairdryer, a scraper and peeling with fingers... those fingers now look like they have taken a beating... good thing i am NOT the long painted fingernails type of girl.  the only nails that get painted here are toenails!

jeff has already started to take the seats out... we are leaving two rows in the bus to make traveling a little more comfy.

self-portrait of ME with the kiln a little more than half loaded

just was thinking... i should have my daughter come and help with getting the letters off of this bus... when she turned 2 i bought her a lil' big wheel for her birthday... it was pink and when i assembled it i spent forever putting on all these cutesy stickers.  as soon as she got the big wheel she proceeded to peel ALL of the stickers off of it... in a matter of minutes!  i wonder if she would come and peel stickers off of a giant bus...

"come on get happy!"

remember my last post said that jeff and i had an exciting morning? we have been trying to figure out how to move 1000 miles south and do it economically... we looked into lots of options and after reading potter linda starr's moving adventures on her blog and corresponding with her we made the decision to....

BUY A SCHOOL BUS!!!!!
we are going to remove the seats and all the "school bus stuff" and use it to move us to north carolina.

my first thought was "can we paint it like the partridge family?!"

when we are done moving we will either:

A. turn it into a traveling studio
or
B. sell and recoup our moving expenses

...i still can't believe i am a bus owner :-)