September, 1970: We bought a wonderful yellow bus on a sealed bid to the Tracy School District. After sending in our bid for $601, we changed it on impulse to $700. The next highest bid was $650. JF's friend Charles drove him to Tracy and JF drove the yellow bus home, getting stuck in the Bay Bridge toll booth briefly. He parked the bus on Winfield Street. I couldn't even look at it. It was too much bus to fit into my mind, 35 feet long, 14 feet wide, seven tons heavy. I was sure THEY would come and haul it away as a public nuisance until I realized the implications of trying to tow a seven-ton vehicle.
Finally we parked the bus around the corner, on double-width Esmeralda Street, where the children wouldn't have to cross a street to reach it, and we began to make it ours. Over a period of nine months we gradually moved out of the house and onto the bus. We had the seats hauled away, carpeted the walls, ceiling and floor with collages and mosaics of rug scraps a nearby carpet layer saved for us. JF built in bunks, kitchen, toilet. We added refinements such as a piano and a wash stand and a wood stove, using our friendly neighbor Schielein's water and power.
An oak barrel we bought, thinking to use it as a bath tub, proved to be saturated with some kind of strong spirits. We put a little hot water in the tub, sloshed it around and let it sit a few days, and suddenly we had free cocktails when we were exhausted from working on the bus. The neighborhood never complained about the loss of three parking places and were so generally helpful and cheerful that we gave them a big party on the bus before we went on our first shakedown cruise.
We broke a bottle of champagne over the front bumper and headed out for high adventure.
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