Camping as a Boy Scout in New Hampshire when I was twelve years old is a fond memory. We had a great Scoutmaster who would take us out into the woods by the Connecticut River or a small brook, and we would set up camp for the weekend. We cut firewood and had a fire, day and night, and toasted marshmallows and hot dogs. We burned trees from one end to the other and large stumps that seemed to burn all weekend.

We learned how to follow a compass to find our way through the woods, long before the GPS was invented and used the sun to tell time by building a sundial. Clocks and watches were not allowed on campouts and we learned to be able to tell the time by the position of the sun and moon. Cell phones were not around in the ‘60s.

We were in the wilderness, one with nature, and all we heard were the leaves rustling, wildlife chatting, and the stream trickling downhill. We learned some invaluable skills, such as locating the North Star and how to boil potatoes in a paper bag over an open campfire. I enjoyed the Boy Scouts so much that I became the Scoutmaster when I turned 21 and passed on these skills to the younger generation.

I remember one time waking up in the pouring rain next to a drowned-out campfire. My friends all realized it was raining before I did and went into their dry tents, but they never woke me up. My sleeping bag and I were soaked through when I woke up at daybreak, and it took all of the next day to dry everything out.

As I grew older, I decided that lying on the ground in the rain and cold in the great outdoors was no fun anymore. I quickly determined that a mattress and some form of heat in the fall and winter, and air conditioning in the summer would make camping “outside” more comfortable.

It was then that I bought my first truck camper and a dually truck to haul it around on. I traveled all around Texas in that camper and really enjoyed it and spent many nights sleeping under the stars, with only a thin roof in a rickety old camper between me and the outdoors, similar to the one below.

I later sold the truck and camper and bought a pop-up truck camper, as it was more streamlined and offered better fuel mileage. However, I no longer had the truck, so I purchased a utility trailer and put it on and pulled it behind my Toyota 4-Runner. I did a lot of camping in and around Texas, then I took it up to New Hampshire, where I did even more camping.

I was living fulltime in my truck camper, so I decided I wanted something larger, and I bought a 21’ Sunline travel trailer that looks similar to the one below. I pulled it behind my Toyota 4-Runner. It was a bit of a challenge to pull it with that R22 4-cylinder engine, especially up hills, but I was able to go where I wanted to, albeit not very fast. I lived in that trailer full-time for about a year while working for a printing press company in Dover, New Hampshire, and later at its sister plant in Fort Worth, Texas.

My next camper was a Roadtrek 190 Class B on a Dodge chassis. I was living in an apartment complex in St. Louis at the time, and they did not allow RVs in their parking lots. The Roadtrek has a unique design that is not immediately recognizable as an RV upon first glance. The roof A/C unit was hidden in the roof cap, and you could only see the rear vent. The refrigerator exhaust was hidden in the window, which is barely visible in the photo below. I had a limo tint put on all windows so nobody could see inside. The water filler was hidden inside the driver’s door and the grey and black water drains were hidden behind hinged running boards that flip up.

One summer, my mom, dad, and I traveled in this RV all around Colorado, staying comfortably for a month. With all three of us in there, there was not much room to move around, so cooking and living outside was the norm. The Roadtrek slept three people quite comfortably. One of the primary differences between a Class B and a bus conversion is that you cook and eat outside a lot more, and you spend much of your day outside, in a Class B.

I used it for a daily driver in St. Louis and later when I moved to live in Denver. These are great day trip vehicles.

Like the truck camper, and the Sportsmobile later, the Roadtrek had a wet bath. A wet bath is a combined toilet and shower where the floor remains wet after you finish showering. A shower curtain pulled out on a track all around you. This requires you to wipe off the toilet and mop up the excess water after a shower unless you want to walk on a wet surface in your bare feet all night.

The shower was actually in the center hallway and had about a 3” lowered floor to catch the water. If the Roadtrek was not absolutely level, some of the water would not drain, and you had to squeegee the water into the drain. If you were driving after a shower, the water would eventually drain out, so that was not a problem. But if you were staying in one place for a while, you had to encourage that water to drain. I am not fond of a wet bath, but it is a workable solution in a small rig.

In 1983, I took a job in St. Louis for McDonald Douglas and was traveling regularly for my career. I was living in an apartment when I transferred to Denver, Colorado, where I resided for a year in another apartment. I spent most week-ends doing laundry and repacking for a Sunday’s flight to visit a different customer, and I lived out of a suitcase for sometimes several weeks at a time.

I decided that because I was hardly ever home in Denver, and because I did not like the noisy neighbors and paper-thin walls in an apartment, I thought, Why not buy a motorhome and live and travel from job to job for the company. My boss was fine with that because I was at customer sites doing programming or teaching CAD (Computer-Aided Design) week after week anyway.

I decided that I should buy a motorhome and live life on the road as a “full-timer”. I can park in the customers’ parking lot and save them money while I travel around the country on the company’s nickel. My employer, our customers, and I all benefited from that arrangement, as they saved a significant amount on airfares, hotel rooms, and meals. Some gigs lasted several months at a time, and they covered my fuel and other expenses as I traveled around the country.

After a thorough search, I decided on a 1976 36' Fleetwood Discovery. I took delivery in Denver, sold most of my worldly possessions, gave a lot of stuff away (which was not much), moved out of my apartment, and hit the road.

I headed to Texas for my first assignment in the summer of 1989.

I put 50,000 miles on the Discovery in about four years, mostly traveling around the country, teaching computer classes to customers for EDS (Electronic Data Systems), which had acquired the software division designed by McDonnell Douglas, where I worked. I would usually be assigned the long-term gigs as I was willing to stay in one place for several weeks or months at a time, while other instructors wanted to fly home to their families each weekend. This saved the companies a lot of money, and it was like a paid vacation for me.

I lived in an RV Park in San Jose for a while on a one-year gig when a neighbor moved in with a Bus Conversion. I had never heard of a “Bus Conversion,” but I was intrigued with the ruggedness of his bus. My Discovery then had about 85,000 miles on it, and when I was doing minor repairs one day, I told my neighbor I wasn't sure how many miles I could get out of it. I asked him how many miles he had on his bus, and when he said, “Over two million miles”, I about fell over. I could not believe any vehicle was built well enough to travel that many miles.

About a year later, I moved to Anaheim, CA, to work out of the local EDS office there. I was still living in my Discovery at the time when a guy with an MCI MC-7 moved in next to me. He was a retired truck driver who was also a firm believer in owning a bus, having driven several million miles in an 18-wheeler during his career. He was convinced that a bus is not only the safest way to travel but also the most comfortable and would never even consider traveling in anything else.

When traveling on the interstate in my stick-n-staples 37’ Discovery motorhome, if a big truck passed, it would blow me around the road. Diving it in a stiff crosswind was a challenge as I felt like I was crabbing going down the road. The owner of the 1972 MC-7 told me that it does not happen in a bus because it has so much more mass and is streamlined better, so buses hold the road very well.

It turned out that the owner of the MC-7 was building a house back in Illinois, and he wanted to sell his bus and move back home. We talked about it for a while, and shortly after that, I was the owner of an MC-7 Combo bus.

The Combo bus features a rear cargo compartment with its own wide door, located behind a wall of approximately 20 passenger seats. It was used to haul engines, transmissions, and other heavy objects from one Greyhound maintenance facility to another.

Fewer than 100 Combo buses were built for Greyhound. They had two sets of dual wheels in the rear, and they were very heavy-duty and weighed more than the newer MC-9 buses. They rode very well because of their weight.

The Peter Pan Bus Company once owned this bus and then sold it and converted for travel to Alaska. It had two huge stainless steel custom built tanks, as stops were few and far between on the Alcan Highway back then.

The freshwater tank held 250 gallons, and the grey/black water tank held the same amount, 250 gallons. This bus could go a long way between having to water up and dump the tanks. I liked that feature and could travel for about a month before having to water up if traveling alone.

I loved the large tank capacities, and I always said that if I ever converted my own bus, it would have the largest tanks I could fit in one bay. These two tanks occupied most of one of the bays on my bus. 250 gallons of liquids, plus 130 gallons of fuel, is a lot of weight, but the Combo bus had no problem carrying the extra weight. The water never weighed as much as a diesel engine and the transmissions they used to carry.

One thing I should mention is that many motorhomes and other RVs’ GVW (Gross Vehicle Weight) is near capacity when they roll off the factory floor. One must be very careful when loading them with fuel, water, and travel-related items because they can easily end up being over the GVW of the vehicle.

This can make them very unstable, and the brakes may not be designed to hold back that much weight, as many are built on standard truck chassis. With almost all buses, they are designed to carry more weight than they would ever have to carry, so that makes them very safe.

After a couple of years of traveling in a bus and realizing that I really like the ruggedness and safety of traveling in one, I upgraded to an MC-9 bus with a log cabin interior. It had larger windows and was a bit more modern; it was a nice-looking bus. It also had a sleeping bay under the floor for the previous owner’s kids. You can read all about that bus in our blog at: My Log Cabin Bus.

I decided to upgrade to the MC-9 because I like the log cabin style and the larger windows, which let in a lot more light and give it a more modern look. The log cabin bus had the lightest interior of any conversion or other type of RV I have ever been in, due to the lightly stained pine wood, and all the windows were left intact during the conversion.

I loved the many windows, and it was easy to park in most parking lots, as most people thought it was still a passenger bus, not an RV. The only drawback was that it was not insulated very well, and the many windows let in a lot of heat and cold, as well as a lot of darkness at night. However, it served its purpose. It was a real workhorse.

Since my MC-9 was parked in an RV park full-time back then, it was not easy to take it out for a weekend of camping. So I bought a Sportsmobile to travel in on weekends. I kept the Sportsmobile fully stocked with everything I would need to run away for a long weekend or even a week or two. I had duplicates of everything in my bus. Even a complete set of clothes.

This was an excellent off-road vehicle with a Quigley 4WD setup, offering significantly more ground clearance than the Roadtrek. As a result, I could drive up to the top of a mountain or camp by a stream, and sleep with all the doors and windows open in the wilderness. I would camp in places that most other vehicles could not go, and BLM land was my favorite camping place in the West. It had a 15,000 lb. Warn winch and solar panels covering the entire roof. It had six 12V AGM batteries under the sofa. I could run the air conditioner for up to two hours on the batteries and solar alone. It also had a water pump set up to draw water from a stream for long-term boondocking and a Sirius Satellite radio. It had a $20,000 sound system that was the best I have ever heard.

It also had two halogen floodlights on each of the four sides of the vehicle, which, when all were turned on, lit the area up like a city parking lot. It also had cameras on all four sides so you could see anyone around the rig on the TV if you heard a noise outside. That was a superb vehicle, but I sold it to have seed money to support BCM in the first year after I took it over. I ran this 4x4 for four years and sold it for what I bought it for.

The Sportsmobile also had an onboard air compressor with a long, coiled air hose. This came in handy when you have to let the air out of your tires to travel in deep sand, as you need to puff them back up before you travel again on the road. The hose was always hooked up with an air nozzle in the back of the camper, which was used to blow out the dust and dirt that may have been tracked in. This was faster and easier than using a broom and did a better job.

After traveling in the log cabin bus for about five years I came across a 1967 40’ Eagle that was for sale.

The previous owner in Phoenix contacted BCM to have the property listed for sale in our Classifieds section for $125,000. I was taking notes about what it had, and when he mentioned a Series 60 engine, with Cruise Control and a 3-stage Jake Brake, I about fell off the barstool. LOL! I told him I may be interested in it, and I scheduled a time over Thanksgiving to travel from Anaheim, California, to Phoenix, Arizona, to see his bus.

This is a 2-axle bus, called a Suburban, with Model number 8001, and was built in Belgium as a prototype to gauge its reception by bus companies in North America. A 2-axle bus has several advantages, including an extra storage bay, which allows for more luggage capacity on longer trips, and costs less to drive on toll roads due to having one fewer axle.

They only produced four of these prototype buses, but they never really caught on because, at the time, they were limited by the number of roads they were allowed to use due to the wide-body design. However, this bus made a very nice conversion due to the additional storage space in the bays. This bus has more storage space than any other 40’ on the road and handles the weight of a conversion with no problem.

I drove to Phoenix to see this bus and immediately knew it was my next bus. His wife had passed away three years before that, and he wanted to downsize to a smaller Sprinter RV. He told me that this bus was built for the St. Louis World’s Fair as the first wide-body bus built for the United States. At the time, wide-body buses 102” wide were not legal to operate in the U.S. yet, and it turned out it would be ten more years before they became legal. During that time, this bus sat in a warehouse in San Diego while legislation was being passed to allow wide-body buses on the road.

Initially, wide-body buses were restricted to interstate travel in the western U.S. and could only exit to reach the nearest bus station. They then had to re-enter the highway, stay on it, and avoid traveling through any cities. Eventually, wide-body buses were accepted on all roads in the U.S., and most motorhomes now are 102” wide.

The Eagle is one of the smoothest riding vehicles I have ever driven. The torsilastic suspension smooths out all bumps and rides like a dream. This is why many entertainers chose the Eagle bus to transport them from one gig to the next, as they could sleep very well while traveling down the road at night.

The previous owner bought this bus from a church that ran it after Trailways retired it. He drove it back to Texas and took it to John Edwards. John stripped out the seats, removed all of the siding. He then put all new siding on the bus as well as new front and rear caps.

Then Tom had the interior finished. In total, he spent over $400,000 converting this bus into his work vehicle, where he would drive to customer sites to measure draperies in high-end hotels, then return home to create the draperies, and then return to the hotel to install them. He wanted the huge luggage bays to deliver his finished draperies in, so the Suburban was perfect for that.

This Eagle came with a Detroit Diesel 8V71 engine, which seemed adequate at the time for traveling on interstate highways. However, as other vehicles came out with larger engines and more people started passing Tom on long, uphill grades like the Grapevine in Southern California, he decided he wanted a few more horses.

He found a Series 60 engine and modified the back of the Eagle to accommodate it. It was a relatively tight fit, but he was able to do it for about $45,000. The bus now has significantly more horsepower and can climb hills, such as the Grapevine, at approximately 60 MPH, passing most trucks on the climb that are in the granny gear. Now I can run with the big dogs like the Prevost's and other newer buses out there that would use to leave this bus in the dust.

He also coupled the Series 60 with an Allison 740, 4-speed automatic transmission. This was one of the most popular transmissions during the bus conversion period and remains very popular to this day. It is a robust transmission, which, if maintained properly, will generally last the lifetime of a converted bus. Most Series ‘60s will run a million miles between rebuilds if properly maintained which he did religiously.

I did have one issue with my transmission when traveling to the 2018 Bus Conversion International Rally in Pahrump, Nevada. After climbing the long Cajon Pass into Hesperia, my transmission failed, and I had to be towed to a truck maintenance facility, where it was removed and rebuilt. They determined that it was rebuilt by a non-Allison-certified shop at one time and had inferior parts installed. I had it rebuilt by Dartco in Anaheim, California, an official Allison-certified shop, and it now shifts perfectly. I expect it will run for the rest of the life of the bus with no problems.

The bus came with Cruise Control and Jake Brakes, which was a requirement for my next bus. By bumping the Cruise Control switch, you can increase or decrease the engine speed by 25 RPMs or about one mile per hour when traveling down the road. The same switch controls the fast idle, which bumps it by 25 RPMs per click. With Cruise Control and Jake Brakes engaged simultaneously, the speed is maintained exceptionally well, except when climbing or descending a very steep hill. With cruise control and the Villa captain’s chairs, I can drive for ten hours per day without getting tired. I can't even do that in my Lexus.

When the bus was converted, they also raised the driver’s area floor and moved the entry door to mid-ship. Moving the door eliminated the big hole in the floor under the passenger seat, so his wife would be more comfortable when riding. It also reduced the noise up front because the entrance doors on buses can create wind noise if they are not appropriately sealed.

By raising the floor, the entire living quarters are at the same level. Because both the driver’s seat and passenger seat swivel and recline, they become part of the living area when the bus is parked. It also eliminates the need to step up from the driver’s area and makes the floor easier to clean. The entire floor of this bus is made of wood, which helps keep it clean. I am not a fan of carpets in an RV because I generally step out onto grass, sand, or gravel, and they track in very easily.

A new front cap was installed to provide not only a larger windshield, but it was also raised, allowing for a better view of the road. I prefer sitting up higher, like a truck driver, so that I can see over the top of most cars ahead of me. This is also safer, as you have a longer braking reaction time if needed, because you can see brake lights and cars slowing down further ahead.

This also opened up the bay space under the floor where the steps were, so the front bays on both the driver’s side and the passenger’s side were large and accessible, and accessing the front-end components is now easier, as well as making it easier to access the wiring and steering controls, etc. The bay is also taller, so it is easier to crawl in this space if needed.

This bus also features an upgraded rear cap, which gives it a later model appearance. They also removed all of the siding and replaced it with all-new siding. This is one of the cleanest-sided Eagles out there. It looked just like new when he finished converting it, and it still looks new to most people. Many people have a hard time believing that this bus is over 50 years old, and I never get questioned about its age when entering RV parks. See the article Converted Buses Not Welcome

This bus features an Aqua-Hot heating system, considered the best heating system available. It heats water using diesel fuel when dry camping, or it will heat the water with 110V if plugged into shore power or running off the generator. For the fastest recovery, running on both is also an option. When running on diesel, you can enjoy endless hot showers with this system.

Also, while driving down the road, the water is heated by the engine by tying into the engine cooling lines, so when you arrive at camp, you have immediate hot water for a shower, and the engine coolant circulates in the heaters, so you have heat while driving down the road, all from the engine. If you are in a cold environment, the Aqua-Hot system can also be used to pre-heat the engine with the flip of a switch to turn on a coolant pump in the morning, thereby heating it with electric or diesel fuel.

The bus features three heating zones, each individually controlled. One is located in the front compartment, i.e., the driver's area and living room, one is in the kitchen/bathroom area, and one is in the bedroom. You can turn one or all of them on as necessary. Most of the time, I only run the zone in the kitchen/bathroom, as that heats the entire coach very nicely in the parts of the country where I generally travel.

This bus has very large holding tanks. The freshwater tank holds 150 gallons, the grey water tank holds 100 gallons, and the black water tank holds 100 gallons as well. I can generally last about three weeks on this bus if I use the water sparingly and refrain from using the washing machine.

The bus came with a Duxiana Bed. I had never heard of a Dux bed before I bought this bus, but I discovered that most beds come with 400 coil springs in it. The Dux bed has 4,000 coil springs and they are all one strand of wire making the bed one of the most comfortable ever.

These beds cost around $10,000 each, making them an unaffordable option for most self-converters. The bed had started to show wear after 20 years, and it was very dusty. Because of my allergies, I decided to replace it. I liked the mattress, but it was cumbersome, which was not a problem unless you had to access the top side of the engine, which I did quite frequently for the first couple of years to work out some kinks. I have always wanted a Sleep Number bed. Due to the weight and cost involved in moving the mattress when I needed to access the engine, I chose the Sleep Number air bed because it is very lightweight and easy to move.

I had to modify my bed frame to accommodate a soft-sided mattress, which required making the base larger. This was a relatively simple modification, involving screwing a larger sheet of plywood over the original hinged bed base. A Sleep Number bed is an air bed with a compressor that puffs up the bed to the “Sleep Number” you prefer to control the firmness of the mattress.

To remove the mattress to access the engine compartment, I remove the blankets, sheets, and mattress protector, unzip the mattress cover, disconnect the air hose from the compressor, and release the air. Then I can fold up the airbags and move them to my sofa along with everything else, and then I can remove the engine cover to access the engine.

This bus also has a very extensive dashboard designed by Custom Instrument Panels. It has over 40 switches of various types, which control and monitor all electrical systems in the coach.

From the driver’s seat, you can start and stop the generator while driving down the road without leaving the seat. You can turn all the lights in any room on and off. This is helpful if you are driving at night and forget to turn off a light switch in the bathroom or kitchen; you can turn it off from the driver’s seat without having to pull over and walk to the back of the bus. I also have a remote control for my front heat pump air conditioner, so I can turn the unit off and on and also control the temperature from the cockpit while driving.

The dash panel features several gauges, allowing you to monitor engine and transmission temperatures, as well as the generator's functions. You can always view your battery voltage and amperage drawat all times. I would love a Storm Scope, but that is not in my budget.

I also installed electric shades throughout the coach, allowing me to raise and lower them with the flick of a switch. When I get up in the morning, I can hit a few switches, and all shades open and close very easily at night. I can control all four front shades on both the driver's and passenger's sides of the cockpit using switches located in the cockpit. This allows me, when traveling solo, to raise and lower any shades, including the passenger’s shade from the driver’s seat, if the sun is rising or setting while driving and you are headed into the sun at any angle. For an article on my shades, click HERE.

I travel alone most of the time and wanted to be able to see all sides of the bus better. I installed a 360 Omniview camera system.

With this system, I can see all four sides of my bus within an inch of all sides, so I can safely back into any space without a spotter. It is also helpful to see my toad at all times, and when I turn left or right, the turn signals change the screen to the side I am turning, so I can see if any vehicles are along the side of my bus.

It also helps when people are passing, as I can see them coming up from the rear and on the sides in the 9” screen on the dash. I can also monitor the outside of my bus when parked to see if anyone is approaching. I don’t even need to look out the windows to see what is going on. There is a video recorder option to record all events outside of my bus, but I do not have that option.

The bus came with two pull-out sofas in the front. A five-foot-long sofa on one side and a six-foot-long sofa on the other. I removed the long sofa on the driver’s side as it was a bit tight moving around the center counter in my bus. I put the shorter sofa on that side instead. Then I gave the longer sofa away, as I wanted to put an office desk on the passenger side of my bus so I could work on the magazine while traveling.

I found a simple desk table at a yard sale and a 3-drawer file cabinet that I keep my necessary files in, and to set my compact printer/scanner/copier on. I can do everything I need for the Bus Conversion Magazine business in my “office” while looking out the window at a mountain or lake.

I removed the old-fashioned headlights and replaced them with all LED lights, so I could see better on the highways and will also consume much less power.

In 1996, when this bus was converted, it had about 50 Halogen lights on the inside. Once, I pulled a sock out of the shelf behind one of these lights, and it was on, but it was charred. Halogen lights get extremely hot, and they had burned my socks to a crisp. This was very scary. Shortly after that, I replaced all of the interior Halogen lights with LED lighting. LED lights produce basically no heat and operate at a fraction of the cost, allowing the house batteries to last longer when boondocking. The LED lights also provide more lumens and dissipate the light more effectively than halogens.

This bus has three 12V start batteries and eight 12V, 105Ah Lion Energy Lithium batteries for house batteries. The house batteries are on a slide-out tray. I can generally run everything I need all day and all night with this setup.

Lion Energy Lithium batteries have a 10-year warranty, can be drained significantly more than lead-acid batteries, and do not require a battery watering system. They also recharge much faster, so I will be able to fully charge them in much less time than the lead-acid batteries. Going to Lithium batteries was pretty much a no-brainer if you plan to keep your bus for a while.

When I bought the bus, two of the three roof A/C units were working, but one of the two was not cooling effectively. Both of the Fantastic fans were pretty rough-looking. I replaced both Fantastic fans immediately and replaced the three roof air conditioners at the rate of one per year as they became less and less effective. For more information about replacing the roof air conditioning on this bus, read the article titled Air Conditioning in a Bus.

I decided to upgrade the satellite to an RF Mogul after attending a rally with the Northwestern Bus Nuts in Salem, Oregon one year. I have had much better luck with and the service is exceptional.

I also upgraded the Dish receiver from the Wally to the Hopper, which allows me to record three shows at once, so I can fill up my disk much faster. LOL. It also features several additional capabilities not found in the Wally, including a 2TB hard drive that can record up to 500 hours of programming. You can also connect an external hard drive for even more recording capacity, which I also did in case I get stuck under trees for a long time at a campground.

I installed a 20-foot Carefree electric awning on the curbside of the bus. I have never had an automatic/electric awning on any of my RVs in the past, so this is a nice feature. In the past, I would only use my awning when I was going to be in one location for at least a week because it took some effort to set up. The electric awning is excellent, as I can put it in and out just by hitting one button on the control pad. Now I think nothing of putting it out for a one-day stay or even for a few hours if the sun is shining in my window by my desk while working.

This awning also retracts automatically if it gets too windy; a sensor is built into one of the arms. One time, when I had a previous RV with a manual awning, I was awakened at 3:00 in the morning by a violent wind while at the Oshkosh Air Show. I had to run out of my RV in my skivvies to put my awning back in lest it gets torn off. The automatic awning takes care of this for me. When the wind increases too much, it retracts the awning whether or not I am home.

The other advantage of an automatic awning that most people do not realize is that you can put it out to the distance you want. Much of the time, I only put mine out a few feet so it shades the side of the bus but does not block my view of the sky in the distance from my “office”. With some awnings, the awning must be fully extended or fully retracted to function properly.

I also installed a Splendide washer/dryer unit. Read the story about this in this article. (Laundry in a Bus)

I do not like Laundromats, and I sit in my bus several hours per day working on the magazine anyway, so it is much more convenient to do laundry while I am working. I usually put in a load after breakfast, take it out, and put it away before lunch.

Many people do not like to take up valuable space for a laundry machine(s), but many people like myself will give up the extra space for the convenience of not having to find a Laundromat. I also appreciate the convenience of being able to toss anything in the laundry machine at any time, even when traveling with my generator running. My washer/dryer combo will run off the inverter, but not long enough to complete a full dry cycle.

The bus has dual-pane Peninsula windows with a light tint. These windows keep the bus very quiet inside, much better than any single-pane windows. I had all of those windows tinted even darker for privacy. Additionally, since I live in my bus full-time in Southern California, I used a significant amount of electricity to keep the bus cool while I was home all day. The tint I had put on the windows has significantly reduced the amount of heat transferred into the bus, so the savings in electricity paid for the tint in about a year. It is also easier on the eyes on a bright sunny day.

Many people are always looking to upgrade to a new bus or a different one, but I have not found any other bus with this much bay storage capacity. I also like riding on this bus, as it is very smooth. When I travel, many things are left on the counters and tend to stay in place very well. With previous buses and RVs, I always had to put everything away before traveling, or they would end up on the floor.

This bus suited my needs for seven years, and now I am ready to move up to a 45-foot bus. I will miss the ride of the Eagle and the enormous storage space, but after owning two MCI buses and an Eagle, it is now time to try out a Prevost.