People often ask me how it is to drive the Busse Bus. I tell them to imagine putting a steering column in the foyer of their house and then driving it down the street. It’s huge!
Unhooking the coach from electric, water and sewer for the first time is daunting. I checked and double checked to make sure that I didn’t drive away with any connections still in place. Our salesperson, Robbie Lyons, was nice enough to drive the coach into the RV Park and connect everything up. It looked so easy.
Note to self: in order to make the water work you need to pull the pump handle all the way up.
I have to say that pulling away from the first RV site is a bit scary. I must have left at about 1 mph barely making it to the expressway in half an hour (it was 1/2 mile away).
Driving on the expressway is really not too hard – you only have about one foot on each side so you have to constantly mind staying in the middle of the road. So I was off and running, Full tank of gas and the navigation system set to go straight to our house, I only had to keep the Busse Bus on the road for the next 600 miles until I needed gas, sleep, food, and facilities. I pulled out about noon ready to go.
Driving through the mountains in an 18 ton vehicle presents issues that you don’t really think about in a car. I soon learned to watch and follow truckers who are practiced. Stay in the right lane going up hills as you don’t have the power to keep up your speed. Complete opposite going down – 18 tons pick up speed fast.
Note to self: use the engine gears to maintain power up and slow speed down.
Pulling into a truck stop and getting diesel for the first time is a daunting task that I put off until about 11pm. Maneuvering the rig around 18 wheelers and then pulling up to the pump took some doing. Need to remember that the door is on the passenger’s side and you need enough room to open the door between the coach and the next pump. Now I’ve been driving for 40+ years and felt a little naive when I had to go into the station to ask how to fill up my rig. Gave the attendant my credit card and told her that I needed to put $300.00 in. You see that the Busse Bus has a 150 gallon tank. That hurts.
Sleep was my next concern so I started looking for a slot to pull the coach into. Truck stops have designated areas for the truckers to catch some winks. At this hour I was unable to find a spot that I felt comfortable pulling into, even after trying three different truck stops. Decided to continue towards home and find a rest area along the way. Two hours later I found a truckers only rest area and pull in for a few hours. Crawling into a big bed without having to check into a hotel is very nice especially at 2am.
Learning the navigation system should have been easy – it wasn’t and I still don’t know it very well. It’s a very smart system where you input your coach’s weight, height, width and length and it keeps you on roads that you can navigate. The problem was that it was set too big, to avoid toll roads, and to avoid construction. It routed me off toll roads into little towns and smaller roads. I probably added four hours to my entire trip.
Note to self: learn the damn navigation system!
My last obstacle to overcome was to pull the unit into my driveway. I always thought that my driveway was huge – especially when shoveling inches of snow from it. Well, it’s not as big as I thought when trying the park the new house on wheels.
So 900+ miles home by myself and I made it without damaging the coach or bruising my ego. I’d call that a success!
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