I still haven’t found the one and I’m a little bit mopey about it. For the last 12 days, I was sure I had found the perfect school bus to convert into the camper for next year’s Small Town Tennessee tour. It was the cutest six-window 1996 Bluebird International 3800. The auction ended last night around 5pm and r*******4 outbid me by a cool thousand dollars and I have been in a disappointed funk ever since.

In all fairness ruthless4 (I don’t know their actual user name but this seems about right) got an amazing deal on almost a brand-new engine in the bus. The bus as a whole had some 480,000 miles on it but had a new caterpillar engine that only had about 20,000 miles on it. Now, I personally do not care how many miles are on the engine and that’s probably actually way too new for me so I guess we are happy for radbus24 (yes, I will be making up names for the entirety of this post) while still being disappointed for me.

I knew when I started looking for a school bus to convert this was going to take some time because I can be a bit persnickety. I like what I like and settling was something I was raised not to do. That is a tad troublesome when searching for a used school bus on a budget, but I have no intention of settling for an ugly ole old person bus that seems to be selling everywhere I look for $500.

I started my skoolie journey at a few different junkyards across Tennessee. I’m sure my new friend Willie is still looking for the perfect bus for me (if he isn’t too mad I took the last of his butterscotch dum-dums) but a couple months into the search I’ve delved into online government surplus auctions.

I do not like auctions. So far, however, I have found two buses that fit my particular needs. I have also been massively outbid on two buses since finding these auction sites. The longer the auction, the more stressed out I have been. I hope to never have to see a 12-day auction again. 

I’m running out of time to find my perfect new skoolie to spend my adventure across Tennessee in, and tomorrow I will start searching again. Tonight, however, we are pouting. 

PS if you’re reading this ratfaced4, you better love ‘er right.