Quiet

We have come out of winter hibernation!  What happened this winter?  Well.  At first winter didn't come... and then it finally did... well sort of...

Our first snow fall

View of the new snow from the bus window

When it finally snowed, we were so excited to try the skis we bought WAY back in October...

Skiing around in our backyard :)!

tBOY putting the bike in the shed (yes, with his ski boots on) -
because we thought we were going to ski the rest of winter!!!

Happy dog in the snow!

But nope.  It was just a teaser.  The snow melted :(!
And our attempts at skiing were mostly wet, icy, foggy misadventures...
So... our bikes came back out of the shed... for a while...

As for the bus...
The frozen pipes defrosted.  It only happened on 2 occasions (that we blogged about).  We had a record cold winter (and record low precipitation).  Apparently water pipes of houses in the area froze as well, so we were not alone.  It was the wind more than the cold temperatures.  So a project this spring/summer is to create some sort of a skirt for the bus.

Condensation continued (continues) to be a problem.  Because of the temperature differential inside/outside the bus (and all that darn breathing we keep doing), there is a lot of moisture on the windows and especially on the metal.  We were hoping that curtains would help... but actually, that turned out to make the problem worse.  So we only have curtains (that are actually just old batik sarongs that I got in Thailand over 10 years ago) in our 'bedroom' area...

So what do we do?
To prevent condensation from falling behind the wood on the walls, tBOY put silicon on the edge of the windows...

That works to keep the water from going down, but it means that we have to occasionally mop up the water that accumulates with a cloth.  But we prefer condensation to having fewer windows.

tBOY also came up with this brilliant idea to insulate the back windows (that we always keep covered) by creating our own version of double-pane/triple-pane windows with....

Really.  No one can see this part of the bus!

 Yep...  Bubble wrap!  I know.  Not the classiest look.  But it works amazingly well.  So well that I suggested that we cover more windows like that, but tBOY vetoed that right away (and I thought I was the one in charge of bus aesthetics!)  Those windows: no condensation AT ALL.  Zip  Nil.  Nada.

As for around the bus, tBOY built a teeny tiny firepit...

And then it snowed again and covered it for a long time.  But yesterday, we finally had our first fire.  tBOY was proud :)!

Remember our worries about the skylights?  About trees/branches falling onto them and breaking them?  Well, the crashpads we used were only a temporary fix since it blocked out all the light (and defeated the whole point of skylights).  Again, genius tBOY came up with an inexpensive solution (very important as there are always fancy expensive things you can buy).
A metal mesh that creates a dome around the glass...

From the inside, you hardly notice it and light shines through.

Oh.  Also.  I created a teeny tiny 'craft' area inside the bus (to deal with Winter blues!) that I didn't end up using as much as I wanted to...

I know that I usually have these 'clean and tidy' shots of the bus here, so I thought I would put one of the bus' usual 'lived-in' look...

So there you have it.  Winter is over!  And Spring is here :)!  We have been loving living on the bus, but have also been dreaming of warmer... sunnier places... some that a bus can drive to, and others that require a boat ride for the bus...  More on that another time.  For now, I'll leave you with some images of the fun we had this cold season...

Downhill skiing!

XC skiing

Hiking in the snow

Bye Bye Winter!

Bye Bye Everyone!