Hey guys, we're here in Homer, Alaska and this is John's expedition vehicle.
We're going to go take a tour.
Hello. Look at that. You got Dutch doors.
Can we come in? Yeah, sure. All right. Okay, great.
This thing is so cool. Don't fall. No. Is this a house truck? What'd you call it?
Yeah, I guess so. House on wheels.
What's the, I'm the original truck that you built on. Mitsubishi Fuso.
We were going down to South America and
we've seen these things, four wheel drive.
So we've come back to the States and got on your internet and phoned in Seattle
and uh, drove up and got it and built that thing in four weeks.
Four weeks is all took to build this. Yeah.
You've built a few things before. How many of you built.
We've been living this way for 35 years. We had two kids and they grew up in,
you know, and in six months,
a year rejecting with a backpack around the world and homeschool. Yeah.
So it's been pretty good. Good life. The table comes out, you know,
it's a lot around for a 14 foot box, you know, inside.
But the table goes off.
Yeah. So no one in here.
Well we had a porta potty and we had it in here
for a year and we never used it cause I didn't want to dump it.
We use the shovel.
So we finally decided,
I cut off the a holding tank and made a tank underneath and there's your toilet.
There you go. Yeah. So worked out pretty good.
But uh, and then a third person, sometimes our daughter, the youngest one,
she comes with us and you can put your feet in there. Maybe you can sleep here.
So third person can sleep in here. But that's all, you know,
we only got room for three on the cab. Right. And we've had four people.
One person sleeps in the front. Uh, we use this for photos, that television.
Yeah. Cause you take photos wherever you go. Yeah. We take a lot of photos,
you know, and uh, you know, little cabinets, that's all
Maps go here. And we could keep the screens, when
we're not using them, uh, here, uh,
more storage here and you slip the mattress forward and that's where you
quite a bit of storage tools and stuff down there, you know,
toolboxes and stuff like that. And they got, you know,
if you got it all organized,
yeah. You know, when you're on the road you got to use every space you can.
And then, you know, we, sometimes we go for a month between stores.
So we got to carry quite a bit of food and we carry enough water.
We can life's pretty good. You know, we grew up this way and uh,
we can make an almost a month and we can catch,
there's gutters on both sides and we can catch rain water.
We've got to filter shoving and holes. But we could even pump river water.
And cause we have a pump that we hook,
it's from our batteries to an extension cord and then make,
put it by the river and we can hook our, you know, our garden hose for the, uh,
you know, what we use for filling it and we can wash your truck in that with it.
And we could also pump water in this tank if we had to, you know,
filter it so you don't get dirt in there because right in here,
this is where we show our 30 gallon and that's where our drinking water,
so we got, you know, we have to, this one's drinking, we couldn't find a faucet,
so we made one.
And then the other one is for dishes or whatever and got a full a oven and stove
top and, yep. Yep. Big freezer.
It's pretty empty.
refrigerator and that's, you know,
gas and 110, you know,
I've tried to another motor, they don't work. Yeah, no.
And today I put in the toaster holder.
I just, I just added that today. You know, you put it on here.
When did you build this one? I think about five years ago. Five years.
And how many miles did you put on it? Where have you been with?
We've done 135 done so far.
We just came back from South America. But at first when we first built it,
we built in Arizona, drove it here.
Then the next two years we went to Baja and Minnesota and you know,
Then we left in 2011 for South America and I just got back in May.
Yup. Well, it has, you know,
I mean it sorta, I guess so. You know, we didn't have a home base for years and,
but we've been here 20 years, so I guess it's home base, but we're, you know,
When we had the boat,
we'd go out for about four months and then a couple months here and then we'd
take off in the time with backpacks
and all around the world.
But you have another one of your creations here for your home base?
Yeah. Yeah. The other motor homes here, the big house. Big house.
Okay. So you keep this with just a propane stove.
Yeah, it's propane. You know, we had one exactly the same,
but it had a diesel but on our boat,
but you can't and you got to go on the motor home if you're going to
go, unless you stay where it's warm,
And how do you power, um, everything in here with the electricity?
Well this one, you know, we're moving quite a bit, so, you know,
just from the generator, you know, on the alternator,
but we have solar panels on the roof and uh, and I, you know,
they'd probably would last, uh,
last we had a small one half the size of this on our trooper and we were in
Baja. It's pretty sunny and we download it. We worked, uh,
for a whole week without moving and you know,
a little bit in the pump and start to refrigerate or doesn't take much. And uh,
we had, let's see, we had a video camera going, take it and our,
our camera, we were digitalizing all our, uh, tapes, you know,
and we had two computers going and we worked about six hours a day,
so it kept up. So, you know, that was a half the panel of this,
but we're going to add one more panel. You know,
we're planning on going to Russia and Mongolia and all that,
so we're going to put another panel on. So we have plenty of power then,
but you don't need much power if you're careful. Yep. You know,
you're going to get by pretty reasonable my view, you know,
if you do a watch yourself. Yeah.
Do you guys just do sponge baths in here for shower?
Uh, we got a shower on the outside and uh, but we, you know,
a lot of times we just go into river. Yup.
We do our laundry in the river, you know, in South Americ, you know,
here we might go to laundromat or on a truck stop
for a shower. But uh, down there there was none of that stuff.
So this quarter inch thick,
everything's glued together. It's a quarter inch and a half walls,
inch and a half. You know, the best you can get with it,
Yeah.
So then, you know, and it's all sandwich, you know,
so when you're moving like we're, we're doing and we're four wheel driving,
you got to glue stuff together and it'll stay together.
Then you have screws and glue, right? Yeah. It's, uh, and these,
these are only two foot on two foot on center. Uh,
and these are Redwood. They're lighter, you know,
and there's nothing in between, you know, insulation.
Yeah. With the skylight, you don't even really need the lights on it.
Now there's two skylights
I can see the stars and now I've got the plan for the next one. But uh,
I don't know if I'll get around to so, but uh,
I was gonna put a bigger skylight so it'd be right above my head. You know.
This is a Coleman stove, one burner stove.
These are for the wind. Cause you know, a lot of times really windy
I put them on the side and whatever the hose is right here so he can put the
whole thing together and about no minute. Cause if I tell you about it,
if it's hard to get to, you don't use it. I found that out.
We had some lawn chairs in here.
We bought some really nice lawn chairs and they were underneath
She had to move a bunch of stuff.
So we hardly use that because if we're going to stay somewhere for
a couple of days, we'll take them off. But otherwise, you know, forget it.
And then like the propane, when you hook it up,
it's gotta be vertical when it's full. So it's unhinged, you know. Oh cool.
Then I got to put a stick in here, you know, I go find one somewhere. But um,
so I flipped, I made a box for the lawn chairs. I had some old ones.
And they go in there. Now, I'll be able to get them. This is for,
let me go through that tree.
Sometimes we get to put them up and we carry a saws
So we have to trim trees sometimes where we go to get through, you know,
and I'll hold up the tree and she'll go through it. Gotta be resourceful.
Yeah, it's, and this is, uh,
the laundry washing machine. Yup. Two buckets.
And you just go down the river and get some water and fill up and I carry
extra two diesel and this one's empty always.
And that's for carrying water. If we have to bucket it in, you know,
some place that you got to do that you can't get to a hose.
And with the two in the tanks, we can go 600 miles. And then, you know,
this is where we keep the hose for the sewer dump, you know,
and then for the kitchen sink we just use this,
just dumps it into here and then we go over water, the tree or whatever,
you know, or you know, if we're in a national park, cause I'm going to,
there's a sink, and drop your stuffing.
I've got this toolbox game with the truck, so it's kinda low,
but we haven't tore it off yet. So, you know, we're kinda careful sometimes.
Now this is a shower and I just added this recently.
I seen one of these and I took it back down to South America and I
had it in the box and I, when I got back now I plumbed in the gas.
But now, it's pumped in. We just have to pump the hose through here.
You could have it on,
There's a pocket in here, the shower heads right there,
it's all there
So it's just take a minute to get a shower and then we have a little in
here for you to stand on, you know, so you don't get,
and then you can stick in
here comes around and it goes in here.
then you can have the curtain for privacy,
which we don't have to use very often because there's nobody there.
And then I added this down in South America with some old scrap wood.
That's where I put my soap bar. Everything has a purpose.
Now this one here was a burnt holiday rambler and we picked it up in 98 I guess,
and a whole front end burned up,
tore it off of the floor and rebuilt it from there.
And this one here is only one by twos, you know, inch and a half wall again,
this is all quarter inch. If you're going to build on wood, you got to build,
like if you're going to turn them on the road, you know.
How long did it take you to build? This one took four months, four months.
There was a lot of extra work because we got a lot of stuff that was
burnt and stuff we had to sand it down. Trust me four months
sounds like a very short amount of time for us. That's a long time.
I used to build the house in the factory. We could build the house a day. Yeah.
And you know, you had a crew and you can go fast.
Do you mostly build these on your own? Yeah,
Now I'm pretty cheap. I don't pay for labor and so I gotta do it myself.
I had thought I had them all and she thought they were all done.
And then I needed a couple more boxes cause we sanded
they were a little bit rough and we sand them all. And then we,
we gave everything a, I don't know, two or three coats, you know, this is,
you know, starting to get old now I picked these up. Oh God.
Probably we had a Volkswagen or we had a CJ7 Jeep,
you know,
and we made a couple of trips down through Mexico and Guatemala way back in 81
and 83 yeah. Cause 82 we were in South America.
I might even bought them before. maybe 75 in Bolivia or something.
I had them in my brother's attic. Threw him on here. Yeah.
So I don't know where we got them in Bolivia or Guatemala.
And then they were probably 10 bucks a piece that's something from a Tibet
You don't worry about that. Stuck it down there.
Now you have a lot of like talismen on here, you know,
things you've picked out.
You know when we go they just hook and put them over here.
On your right. Yup. So yeah.
And then in the front, well you can see the picture.
I don't know if you can get it with your camera, how it was burned and all.
We tore it down, but that's what it looked like.
The top picture, we drove over 700 miles, got these carved in Disney and I paid
250 bucks for these. I don't know if it was a piece or both. I don't remember.
Beautiful redwoods. Yeah. Okay.
John well thank you so much for taking us through your expedition vehicle and
that side of your bus. Keep moving as long as I can, you know.
Exactly.