Sir Hendrix's retired?

In my very first blog post called 'Sir Hendrix', I introduced you to our 75 GMC Blue Bird. Here is a picture of our boy, in case you've forgotten this handsome dude ;-)

We had him pulled to the local mechanics beginning of last winter, where he spent the most part of the year having himself a nice little vacay. We asked them to have a look at him whenever they had some down time to help us figure out how much it would cost us to get him back on the road, which would in turn help us make up our minds as to whether or not it'd even be worth it. Well, we finally received the news and the fact of the matter is that it would cost us about $5,000 to get Sir Hendrix up and running again. And that doesn't include any work on the interior to turn him into livable space, nor does it include giving his exterior a little loving. We'd kind of anticipated it so we weren't too heartbroken about it, because one fact remains. Sir Hendrix was free, so we haven't really lost any of our hard earned money. We asked the guys from the garage to deliver him to our property, where Adrian had worked on getting a spot prepared where we could park him permanently. 

The day Sir Hendrix was delivered to us was pretty special, because Noah has been looking forward to his arrival for such a long time, his eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning when he finally came into view. He was waiting on the front porch just jumping up and down with a big smile on his face. We couldn't get him to leave the bus for days afterwards. 

So even though we won't get to travel with him, we're still happy he's with us, and I'm sure we're going to collect a different kind of memories. I think Sir Hendrix is secretly thrilled about his retirement. We did manage to fire him up to move him within the perimeters of our property to his new permanent spot and he was moaning and groaning and smoking a LOT by the time we finally turned him off. Poor guy isn't in his prime anymore and just wants to kick back and relax, maybe smoke a Cuban or two; However, we have decided on turning him into a bunky, so he'll have some company once in a while and won't be too lonely. 

As we are living in a house that is tiny and doesn't offer much space for guests, that just seems to be the perfect solution. So once we've done all the work we want to do on our little cottage, we are planning on working on Sir Hendrix and give him the makeover he deserves, since he is looking a little bit rough right now. Hopefully some day in the near future, he's going to be a space guests will love to spend time in. I'd love it if people would come to visit and enjoy staying here - in their own space - where they won't be woken up by our rambunctious little rascals at 6 am. For now he'll just serve as storage for all the stuff we've accumulated and stored in our sun room, which will give Adrian a much needed space to work in throughout the winter. We'll keep you updated on any changes regarding Sir Hendrix and his transformation into a guest house.

We are definitely not giving up on our long term travel dream. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and find a more suitable and more affordable way to do it. Stay tuned!