Dark Clouds

It has been a while since I returned from Italy. The bus was also neatly delivered to the garage in Heerenveen and everyone has finished the holidays, so … back to work.

The garage a little earlier than me and so I was called last week just before the weekend, while I was still collecting my bags from the baggage belt at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport: “Could you maybe come by Monday to take a walk around the bus? So that we can discuss what, how and whether we are going to do everything?” That’s possible, of course, but in the meantime the courage sank deep into my body: “I will not have bought 16 tonnes of scrap metal? Would they have discovered many more defects?”

So last Monday I went to the garage, but was I very enthusiastic about it … well, not really. Once arrived I was taken straight to the bus and guess what: the exhaust was not properly connected right in front of the muffler, so that all hot air was blown towards the wiring, which melted, shorted and eventually caught fire. Fortunately, I was quick to put it out in Italy, which still makes it a time-consuming job to repair, but at least it can be repaired. If I had driven any longer, it could have turned out very different.

Well, and that was it. Furthermore, they found no crazy things at all, so I really have a bus and not a big pile of scrap metal !!! Despite the fact that it costs a lot of extra money, I cannot say otherwise that I am incredibly relieved that in (hopefully) a few weeks we will FINALLY be able to start converting it into simply the coolest bandbus in the Netherlands and far beyond.